Student Assignments and Writing for Publication

Abstract

Writing scholarly papers for publication is not a skill that is generally taught formally to nursing students. Instead, nurse academics set assessment pieces, and nursing students direct their efforts toward successfully completing these assessments to fulfill the requirements of the course. Few students would consider the possibility of publishing their assignments. Reasons for this may include a lack of confidence, time or aspiration to publish, or an inability to achieve a work-life balance, including meeting the competing demands and priorities of study, work and family (Cleary & Walter 2004). Another reason is a lack of student know-how to get started on transforming an assignment to a manuscript of acceptable quality for submission to a peer-review journal (Rew 2012). This situation is problematic, however, as there are many benefits for students who publish, and also for the academics who support them.