Writing your thesis paper in nursing

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List of Nursing Resources on the Purdue OWL

These resources will help you write on the job and in the classes you will take to become a nurse.

“Writing as a Professional Nurse” provides three general, though important, rules working nurses should keep in mind while writing reports and charts and while communicating with doctors and patients.

“Writing in the Field” discusses three examples of writing tasks nurses perform: flowcharts, careplans, and narratives.

“List of Nursing Resources” provides links to Purdue OWL resources that both nurses and nursing students might find helpful while writing for work or school. Each link provides a brief description of the resource and how and why it will help nurses and students with their writing tasks.

Contributors: J. Case Tompkins, Eden Tompkins, Elizabeth Angeli
Last Edited: 2016-06-14 21:34:09

As a nursing student, you will write different types of texts, such as research papers and group presentations. All of this writing has common characteristics: to be concise, evidence-based, supported by credible and appropriate research, to be professional, and to follow APA style. This section offers resources that are designed to help nursing students with these and other writing concerns.

American Psychological Association (APA)

APA is used in scientific and social scientific disciplines, including nursing, and standardizes research and citation formats. These links provide information for APA style, with the first link offering an overview of APA style and the second providing specific APA rules and sample APA papers.

Writing your thesis paper in nursing that both nurses

APA Paper Sample

This sample shows you how to write and format a nursing research paper in APA.

The Rhetorical Situation

This PowerPoint presentation will help you understand the importance of the context in which you write. There are many factors that influence your writing: you, the writer; your purpose; your audience; your context; and the culture surrounding the context. For example, you will write differently for your professors than you will for your patients. Their varying education levels and different situations, or context, will cause you to use different language and present your topic differently.

Audience Analysis

This resource will help you with one important part of the rhetorical situation: analyzing your audience and tailoring your writing to fit your audience’s needs. There is also a handout available on this page with a chart to help you with your audience analysis.

Writing Scientific Abstracts

This PowerPoint presentation discusses the importance of writing abstracts and offers tools on how to write them. Abstracts allow you to present information in a clear, concise manner and are part of writing in APA style.

Conducting Primary Research

Primary research is an important component while writing as a nursing student. It allows you to support your argument, or thesis statement, with evidence; this, in turn, creates ethos, or credibility, for you as an author. This link offers many resources about primary research, including how to get started and how to conduct the various kinds of primary research.

Conducting an Interview

This PowerPoint presentation discusses the steps involved in conducting an interview as part of primary research. You may be asked to conduct an interview with clinical nurses, patients, or physicians as part of a writing assignment or research paper. Consult this PowerPoint before contacting your interviewee because it offers tips for how to contact him or her.

Database Research Tutorial from the Purdue Library

Engaging in secondary research, or research that is gathered from existing research performed and published by another author, is an essential part of writing as a nursing student. Using databases is one way to collect information, and this resource links to the Purdue Library’s tutorial on how to use databases.

Searching the World Wide Web

The Internet is a convenient and useful way to gather information; however, nursing professors expect their students to perform research that goes beyond a Google search. This PowerPoint presentation offers strategies for conducting Internet research, and it explains components of using the Internet you may not be familiar with, for example, the visible and invisible web. Use this PowerPoint presentation in conjunction with the database research tutorial for a good overview of how to conduct Internet research.

Evaluating Sources of Information

Not all sources of information are credible or reliable, and it is your job as a nursing student to be able to tell the difference. This resource offers different ways to decipher whether or not a source is credible.

Documenting Electronic Sources

When conducting secondary research, you might come across credible electronic sources that you would like to integrate into your writing. Documenting these sources properly is important because it builds your credibility as a writer, and it shows your readers, i.e. your nursing professors, that you have followed APA guidelines. This resource provides information and links to other resources that will help you properly document electronic sources.

Annotated Bibliographies

Annotated bibliographies, a summary and/or evaluation of sources, can help you organize your research. This resource explains the purpose of annotated bibliographies and provides examples. There are examples for APA, MLA, and CMS on this page; be sure to follow the APA format, as each citation style differs.

