Assignment: Shaping policy

Read and follow the directions before you complete step 2.

Step 2: Complete the checklist individually.

Step 3: Respond to the following questions:

Do you consider yourself to be politically active?

Why or why not?

Do you feel that you are knowledgeable of the political process?

Should nurses be politically active? Why or why not?

How can nurses make a difference in the health of their patients and the public by shaping policy?

What do you hope to learn during this course?

Step 4: Provide a meaningful response to at least two of your peer’s posts. Cite any sources in APA format.

Response Posts: In your responses to your classmates, contribute to the discussion with your own original opinions based on the classmate\’s comments and/or interpretation of the course materials.

You are not required to provide research, a reference, or in-text citations. Use your professional opinion to answer the questions.

Discussion response 1 John

Directions: Complete the checklist individually and then respond to the following questions:

Do you consider yourself to be politically active? Why or why not? I don’t consider myself politically active. I do as everyone, have opinions but don’t apply myself to their ends. I’m also a government employee and restricted in political activities.

Do you feel that you are knowledgeable of the political process? I’m not knowledgeable enough. Many times, I hear on the news of a political process and I had no idea that was they way they took place.

Should nurses be politically active? Why or why not? Nurses should act in the best interests of their patients. If this takes the route of taking political action then nurses should be part of it.

How can nurses make a difference in the health of their patients and the public by shaping policy? Financial funding by the government is political. Influencing funding to be directed to causes that help patients may be done with the involvement of nurses.

What do you hope to learn during this course? How politics affect health care. How health care can be currently be improved by politics.

Never

Sometimes

Always

Yes

Engagement and Political Voice Checklist

For each item, check the box that applies to you. For the item on voter registration, use the “Yes” or “No” boxes.

I work to solve community problems

I volunteer regularly for an environmental group

I volunteer regularly for a civic or community organization

I volunteer regularly for any other organization

I belong or donated money to any group or organization

You must proofread your paper. But do not strictly rely on your computer’s spell-checker and grammar-checker; failure to do so indicates a lack of effort on your part and you can expect your grade to suffer accordingly. Papers with numerous misspelled words and grammatical mistakes will be penalized. Read over your paper – in silence and then aloud – before handing it in and make corrections as necessary. Often it is advantageous to have a friend proofread your paper for obvious errors. Handwritten corrections are preferable to uncorrected mistakes.

Use a standard 10 to 12 point (10 to 12 characters per inch) typeface. Smaller or compressed type and papers with small margins or single-spacing are hard to read. It is better to let your essay run over the recommended number of pages than to try to compress it into fewer pages.

Likewise, large type, large margins, large indentations, triple-spacing, increased leading (space between lines), increased kerning (space between letters), and any other such attempts at “padding” to increase the length of a paper are unacceptable, wasteful of trees, and will not fool your professor.

The paper must be neatly formatted, double-spaced with a one-inch margin on the top, bottom, and sides of each page. When submitting hard copy, be sure to use white paper and print out using dark ink. If it is hard to read your essay, it will also be hard to follow your argument.