A new article on the Nurse Author & Editor website :
Reporting Nursing Research, An Essay on Style: Beginnings
I highly recommend the Nurse Author & Editor website if you are writing anything from an abstract for a conference to a book from your thesis or dissertation. Keep disseminating your good work!
This applies to you current and future authors. (Don’t think you won’t be one someday!)
Try to find an author name you can stick with. You want people to easily find all your work. What to consider? What does the future hold? Here’s some help from new online article in Nurse Author & Editor:
I’m a stickler for the plural. (Peer reviewers are, too.) What’s your take?
Buckle up, folks. People have strong feelings about whether to treat “data” as a singular or plural noun. And we are going to talk all about it today.
Technically, “datum” is the singular version, and “data” is the plural version.
This means—technically—“data” takes a plural version of a verb.
Examples:
The data are correct.
The data show these numbers.
The data illustrate the findings.
But . . . these days, most people treat “data” as if it were singular. So they use a singular verb with it.
Examples:
The data is correct.
The data shows these numbers.
The data illustrates the findings.
This is where you have to make a decision. Are you going to be a stickler and fight for “data” as a plural, or are you going to buckle under peer pressure and treat it as singular?
You are entitled to your own thoughts about this. But guess…
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Musings: For me the most difficult to write sections of a research report are the Intro/Background and Discussion. And yet, those are apparently the easiest to read for many. My students at least tend to read only those sections and skip the rest.
Why? For the author, Intro/Background and Discussion require 
hard, critical thinking about what is already known about the topic (Intro/Background) and then what one’s findings mean in light of that (Discussion). For research consumers, the language used in these sections is more familiar, ordinary sounding words. On the other hand, writing the technical nature of other sections (Methods, Instruments, Results) is pretty straightforward with scientifically standardized vocabulary and structure. But, for readers, those same sections contain potentially unfamiliar research terminology that is not part of everyday conversation– i.e., scientific vocabulary. Quantitative studies often create more reader difficulty.
My solution for myself as a writer? To spend time making sure that the first sentence of every paragraph in Intro/Background and Discussion makes a step-by-step argument supported by the rest of the paragraph. Follow standardized structure for the rest. Keep language precise yet simple as possible.
Solution for research readers? Read the whole article understanding what you can and keep a research glossary handy (e.g., https://sites.google.com/site/nursingresearchaid/week-1. Even if practice doesn’t make you perfect, it works in learning a new language–whether it is a ‘foreign’ language or a scientific one.
Critical Thinking: Test out your reading skills with this article https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6503597/ . Do the authors make systematic arguments in Intro/Background & Discussion? What makes this article hard or easy to read?
Happy Summer! -Dr.H
Cool. You completed your project and now want to publish it.
Beware! Predatory journals are ready to snap up your work! It helps them, but not you.
What is a predatory journal? One that can eat you and your paper alive.
Predatory journals don’t meet quality peer-review standards.Many predators are Open Access Journals. What are Open Access Journals? Ones “that use a funding model that does not charge readers or their institutions for access” (https://doaj.org/faq#definition).
Open Access Journals may be legitimate OR predatory.
How can you identify predatory journals? While perhaps not Mighty Mouse—yep, I’m showing my age—help from the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) is on the way. DOAJ provides a searchable list of LEGITIMATE open access journals (click here). A quick search for “nursing” yielded 7.
How does DOAJ define quality of journals? Quality open access journals “must exercise peer-review with an editor and an editorial board or editorial review (particularly in the Humanities) carried out by at least two editors” (https://doaj.org/faq#definition).
Is there a list of predatory open access journals? YES. To see one that is updated, click here. Also, you can help! If you find an open access journal that claims to have the DOAJ quality seal, but isn’t on the DOAJ legitimate journal list, DOAJ wants to hear from you!
For more on DOAJ, see https://doaj.org/: “DOAJ is a community-curated online directory that indexes and provides access to high quality, open access, peer-reviewed journals. DOAJ is independent.”
Stay safe. As Randy Newman sings, “It’s a jungle out there.”
-Dr.H
Caveat Emptor! (“let the buyer beware”) I got a string of emails that I suspect are phishing to get me to send $$$. Does the emailer assume that I am in some sort of “publish or perish” greed mode?