Thesis: Establishing an Argument

This page explains the importance of a thesis and how you can create an effective statement. Thesis statements are important to your writing because they control the paper’s overall purpose. These statements are especially important for you as a nursing student because writing in nursing should be logical, organized, concise, and clear; having a strong thesis will help you achieve this type of writing.

Grammar, Mechanics, and a Brief Discussion about Revision

The Grammar and Mechanics section on the OWL will help you learn how to use correct language. Using correct grammar will help your ethos, i.e. it will build your credibility, and it makes your writing appear more professional. One way to help improve your grammar is by reviewing the pages within the grammar and mechanics section and by completing the grammar and mechanics exercises.

Another way to help correct grammar mistakes is by revising your writing. You can fix most of your grammar errors by reading your paper aloud before you turn it into your professor. Reading your paper aloud also offers you a chance to hear your writing, and you may find that some of the ideas you thought were clear are not as clear or organized as you hoped they would be.

Designing an Effective PowerPoint Presentation

PowerPoint presentations are a useful tool to use when delivering individual or group presentations. This PowerPoint presentation defines the basic elements of a PowerPoint slideshow and discusses how you can use these elements in effective and professional ways.

Personal Statements

Personal statements are an important part of the application process for nursing school. This section of resources offers writing samples and information that will help guide you while writing the personal statement. While using these resources and writing your statement, keep in mind the specific application for which you writing, as different nursing schools ask for different types of personal statements, i.e. the applications may ask you to respond to different types of questions.

Résumés and Cover Letters

Résumés and cover letters are important documents traditionally created toward the end of your nursing education, though it never hurts to start creating them during the start of your education. Use these resources to help you create your résumé and cover letter. You also might find it useful to consult the rhetorical situation and audience analysis resources, as these resources will help you understand the context in which and for which you will create your résumé and cover letter.

Databases available through the Purdue Library website:
Academic Search Premier
Health Source: Nursing/Academic Edition
MEDLINE
CINAHL

Are you in the hunt for some great examples of nursing thesis statements to get a move on with your nursing thesis ? If you are; then, you will be pleased to know that you have entered the right place. It is not just a child’s play to write nursing thesis ; in fact, you have to cover loads of aspects if you are writing your thesis on the subject of nursing. In simple words, nursing thesis writing is harder than it looks.

Students pursuing postgraduate or doctorate degree in nursing are required to write a nursing thesis in order to get hands on their nursing degrees. Students face several difficulties and struggle a great deal in their task to write a nursing thesis. Selection of an appropriate type of a thesis statement, coming up with original nursing thesis ideas and finding out a good nursing thesis example are all common problems faced by students.

The most difficult and the most recurring problem faced by students in their task of writing a nursing thesis is creation of appropriate yet effective thesis statement/hypothesis for the thesis. Confusion occurs when students have to decide the type of thesis they will be using for their nursing thesis. In general, nursing thesis topics gave idea for the thesis statement type that should be used for a nursing thesis.

If you are going to discuss a particular issue related to nursing in parts; then, analytical thesis statement would be ideal. If you have chosen an all-inclusive topic for your nursing thesis writing assignment; then, expository thesis would be the right choice for you. If you are going to argue about a controversial issue about nursing through your thesis; then argumentative thesis would be an ideal choice for the thesis.

Here are two good examples with respect to two different types of nursing thesis statements in order to aid students a little in their master’s nursing thesis assignment:

Analytical Thesis Statement on Contribution of Nursing towards the Society:

“The health care profession of nursing contributes to society in numerous ways from the care of an individual, to the care of families and communities by attaining, maintaining, recovering optimal health and quality of life”

Expository Thesis Statement on Shortage of Nursing:

“Shortage of Nurses has reached epidemic levels today. A variety of solutions have been addressed- some have worked quite a bit while some haven’t worked at all. If careful measures are not taken, the problem may jeopardize the society”.

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