Technical writing is a form of written communication that explains or describes complicated processes or concepts in terms that non-experts can understand. Technical writing is a different skill from other forms of professional or academic writing. It relies heavily on writing in clear, concise terms blended with complex processes and concepts to explain them to a particular audience.

Nursing students should acquire technical writing skill as they might require it someday. Understanding the specifics necessary for technical writing is a valuable lesson in helping nursing students to excel in their specific field of study and meet career goals.

The ability of a writer to achieve the purpose relies on knowledge of the subject, the audience and the extent of knowledge that readers have concerning the topic. For instance, if the subject of the piece is about dispensing medicine to patients, an author must know the audience well. The language should be equal to the level if the readers who can be patients, nursing peers, doctors or other medical personnel. The approach to these audiences is different because their professional and technical knowledge on the matter is not equal. Each group of readers should feel that a technical paper matches their understanding and reasoning capacity.

Why Nursing Students Should Learn Technical Writing

Nursing students need technical writing skill as they will apply it in their education during clinical experience, clinical experience, internship and licensing exams. It is valuable to know the specifics of technical writing early in the nursing program as it will help in excelling at a specific field of study and achieving career goals. Nursing students will benefit from learning how to write technical work because they can apply it for these situations.

Coursework

Technical writing skills in coursework apply to the documenting procedures based on concepts learned during the study. For instance, a student might need to write a paper in an anatomy course about the effects of the heart on the circulatory system. In the psychological course, technical writing might be necessary for describing a mental condition and treatment in professional terminology.

Clinical Experiences

The clinical portion of nursing education entails hands-on training on tasks such as taking blood pressure, drawing blood for testing and completing other mandatory duties for nurses. Technical writing skills are essential for documentation of basic clinical procedures for reference in future.

Internship

All capacities of nursing internships expose nursing students to many procedures relating to general medical practices, specific approaches to patient care, patient follow-up practices and office procedures. Office practices in various medical environments are different making it essential to utilize technical when capturing the notes for them to be logical for future references and understanding.

Licensing exams

Writing content and procedures enables the nursing student to internalize the significant material according to findings in specific research during the nursing study and writing across the curriculum. Writing the technical concepts reinforces understanding in the learner which comes in handy when preparing for licensing.

Nursing career

Nursing students with impressive technical writing skills can perform better than others in the nursing profession. Their writing ability enables them to write necessary documentation for professionals and non-expert in health care. A nurse can write steps to manage a medical condition with homemade therapies to a patient. The same person can write a procedure on dispensing patient medication for other colleagues and still write a research-based report about new medical procedures for a manager or doctor.

Writing Style for Technical writing by Nursing Students

Technical writing requires the writer to present a complicated procedure and ideas with well-though explanations that the target reader will understand. Writing should be in second or third person perspective hence the writer must avoid mention of the first person.

The writer develops a technical report from studying and observation, but it should not be an opinion piece. it should express the technical concepts or processes step-by-step for clarity to the reader about the steps taken and outcome for each. It is more of an explanation that "action one leads to result in two."

The best way of presenting information in technical writing should be in brief sentences and paragraphs (chunking information). The language should be simple, direct and specific for quick understanding. Short sections help in providing white spaces on pages to visually break up the text visually and prevent monotony.

Evidence-based paper in nursing presents clear and most recent evidence on individual patient care. Research is at the peak of medical and healthcare professions. It has become more important to promote the new ideas that have come up with innovations and changing technology to support the current research. Writing an evidence-based paper in nursing has its challenges. The most important thing at the time is to identify a unique thesis, write in the proper format and include the most current research for evidence. Writing incorrectly or missing the essential pieces will sabotage the arguments in the paper.

Steps to Writing an Evidence-Based Paper in Nursing

These steps are an essential part of writing a brilliant evidence-based nursing paper.

Identifying a fascinating topic and thesis

The first step is to determine the primary or controlling idea which is the groundwork for the entire paper. All other parts are mere extensions of the initial argument. It is imperative for the paper to have a clear thesis statement in the form of a concise statement in the first paragraph.

