Legal Implications in Nursing

Course Overview
In this course, you will write an Argumentative Research Paper to learn about scholarly research and academic writing processes. These reflect the reading and writing skills necessary for success in undergraduate, graduate, and professional settings. Each week, you will practice skills in writing, information literacy, and APA formatting. By the end of this course, you will have written a 10-14 page paper on a controversial topic selected from the provided list associated with your major area of study.

Your paper’s success will depend on both your content and your style of delivery. As this is an argumentative paper, you will be taking a position on your topic and using rhetorical and stylistic techniques to persuade the reader to adopt your stance. The hypothetical intended audience for this paper is professionals and experts in the field. The quality of your writing should be suitable for submission to a scholarly journal or trade publication. Therefore, careful attention should be paid to mechanics, grammar, spelling, punctuation, and word choice in every assignment. Because all good writers know that the first attempt is never the best, you will be submitting drafts of each section of the paper for instructor feedback. Upon receiving these suggestions, you will revise your draft while working to produce the next section of your paper, learning and improving as you progress.

The focus of each week’s draft will be as follows:
Week 1: Topic Selection
Week 2: Thesis Statement
Week 3: Introduction
Week 4: Body 1
Week 5: Body 2
Week 6: Abstract and Conclusion
Week 7: Final submission

Information Literacy

To be information literate means to be able to successfully interpret and navigate a variety of informational media. With access to the Internet, you may encounter magazines, newspapers, personal blogs, wikis, commercial, government, and educationally sponsored sites, videos, movies, and more. A reader who is information literate will be able to tell fact from opinion, evaluate sources to find the best/most appropriate to the task at hand, understand the importance of authorship, and be able to use the resources ethically and effectively. In this course, you will learn to evaluate internet and library database sources for your paper.

Writing

The Writing Process is not linear, but recursive. This means that there is no clear beginning and end, but a constant cycle of ideas, writing, and revision. Of course, you need to stop somewhere, so we will be writing one draft per week to stay on track. As you receive feedback, you will revise and improve your drafts. The final paper will be a culmination of all drafts included in a single APA style document.

APA

APA stands for American Psychological Association. This organization literally wrote the book on this style of writing. APA formatting refers to way the text appears, and the style of writing recommended. The purpose of a universal style is to draw attention to the content and ideas of the paper, rather than the person who has written it or their particular aesthetic. For example, you may really like the look of green text on a purple background, and Comic Sans size 24 font. You may even believe that it complements your thesis: “Misunderstood Giants in the Marvel Universe.” However, the brilliance and insight you display in your writing may be lost on the reader, who is off-put by your color scheme and chooses not to explore further than your title page. This is an extreme example, but shows how unconscious appearance-based biases can impact whether or not an idea is given fair consideration.

Importantly, you are not expected to memorize all APA requirements, but you are expected to understand what aspects of formatting are important, and where to look for this information when you have questions. You will be introduced to many resources throughout this course that will help you to learn these expectations and feel comfortable using them.