1.4: Relevance of Scholarly Writing to the Nursing Profession
Scholarly writing is a form of communication and a necessary skill that is important to the nurse’s role as a clinician, professional, a leader, a scholar, an educator, and an advocate. As a student, developing skills in scholarly writing will help prepare you for your nursing role.
Types of scholarly writing that you may be involved in as a nurse are:
- Social awareness and advocacy campaigns in which you share knowledge and bring awareness to an issue or a new policy.
- Educating and influencing people and communities. The power of writing provides a means for nurses to state their position and influence others. Nurses are involved in crafting policy ideas to influence stakeholders and government bodies on public health issues.
- Best practice guidelines, standards of practice, and policies and procedures to inform nursing practice.
- Research grants and manuscripts for publication.
- Reflective practice, which is a professional expectation for nurses to demonstrate their commitment to life-long learning and continuing competence by reflecting on their practice (College of Nurses of Ontario, 2018).
Nurses may engage in scholarly writing in ways that differ from other disciplines . For example:
- As noted above, nurses engage in many forms of scholarly writing, so you should be prepared to tailor the style of writing to your audience and your objectives.
- In nursing and other health-related fields, you must incorporate evidence to support your statements.
- It is important that you draw from scholarly sources, such as peer-reviewed journals, as opposed to magazines or books.
- You need to be clear and concise, with a logical flow in your writing from point A to B.
- Scholarly writing allows you develop your capacity as a communicator, a skill that transcends domains of professional and personal life.
References
College of Nurses of Ontario (2018, October). QA Program. Retrieved from https://www.cno.org/en/myqa/