Undergraduate and graduate nursing students typically have to write nursing papers, which include assignments, SOAP notes, care plans, reports, capstone proposals, and projects, throughout their journey towards graduation. If you are a nursing student, you are likely to have asked yourself these questions at some point: what is the academic style of writing nursing papers? What is the writing style considered scholarly in nursing? Where shall I find the right references, and where shall I insert these references? Answering these questions and more helps you write the kind of paper that earns you top marks.
You need to work hard to develop excellent writing skills not only during your college days but also when you join the world of work as a professional nurse.
When it comes to the academic style of writing nursing papers, the American Psychological Association style guidelines are preferred. Many nursing journals also follow the APA style. Writing in a scholarly style encompasses more than applying an appropriate style such as APA. You will need to learn how to communicate using impeccable formal English. No contractions, slang, colloquialism, or any other such usage of the English language are allowed when crafting a nursing paper or any other type of academic writing.
Table of Contents
Nursing Paper Format
We did a survey among the best nursing assignment writers to understand the common academic style of writing nursing papers. Here is a format you can use to write your next nursing assignment.
The title page
It contains the title of the paper, the name of the author, and the institutional affiliation.
The abstract
The abstract represents a summary of the contents of the entire nursing paper. It presents accurate information about what the paper contains; this includes the purpose, the results, and the conclusions drawn. While this part appears at the beginning of your nursing paper, you should write it after you have completed your nursing paper. According to the American Psychological Association academic writing style, an abstract should be written succinctly and should not be longer than 120 words (p. 13)
Introduction
The first line of your introduction should not contain a heading. The introduction may have a couple of paragraphs where you tell the audience why the topic matters. This section should establish the relationship between the current topic and other previous work by others in the same area of study.
Literature review
In your final year in your nursing program, you will be required to write a nursing capstone project or dissertation paper. Both scholarly papers require a student to develop a literature review. Here, you identify every nursing and medical journal as well as textbook related to your topic. You need to include a critical analysis of the ideas contained in the selected sources. The literature review in a nursing paper, like capstones and dissertations, communicates to readers that the author has examined the works of other researchers who have contributed to the existing body of knowledge. Additionally, your literature review provides a foundation for the new concepts and original ideas you will present in the paper.
The type of paper you are writing determines the information you include after the literature review. According to DNP capstone project format methods, results and discussion of results follow. If you are doing a case study, a critical analysis of the case follows the literature review.
Headings and Pages
Headings and pagination help you organize your document by introducing the various sections of the nursing paper. When using the APA style, you will need to have main headings and subheadings.
Other Stylistic Considerations
- Margins: You should have one inch on all sides of the paper
- Font: Use Courier or Times New Roman, 12-point
- Spacing: Apply double spacing throughout your document
- Alignment: Flush left
- Paragraph indent: Requires five-seven spaces from the right margin
- Pagination: Page numbers should be positioned one inch from the upper right corner of each page, including the title page
- Page header: Have two to three words of the paper positioned five spaces to the left of the page number on every page, including the title page.
Citing Other People’s work.
Since you will have paraphrased other people’s work and used their ideas or direct quotes, you must give credit where it is due. It is ethical and also shows you understand what writing a scholarly nursing paper entails.
Your nursing paper references should not be older than five years. Refer to the APA style and learn how to cite the works of others. Create a reference list and position it after the body of the paper.
Table and Figures
After the reference list, you can include tables and figures. Note: Tables precede figures. Tables require page numbers and headers. Figures, however, need neither headers nor pages.
Conclusions and Recommendations
A nursing paper ends with a powerful conclusion or a discussion. In this section, summarise what you have written about in the body of the article.
Remember to familiarise yourself with the APA academic writing style. Apply everything you have learned here as well as the information you will gather from the APA style guide, and you will have mastered the academic style of writing nursing papers.
