This chapter focuses on introductory arguments about the Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) student and graduate’s clinical scholarship, a future practice-oriented nursing epistemology. It explores a model of scientific inquiry and stewardship for the nursing discipline through the development of a body of practice-oriented nursing knowledge to improve health. There is a very strong case to be made that the “good science” evolving from the DNP programs where nursing epistemology and practice knowledge development is valued is indeed being conducted within the framework of a Mode 2 knowledge production paradigm. Finally, there is an operational concern for how practice knowledge is made formal within the academy before it is then further synthesized, reduced, and disseminated in journal format and oral presentation. Practice knowledge generation only needs rigor, proper mentoring, an inquiring mind, and some creativity.

Objectives have been used for decades in nursing education to set the stage for what is expected of students and to guide faculty in planning teaching and assessment. However, nursing education is evolving and the timeworn practices used to write objectives must evolve as well. This chapter focuses on how to write broad behavioral objectives to support learning in a constructivist, learner-centered online environment to guide teaching and learning that are in step with today’s innovations in education and that follow the call for radical transformation in nursing education. Objectives focused on the desired learning outcomes or intended behavior changes, termed performance. The psychomotor domain is the skills domain in the narrow sense of the word, in that this domain provides a means of identifying outcomes that involve fine, manual, and gross motor movements.

This chapter provides a guide to conducting a life history from conceptualization to dissemination. Life history is used to explain an individual’s understanding of social events, movements, and political causes, that is, how individual members of groups or institutions see certain events and how they experience and interpret those events. As it is unlikely that nurses will be conducting traditional fieldwork to gather life histories because of the extensive periods of time involved, the chapter describes the process for collecting focused life histories by researchers whose only purpose is to document the story of the participant and not to frame this life history within a broader ethnography. It considers life history as a sociocultural methodology and leave oral history on historical research and life review to the one on clinical literature.

This chapter presents an overview of the state of the art ethnographies conducted by nurses and highlights a few works by the early generation. An extensive search of the literature was conducted to identify ethnographies completed by nurses. Nursing knowledge was a common thread throughout the literature reviewed. The literature review revealed the progress nursing is making in recognizing this gap and attempting to close it. Nursing knowledge is essential in patient care. Using the ethnographic method of inquiry, nurses have been able to identify areas of need both in knowledge and practice and make recommendations for enhanced practice. Caring and patient advocacy were other common themes in the literature. Caring is the essence of nursing and consequently should be incorporated in nursing research. The common purpose of the ethnographic studies reviewed was to explain or understand a phenomenon to increase nursing knowledge.

Many agencies offer fellowships to support pre- and/or postdoctoral studies and research. The proposal addresses one’s planned research training during the award, his/her research experience, and his/her long-term/career goals. Reviewers will provide an overall impact score to reflect their assessment of the likelihood that the fellowship will enhance the candidate’s potential for, and commitment to, an independent scientific research career in a health-related field, in consideration of the scored and additional review criteria. The chapter summarizes one’s research experiences in chronological order, including areas studied and conclusions reached; specify which part of his/her thesis or dissertation was. National Institutes of Health (NIH) requires that every individual whom they support via fellowship or career development award (CDA) funding receive continued training in responsible conduct of research (RCR).

This chapter discusses the major types of things one might want to consider for whatever type of proposal he/she is writing. A detailed budget and its justification are included in supplemental materials, while other proposals require this information in an appendix or in its own section as part of the text. Many types of proposals ask one to indicate how he/she will protect the individuals who take part in his/her study. This is true for almost all research, career development, fellowship, and evidence-based practice (EBP) proposals. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) requirements for the protection of human subjects are quite detailed, so they can serve as a good guide for things to consider in any proposal we are writing.

All proposals need titles. The goal of the title is to tell the reader what the project is about. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) only allowed a total of 81 characters including spaces for a title. The NIH has now changed most of its applications to allow longer title lengths. Two hundred characters including spaces are now allowed for research grants, fellowships, and career development awards. Most educational training grant proposals follow very similar guidelines to those outlined for research titles. For Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) grants, there may be layers of titles related to the program to which you are applying, followed by your particular title. Abstracts for proposals to the NIH are especially important because not all reviewers read the full proposal carefully. Most research proposals also include hypotheses or research questions.

Translational projects are essential because a lot of interventions that research has shown to be efficacious are never put into practice and, therefore, no one benefits from them. A project might focus on establishing routine use in health departments of an intervention found to reduce depression among low-income pregnant women. These projects are research projects, and are often funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and other major agencies; therefore, a proposal for funding such a project needs to be written like the standard research proposal. Evidence-based practice (EBP) projects focus on providers; they are designed to improve care delivery; that is, they are quality improvement projects. Quality improvement efforts are in most cases designed to solve problems that many people or agencies experience and thus are EBP projects. All nurses have the clinical skills; the key is to recognize that good writing is about observing and making decisions.

The structure of proposals differs depending on what we are proposing to do and where we plan to send the proposal for approval or funding. One should develop the argument for a new study or an evidence-based practice project using the literature to document their points. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) reviewers are generally well informed about the research and they assume that they are well informed, so one should provide only a quick review of the literature, focusing on the studies they are building on and showing why more work is needed. The dietary approaches to stop hypertension (DASH) diet, developed to reduce hypertension, and have been shown to be effective in helping people lose weight. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have recommended an intervention that is effective for self-managing diabetes.