The likely phisher got in touch with me via ResearchGate. I love ResearchGate. Seriously. It’s a great place to notify interested scholars of peer-reviewed work OR to post your work as ‘grey literature’ (i.e., “usually unpublished [work, including]… research reports, …evaluations, theses, dissertations, webcasts, poster sessions, presentations, conference proceedings, PowerPoint Presentations, etc..” per CSU/LB)
I christened the emails a “scholar scam.” (Please disabuse me of this notion if you know better.) First,I got an email asking if one of my ResearchGate-posted papers had been published. When I 
answered ‘no,’ I got a string of gmails (not “.edu”) attempting to get me to add as author someone who is not an author, then with other requests. Supposedly the advantage for me is to get help publishing. Frankly, I don’t need the help. (If you do, please pick your own reputable scholar friends to assist.)
I suspect that the phisher wants to convince me to PAY with promises of publication. The paying part would be real and the publication part likely imaginary. (BTW: Anyone can pay to publish anytime without anyone else’s help.) I was not yet asked for $$$, but if the emails continue, I expect that to come.
ummm….no thank you….Caveat Emptor!
What do you think? Anyone else receive similar emails?-Dr.H
p.s. the article in question that is fulltext at ResearchGate – Highfield, MEF, Osterhues, DJ, & Chu, L. (2008) Religious & spiritual content in physical therapy curricula: A survey of U.S. program directors. Published on ResearchGate.
Communication is critical to effective dissemination of findings. Enjoy this bit of communication know how!
(I have no conflict of interest related to this blogger or the writing service promoted at its end.)
I don’t care about your stupid mask, lady. Put the candy in the bag.
How do you spell the name of those adorable (menacing) little children (vagrants) who knock on your door asking for (demanding) candy on Halloween night? Is it “trick-or-treaters” or “trick or treaters”? Hyphens or no hyphens?
The answer is: hyphens. The correct way to spell it is “trick-or-treater.”
But what about “trick or treat,” you say? Hyphens or no hyphens there? This one is a bit more complicated.
Let’s look at the two ways you can use “trick or treat,” as a verb and as a noun.
Verb: Sally dressed up as an amoeba to trick-or-treat.
Noun: As Sally dragged her candy sack home, she thought the trick or treat was successful.
When I wrote “trick-or-treat” as a verb, I used hyphens. Hyphens are always the answer when you use it as a verb. But…
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So…after you do research or finish out your evidence-based practice project, you have to disseminate your findings, right? That means good writing skills are necessary.
I stumbled into the GRAMMAR PARTY blog today when I wondered whether or not to italicize coup d’état. Do you know? I didn’t. Check out this helpful resource.
Want to know the standardized format for writing up your research study, QI report, 
case study, systematic review, or clinical practice guideline? Check out these standardized reporting guidelines: http://www.equator-network.org/reporting-guidelines/
Of course you should always give priority to the author instructions for the particular journal in which you want to publish, but most adhere generally or fully to these standardized guides.
Write away!
Want to know how to write an introduction/background section of a paper? Pay attention to STRUCTURE & evidence-based ARGUMENT in order to DIY (do-it-yourself) your own intro/background for a school paper or research report!
Let’s use this 2015 free full-text article by Marie Flem Sørbø et al. as a model! Past and recent abuse is associated with early cessation of breast feeding: results from a large prospective cohort in Norway . (Hint: Clicking on the article’s pdf tab may make it easier to read.)
Focus only on the INTRO/BACKGROUND section for now. Check out the STRUCTURE then the EVIDENCE-BASED ARGUMENT of the Intro/Background. This is how you should write your own.
STRUCTURE of INTRO/BACKGROUND in Sørbø et al. (2015):
ARGUMENTS in INTRO/BACKGROUND in Sørbø et al. (2015):
All this leads naturally, logically to …(drum roll please!)…the research questions/hypotheses, which are the gaps in our knowledge that the research will fill. This sets up the rest of the research article!
For more info on Intro/Background: Review my blogpost Intro to Intro’s
*ok, yeh. I cheated and included one additional sentence to capture the authors’ flow of argument.
Discovering Your Inner Scientist 