UWM Libraries Research and Course Guides: Nursing / BSN Professional Roles and Writing (Nursing 351): Develop your Writing

Using Sources and Articles

Quoting and Paraphrasing
This set of guides from UW-Madison will help you learn more about quoting and paraphrasing from sources in order to ethically use information in your writing while demonstrating understanding of the material.
APA Documentation Guide
These webpages explain how to correctly format parenthetical citations and reference list entries for some of the most common print and electronic sources.
For full information, visit the APA's web site: http://www.apastyle.org/.
Why we Cite
Quality academic writing is built upon the work of others, to which we add our own unique analysis and contributions. This helpful article will articulate what purposes citation serves and when you do or don't need to cite.

Approaches to Writing

Knowing Your Audience
In order to compose persuasive, user-centered communication, you should gather as much information as possible about the people reading your document. You may have a complex audience in all the stages of your document's lifecycle- the development stage, the reading stage, and the action stage.
Planning and Writing a Paper
This resource from UW-Madison's writing center lists some approaches to writing. Although this list suggests that there is a simple, linear process to writing such a paper, the actual process of writing a research paper is often a messy and recursive one, so please use this outline as a flexible guide.
Analyzing Your Sources
This guide on rhetorical analysis and Precis from UW-Madison discusses some approaches that will help you read your articles closely, identify key concepts and synthesize that information.

Improve Your Writing

Develop your Writing Style
Your writing style is an extension of your personality and usually develops over time. So what can you do to develop your writing style? Thinking about style too consciously can result in mannered, stilted prose, but there are some basic style rules to keep in mind as you begin to write.
Structuring your Paragraphs
In academic writing, effective paragraphs serve as building blocks to construct a complex analysis or argument. Paragraphing and artful transitions help your readers understand and process your ideas into meaningful units of thought.
Paragraphs - The MEAL plan
Paragraphs come in different shapes and sizes, and some so-called “rules” may put
writers in a straightjacket that unnecessarily hampers their ability to convey their ideas as needed in a
particular piece of writing. Nevertheless, grasping the general form of a paragraph provides a good
foundation. Once you have this basic building block at your command, you can vary from it by conscious
choice when needed.
Active vs. Passive Voice
This handout will explain the difference between active and passive voice in writing. It gives examples of both, and shows how to turn a passive sentence into an active one. Also, it explains how to decide when to choose passive voice instead of active.
Using a Scholarly Voice
Formal language and tone are expected in scholarly writing, although the definition of formal varies over time and by field. Most current fields agree, however, that colloquialisms, slang, contractions, biased language, rhetorical questions, and second person pronouns should be avoided. (employ this advice at your own discretion)

Making Sentences Active
This handout will explain the difference between active and passive voice in writing. It gives examples of both, and shows how to turn a passive sentence into an active one. Also, it explains how to decide when to choose passive voice instead of active.
Clear, Concise Sentences
This guide from UW-Madison provides practical advice for how to draft impactful sentences for academic writing.
Precision, Clarity, and Academic Expression
This set of pages and guides from Walden University will help you master the skills needed to be a precise, clear, smooth, and economic writer.
Sentence Variation
This resource presents methods for adding sentence variety and complexity to writing that may sound repetitive or boring. Sections are divided into general tips for varying structure, a discussion of sentence types, and specific parts of speech which can aid in sentence variety.

Peer Critique
What to do if someone asks you to review their paper at any stage of revision.
Reverse Outlines
Many writers use a reverse outline to check their work. Reverse outlining is a process whereby you take away all of the supporting writing and are left with a paper's main points or main ideas, sometimes represented by your paper's topic sentences. Your reverse outline provides a bullet-point view of your paper's structure because you are looking at the main points of the paper you wrote.
Revising Drafts
Revision literally means to “see again,” to look at something from a fresh, critical perspective. It is an ongoing process of rethinking the paper: reconsidering your arguments, reviewing your evidence, refining your purpose, reorganizing your presentation, reviving stale prose.

7 Editing Tips to Improve Usage
How do you make sure you’re writing right? Crafting prose is mostly a matter of using the right words for the job. Here are some steps to help you achieve that goal.
Common Mistakes in Spelling and Grammar
Many spelling and grammar checks cannot pick up on these common errors. This simple list explains some basic tips and tools to make sure your prose is stellar.
Grammatical Sentence Structures
To improve your academic writing skills, you must ﬁrst understand possible problems with sentence structure so that you can not only recognize but write effective sentences.

This guide will help you understand parts of sentences and clauses and provide examples and tools for improving your sentence structures to create grammatically sound writing.
Tips to Improve your Spelling
Practical advice for improving your spelling skills through developing simple habits.