We design our Undergraduate dissertation as a publishable literature review. This is a strategy that has been used in quite a few postgraduate assessments and helps the student to prepare their work for publication. It is very important to me that nurses know that they have something important to say, and to share. Too many lack the confidence that seems to be a given in other health professional students.
This week congratulations are due to two students. One undertook her elective placement at the Nursing Times and has subsequently had published an interview that she conducted.
The second is Rachel Cater, whose dissertation submitted in 2017 has just been published in the Journal of Clinical Nursing. Thanks are due to Professor Julie Taylor (@bulawayojulie) who supervised and supported Rachel.
I’ve got at least 2 of these joint publications ready to submit now. We are making progress since the days when it was almost unheard of for a student to publish, but my clinical practice tells me that many qualified nurses are just as under-confident in their writing skills. A very quick glance through one journal’s current issue identified that most of the papers were authored by academics, relatively few by clinicians and only one by a student nurse.
There is a lot of literature out there about the benefits to the individual, the organisation and patients for publishing. There is also evidence that editors are not always impressed by the quality of student submissions. We recommend that you write your dissertation up for publication with the support of your supervisor. It does take quite a lot of work to get from dissertation to submission-ready, and every submission will require revision once it as been peer-reviewed. But it is worth it 🙂
Academic Writing 