Current practice to formulate researchable problems

For this discussion, you are asked to review the student learning outcomes for this course and discuss how you met these outcomes. The intention here is to provide you an opportunity to “reflect” on the learning achieved during this term and how you successfully met these learning outcomes. If you do not feel you successfully met the objective, discuss your plans to successfully complete the objective in the future.

Upon completion of this course, the student should be able to:

Critically analyze current practice to formulate researchable problems.
Evaluate research as the basis for decision-making to improve outcomes through translation into evidence-based practice.
Synthesize an understanding of the research process through development of a proposal to address a nursing problem or focus area identified in nursing practice.
Investigate ethical issues related to the conduct of scientific research, including informed consent, data management, data analysis, and protection of human subjects.
Explore national and international initiatives and research priorities.

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