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Scholarly Writing in Nursing

This guide assists students and faculty in Nursing

Getting Started

This Research Starter will assist you in completing the assignments for your coursework. You will be learning the process of scholarly writing and how to develop your writing skills. Your goal is to practice the craft of academic writing and become effective writers by the end of the course.

The tools provided here will help you:

  • Define the process of scholarly writing for nursing
  • Learn and hone your library research skills
    • Locating materials for your research - including e-books and scholarly articles
    • Using databases for research
    • Finding appropriate scholarly journals for your research
  • Citing your sources using APA format
  • How to search the Internet to obtain scholarly research
  • Avoiding plagiarism

Information Search Process

Writing has two components: content and style. Content is what you say, and style is how you say it. Style includes not only writing mechanics but the formatting of your paper as well. Even if you have great ideas and a thorough understanding of the content that you have chosen to write about, a poorly written and prepared paper will cause you to lose credibiltiy with your reader. And remember that while your thoughts are important and appreciated, you need to justify them with references from scholarly literature.

Searching for information is an intellectual journey of discovery! Often it is frustrating and time consuming. You need to spend time thinking about your topic before jumping in and finding information. Your ideas about your topic might change as you learn more, read deeper, and have conversations with peers, professors, and librarians.