Full Title of Your Paper Goes Here in Upper and Lower Case
Your Name
Your University
Your Course
Your Instructor
Date
Introduction
The introduction to the paper will identify a current issue, problem or challenge to the professional nursing role that is related to a Quality and Safety Education for Nurses (QSEN) competency (i.e. quality, safety, teamwork and collaboration, patient centered care, informatics or evidence-based practice) and is of particular interest to you (Institute of Medicine, 2003). Explain why the selected current issue, problem, or challenge with its associated QSEN competency is important to professional nursing. Review the student learning outcomes (SLO) in this course syllabus (Porter, 2022) and describe how they relate to your issue, problem, or challenge. Cite all references in text as the examples in this paragraph show. Also, be sure each citation has a corresponding reference in the References list at the end of the paper. Use direct quotes only rarely. Call if you don’t understand this.
Practice Illustration
You will present a case study or an example from your work or life that illustrates the issue you are writing about. For example, if the issue in nursing is end of life care, you might write about a time you cared for a dying patient and family and there was conflict around advance directives. Search the literature written about the problem or issue. For this example, you would search on ‘end of life care’ or ‘advance directives’ or ‘living wills’ or ‘ethics palliative care’, et cetera. Select at least three of the most pertinent references (professional journals, professionally valid web sites, books). This does not include your Masters text, the course syllabus or the UALR Philosophy and Curriculum Model, though you should use those, too.
Follow the practice illustration with an explanation of how the illustration exemplifies the issue you are writing about. Explain why it is important in health care and nursing. Discuss how one or more of the QSEN competencies relate to or are reflected in your practice illustration. Remember to cite your references. Summarize this section in a final paragraph of three or more sentences.
Solutions
Discuss potential solutions to the issue/problem. You may discuss one idea in depth, or you may list and describe more. It is important to tell what the solution is, and why it is a good or bad idea. For example, regarding end of life care, you may recommend teaching the family and caregivers on advance directives, or a review of policies and procedures regarding end of life care in your facility. Use references that support what you write.
Summary/Conclusions
In this concluding paragraph(s) you will summarize your paper and tell what you concluded from what you learned and discussed. Start by briefly restating the issue and its significance. A good way to do that is to tell how your practice illustration shows how important the issue is. Write a sentence about the QSEN competency or competencies that you related your issue to. For example, to me, patient centered care is the prime QSEN competency. I relate everything I do to patient centered care, and therefore would focus on that in my summary. In my example end of life care decisions must be based on the patient’s choices.
End with a statement about what exploring this subject has meant to you. You may repeat why it is significant and/or what you think we will see in the future. However, you conclude, use this template, follow all its instructions, refer to the grading rubric (see ‘My Grades’) and call for help if you need it. Do these things and you will have a paper you can be proud of!
References
American Psychological Association. (2020). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed.). Author.
Porter, K. (2021). Syllabus: N3310 professional roles. Unpublished manuscript, School of Nursing, University of Arkansas at Little Rock.
Institute of Medicine. (2003). Competencies. Retrieved from the Quality and Safety Education for Nurses website: http://qsen.org
[To correctly indent your references, click on Paragraph in the tool bar at the top of your screen, select Special, and choose Hanging]
Final hints:
- Check the References section to make sure your references are in APA format.
- Be sure you have a citation for every reference and a reference for every citation. Call me if you don’t know what that means.
- Run spelling and grammar checks on your paper before you submit it for grading.
- Have someone who is as smart as you are proofread your paper. This does not have to be a nurse or a teacher.
- When you are done, be sure you have deleted all the instructions.
Formatting reminders:
The paper is to be written using Times New Roman with 12 font size and is to be double spaced with no extra spaces before or after paragraphs. Refer to the American Psychological Association (American Psychological Association, 2020) 7th edition manual for questions about format. The paper must have at least 4 (but no more than 6) pages of text containing complete sentences, well organized in paragraphs that are indented. The paper must have a title page, on its own page and a reference list on its own page. The references must be in alphabetical order.
Use sections with the headers provided in this template. Each paragraph needs one introductory sentence, sentences of content, and a closing or transition sentence so that the paper is easy to read and flows smoothly. Run spelling and grammar checks before submitting your paper.
