Final Capstone paper PASSED!!

Woohoo! Congrats!!!

PS: The oral defense is easy-peasy compared to what you've already done.

Woohoo! Congrats!!!

PS: The oral defense is easy-peasy compared to what you've already done.

I know, I'm actually looking forward to doing it. Plus, I am on the agenda for August's meeting of my facility's nurse managers, in order to present my study to them. I'm way more anxious about that!

My capstone has been published (do pursue that!) and gotten me invited to speak at a half-dozen conferences. You never know where things will take you!

How did you go about publishing? DId you just submit it to various pertinent journals? Also, did you submit it as is, or did you change anything so it was less WGU-specific, and more nursing-journaly?

Congratulations! Tickled for you!

Choose your journal wisely. You will find that each publisher has a resource section for potential authors with specific info of how they want things formatted, article types they are looking for, suggested word counts and lots more. READ IT! And you'll have to re-write multiple times to be suitable for publication. Develop a thick skin- your capstone is your baby and your editor doesn't care about the love/hate relationship you've developed with it!

Congratulations, klone! Which degree did you finish?

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Thank you! It was MSN Leadership

Congrats! How long did it take you to finish this program and was it the rn to msn program?

How did you go about publishing? DId you just submit it to various pertinent journals? Also, did you submit it as is, or did you change anything so it was less WGU-specific, and more nursing-journaly?

Do your homework on journals-- see which ones publish things like your work...but not too much like them, because if they've already published that topic lately, they want something new. What readership do you want to reach? What do you have to say, and why do you want to say it? What kid of voice do you want to use to do that? Are you looking at an AONE or an RN or an online blog? Or something else entirely?

Read several issues cover-to-cover to get a feel for their "voice" and style. Very, very few journals nowadays publish student papers as they stand because they are so damn boring with the passive voice and academic-speak that crosses the readership's collective eyes. It's not that we don't appreciate the work you put into it or the expertise you acquired doing it-- we did all those things too in our graduate programs-- it's just that, alas, there's not much market for it in that form. Why should my readership care? Tell me.

If they have themed issues, look to see what themes are coming up for the next few years (they will often publish that list somewhere in the journal to encourage prospective authors).

Find the Information for Authors either in the the journals themselves or on their websites. Do not ignore their requirements for citation style, formatting, submission deadlines, art/graphics, permissions, etc. Get a feel for the editorial process of each-- peer review or not, revision timetables, reprint permissions, etc.

Now that you've done all that, send query notes to the editors of three or four, very briefly outlining your paper topic (no more than 4 sentences, and short ones at that) and asking for feedback on whether they'd be interested in it. If you send more than one email, for heaven's sake do not send one created with a mail-merge that starts out like this one I got:

"Dear Editor:

I am completing my DNS at ABC University under the direction of Dr. Mary Smith. My dissertation is on (several long, almost unintelligible sentences on an esoteric topic we don't address). I am inquiring about the requirements to publish in ...."

I replied that 1) we don't publish student papers as a rule, 2) the topic isn't one we cover, 3) s/he would be better off looking at any journals' previous issues to find out more about readership, voice, and requirements before she sends a query to any editor, and 4), be sure the query she sends to the editor doesn't include "" in the first paragraph. And best wishes in your future endeavors.

You can't submit the same article to multiple journals simultaneously, but you can probably get three or four different articles out of one thesis if you think about how you would describe your research (or components of it, or your conceptual framework, or your methods ... see?) to three or four different audiences.

Have some fun with it! Good luck!

Congrats! That's awesome!