The arguments that the writer makes will be his choice, but the topic should be on something new. A topic on an evidence-based subject should focus on the typical clinical problems rather than an unusual manifestation or a rare disease. It should emphasize new information or research that has the potential to promote practical changes in the procedure. It can, for instance, be interesting to investigate evidence that supports new promising practices like reducing anxiety with music therapy, culturally sensitive approaches in asthma treatment and mindfulness training for the management of pain.

Although the writer has a choice on an argument, it must argue something with a clear statement and evidence for an in-depth defense.

Thorough investigation for supporting evidence

An evidence bases paper in nursing requires extensive research from print and online sources to get the most amazing facts to support the thesis statement.

The purpose of research is to gather evidence. The thesis statement should be the guide on the issues to argue in the paper. The analysis that someone should consider for an evidence-based paper should be from reliable sources. Research articles that instructors distribute and bibliography of textbooks are a good source of references. A search for reliable information should focus on the more legitimate web and peer-reviewed sources.

Primary sources with material relating to the topic and the university library are excellent places to gather information. Evidence bases medicine relies much on patient-centered clinical research including the efficacy of therapies and the diagnostic tests. Hypotheses or thesis for the evidence-based paper should build from the research findings. It should include all the strong recommendations with the backing of factual evidence from very trusted sources. Journals are excellent sources of material to use in an evidence-based paper in nursing because they publish articles after a review by experts in the field.

Writing the Evidence-Based Paper in Nursing

After gathering adequate research, it is time to write the body paragraphs after the thesis statement which is the last part of an introduction. The paper should be in the appropriate academic format such as APA. The outline of an evidence-based paper should have these sections:

American Psychological Association (APA) style is one of the frequently used within social sciences to cite various sources. APA citation guide in its 6 th edition that provides a general format for in-text citations and reference page. APA has established standards of citation for writing and researching. It applies in science and social science fields like nursing.

Nursing writing for research and journal contents supports analytical and logical writing which fits this noble profession. Writing and research in APA style might be a requirement for completing nursing papers in the course of a degree program.

What Makes APA Citing Important for Nursing Students

1.Sets writing standards

Writing nursing research and journal in APA helps to provide standards for scientific research and writing. Writing in APA style enables the writer to produce a clear, logical and concise work. APA style uniformity allows easy locating of the critical findings and ideas in nursing research. It establishes credibility for the author through citation of authoritative research sources. Nursing scholars globally benefit from the use of APA as it enables them to share current advances as well as policy updates in their specialty and healthcare in general. Most of the nursing degree programs require students to cite their academic work in APA style as it creates a way to for precise and accurate communication by the students.

Nursing students cannot make an impact on the academic writing if they do not master APA. They have to fulfill requirements for completing a nursing degree that includes writing a capstone project, thesis or action research project to blend their class knowledge with research and solve a problem in the nursing field.

This research requires appropriate APA writing style and formatting. Healthcare and nursing fields usually include essential information that requires regular updating to keep up with discoveries as well as innovations. The date of research in a nursing paper is necessary for showing the way findings are relevant and up-to-date. APA citation in the proper way allows presentation of an accurate picture about the information that forms the basis of conclusions.

2.Enhances Quality of Written Communication

Nursing writing is an essential component of communicating information that defines professional nursing practice and exhibiting skills to pass the knowledge. Nursing students and professionals must produce accurate and a precise written account on the provision of quality health care to the patients.APA style encourages professionally written communication. Nursing notes also are legal forms of documentation hence it is critical to writing these documents in a concise, accurate, logical and precise manner. These papers must also state the author of the work they are representing through accurate citation. APA allows proper citation.

3.Exhibits relevance of content

Professional nursing portfolio exhibits the growth and skills in nursing. Some places like particular states in the USA might require a nursing portfolio for a re-licensure process. Nursing portfolios might be a requirement for nursing graduates who are seeking employment or registered nurses pursuing an advanced position. A nursing portfolio contains documentation of certifications, research or scholarly work, degrees and certifications. Academic writing includes capstone research, research projects, and thesis or published journal articles. APA citation allows authors of scholarly work to properly highlight the relevancy of their research and show that they can attribute the work to sources.

