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Develop the academic writing skills required throughout nursing school: scholarly writing conventions, APA 7th edition formatting, essay structure, literature synthesis, academic integrity, and writing evidence-based nursing papers.
Conventions, tone, and structure of nursing school writing
What Makes Writing Scholarly?
Scholarly writing in nursing is formal, evidence-based, objective, and precisely referenced. It differs from casual or journalistic writing in four key ways: (1) It uses third-person or first-person as specified (APA 7 now permits first person for personal perspectives), but always maintains professional tone. (2) Every claim is supported by a citation from a peer-reviewed source. (3) It follows strict formatting conventions (APA 7th edition in most nursing programs). (4) It avoids contractions, colloquialisms, and unsupported opinion statements. The most common nursing school writing assignments: concept analysis papers, care plan rationales, evidence-based practice (EBP) papers, reflective journals, and literature reviews.
✓ Scholarly Language
✗ Non-Scholarly Language to Avoid
Which sentence is written in appropriate scholarly style for a nursing paper?
The citation and formatting standard for nursing school
Common APA 7 Student Errors
A paper with three or more authors should be cited in-text as:
Integrating multiple sources into a coherent argument
Synthesis is the most advanced academic writing skill — it means weaving ideas from multiple sources together into an integrated argument, rather than summarizing each source one by one. A paper that summarizes Source 1, then Source 2, then Source 3 is NOT synthesized. A synthesized paper brings multiple sources together around a central claim: 'Smith (2021), Jones (2022), and Williams (2023) all demonstrate that hourly rounding reduces call light use — however, Jones notes that effect sizes vary significantly by shift.''
✗ Summarizing (Not Synthesis)
"Smith (2021) found that hourly rounding reduces falls. Jones (2022) studied nurse communication. Williams (2023) examined patient satisfaction scores."
Three separate summaries — no connection, no argument.
✓ Synthesized Argument
"Converging evidence supports hourly rounding as a multi-outcome intervention: Smith (2021) documented a 40% fall reduction, Jones (2022) linked it to improved nurse-patient communication, and Williams (2023) observed higher satisfaction scores — together suggesting that the mechanism may be sustained nurse presence rather than fall prevention alone."
CRAAP Test — Evaluating Source Quality
Plagiarism, paraphrasing, and ethical writing
components.interactiveLearning.terms
components.interactiveLearning.definitions
A student reads an article and rewrites a paragraph by substituting synonyms for most of the original words while keeping the same sentence structure. This is an example of:
