Abstract

Influencial authors lead the science and practice of nursing, yet curricula from baccalaureate through doctorate provide little instruction about the craft of writing. As a result, faculty and advisors shoulder the burden of teaching writing absent a standard derived of evidence. Students write and re-write papers without clear understanding of expectations; save conformity to APA format. Faculty correct and edit documents in which facts and argument are obscured by syntactical and grammatical error. Journals need to provide significant writing support late in the process of knowledge dissemination. The process is inefficient and does not achieve quality. Assuming the profession values nursing literature and prizes quality, these authors assert that graduate curricula should include writing as a key competency. PURPOSE: To describe the approach undertaken by faculty at the Johns Hopkins University SON to develop an evidence based method to teach professional and academic writing. METHODS: In collaboration with the School of Arts & Sciences, faculty are engaged in extensive performance improvement focused on writing nursing. Faculty are describing the attributes of quality writing within the discipline of nursing, designing a program to teach writing to faculty, developing assignments across the curriculum that build writing competency, and determining metrics to evaluate efforts. EVALUATION: A tool has been designed to evaluate the quality of the capstone projects; surveys will determine if the approach lessens faculty burden or increases student satisfaction; and number of publications will be tracked to quantify scholarly productivity. CONCLUSION: Leaders are required to write well in order to: contribute to the body of knowledge, make the case for innovation, and create sustainable change. The full impact of scholarly practice will only be achieved when expert clinicians become influenncial authors. Providing instruction in writing will contribute to achieving these ends.

Description

41st Biennial Convention - 29 October-2 November 2011. Theme: People and Knowledge: Connecting for Global Health. Held at the Gaylord Texan Resort & Convention Center.

Author Details

Mary Terhaar, RN; Julie Stanik-Hutt PhD, ACNP

Sigma Membership

Unknown

Type

Presentation

Format Type

Text-based Document

Study Design/Type

N/A

Research Approach

N/A

Keywords:

Andragogy, Writing, Scholarship

Conference Name

41st Biennial Convention

Conference Host

Sigma Theta Tau International

Conference Location

Grapevine, Texas, USA

Conference Year

2011

Rights Holder

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All permission requests should be directed accordingly and not to the Sigma Repository.

All submitting authors or publishers have affirmed that when using material in their work where they do not own copyright, they have obtained permission of the copyright holder prior to submission and the rights holder has been acknowledged as necessary.

Acquisition

Proxy-submission

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DNP scholarship: Developing the genre of knowledge translation and dissemination

Grapevine, Texas, USA

Influencial authors lead the science and practice of nursing, yet curricula from baccalaureate through doctorate provide little instruction about the craft of writing. As a result, faculty and advisors shoulder the burden of teaching writing absent a standard derived of evidence. Students write and re-write papers without clear understanding of expectations; save conformity to APA format. Faculty correct and edit documents in which facts and argument are obscured by syntactical and grammatical error. Journals need to provide significant writing support late in the process of knowledge dissemination. The process is inefficient and does not achieve quality. Assuming the profession values nursing literature and prizes quality, these authors assert that graduate curricula should include writing as a key competency. PURPOSE: To describe the approach undertaken by faculty at the Johns Hopkins University SON to develop an evidence based method to teach professional and academic writing. METHODS: In collaboration with the School of Arts & Sciences, faculty are engaged in extensive performance improvement focused on writing nursing. Faculty are describing the attributes of quality writing within the discipline of nursing, designing a program to teach writing to faculty, developing assignments across the curriculum that build writing competency, and determining metrics to evaluate efforts. EVALUATION: A tool has been designed to evaluate the quality of the capstone projects; surveys will determine if the approach lessens faculty burden or increases student satisfaction; and number of publications will be tracked to quantify scholarly productivity. CONCLUSION: Leaders are required to write well in order to: contribute to the body of knowledge, make the case for innovation, and create sustainable change. The full impact of scholarly practice will only be achieved when expert clinicians become influenncial authors. Providing instruction in writing will contribute to achieving these ends.