4.Allows consistency

APA provides writers with a consistent format for organizing their research or arguments efficiently. The readers also benefit if they are familiar with APA because they know the particular section where they can find the information they need. For instance, a reader who wants the position that the writer takes on a subject can go to the discussion section without reading everything else. It is simple as APA has a pre-determined format for all sections from the information on title page to conclusion and bibliography. APA formatting also enables authors to organize their ideas in similar lines used by researchers with a benefit of a spin-off. Familiarity with various sections of APA makes someone a better reader of resources available in the library.

5.Protection against plagiarism

Plagiarism is the use of other people’s ideas or direct quote with proper acknowledging of the source. APA citation basics below help to protect writers from suspicions or allegations of plagiarism.

Writing solidly in APA format gives the writer ideas more credibility because it shows an ability to speak the language of academia to professors or reviewers. It only takes the use of authoritative sources for information in relevant sections, cite and reference the words properly.

A review of the literature (literature review) is an overview of the past research works on a topic that a researcher intends to study. It critically evaluates compares and evaluates the published information on a particular topic. It allows an author to synthesize the research, put it into context as well as the relevant scholarly literature to the subject.

A literature review helps to map different the different approaches to a particular question while revealing the patterns. It forms a foundation for the subsequent research that an author of nursing research work will perform to bolster on the existing and justifies the importance of the new study. A literature review is a short introductory section of the research report, article or policy paper focusing on the recent research. A review can be extensive of the relevant research if the research is for theses, dissertations and review articles.

Sections of a review of literature for nursing research

All literature reviews have these major sections.

Introduction: indicates the general state of the literature in a topic

Methodology: An overview of the method of searching, the precise sources and subject terms to enable others access and reproduce this scholarly work.

Findings: A summary of significant findings in the field

Discussion: The general progression from the wider to smaller studies with a specific focus

Conclusion: Conclusion is at the end of every major section b of nursing research. It notes an overall state of research focusing on the significant synthesized conclusions, problems in research and possible avenues for further studies on the subject.

Writing the Review of Literature for Nursing Research

Writing a literature review should be in bibliographic essay format. The writer should briefly cite with the body, but the full bibliographic citations should be at the end. A good review of literature should be well organized in this format.

1.Start with an introductory paragraph

The first paragraph is the introduction of a literature review. It should clearly define the research topic, the scope of the paper (even the material that is not included) and writing style in which the writer will organize the review. The writer should outline the critical debates and trends within the literature concisely. An introduction should provide the author's point of view or perspective on the topic. The writer can use the opening to point out the general trends, conflicts in conclusions or methodology and gaps in research.

2. Organize major topic and subtopic in the body

Organizing topics and subtopic in a review of literature should be organized in groupings. The groupings can be by subject (e.g., globalization of preventive care), type of research (e.g., case study), genre, methodology (e.g., quantitative or qualitative), chronology or the other common characteristics. The author is free to discuss the merits of the items within the groupings, analyze as well as compare the importance of each.

A writer should organize the body into various paragraphs corresponding to the field of nursing, different themes or the time periods in literature to increase readability. A few paragraphs should highlight the outstanding gaps in the literature and propose the directions for future researches. When appropriate, the writer can explain the relevance of the sources.

3.Summarize the ideas and themes in the conclusion

The concluding paragraph should summarize the ideas and themes of a review of literature but only the most significant. The conclusion should not introduce new material. A proper conclusion summarizes the key findings and makes it clear how the review of the literature supports (or disputes) the research. It should also provide an insight into the way a topic fits in the nursing research and profession.

A literature review should have proper referencing in the format the nursing school or faculty requires. It will be incomplete without a list of references or a bibliography in the needed format after the conclusion. I the list of sources am a standalone section that includes full citations for all the items in the literature review. The frequent formats for a nursing list of references include APA, MLA, APA and Chicago style.

The best review of literature evaluates the quality and current sources that are less than ten years unless the analysis is historical or are widely cited. It is essential to search for literature from various types of publications such as books, government documents, nursing databases, and journals. References on articles and books can help to find additional sources.