research and papers and such

I don't think the ADN track at my school has to write any papers. Now, those of us in the BSN program do and take a research methods course pertaining to nothing but research and paper writing.

I'm in an ADN program and we write the occasional research paper. It's big on correct formatting more than a fabulous writing ability. So a one page double-spaced paper and table were the things we did this last term.

Hi momtojosh--I think you should go for it! I'm in a BSN program and while I have had plenty of research papers, teaching tools, demonstrations, and presentations due for each class, students also utilize the school's popular writing center. Our writing center staff actually notifies the teacher/instructor of the class for which the student has received help for. In return, the student has a greater chance of receiving a higher grade because the teacher takes into consideration the time that the student has spent getting help. Is there a service like that at your school in which you could utilize the same services?

selene006..oh yes....there are all kinds of services provided.....while taking chem i certainly got help in the math portion!!....and while in A & P I will be taking advantage of the science tutor center as well....i am looking into signing up for A & P 1...it starts jan 24....i just want to take it slow....one class at a time for now...then all i will have is my nursings.....

thanks everyone....here is my second all time fear...MATH.....i was getting the dementional analysis toward the end of chem(thats when i started going for help)...and i wished i had gone all the while!!!....oh well..i passed the class...this was last year at this time....

so thats been my plan for awhile now....preqs are done....now doing co-reqs which are....A&Ps and micro....then just nursing 1,2,3,4....WHICH i will try to test out of nursing 1.....i dont know...its a plan anyway....

In the first semester of my ADN program we had a grand total of 1 paper to do. After copying and pasting quotes and writing and filling in the rest of the text for an hour or so, I was well over the 150-250 word limit. I spent another 10-15 minutes to edit down to closer to the limit. My paper-related advice would be to learn APA citation format, the peculiarities of internet searching, how to copy & paste text, and Word or some similar word processing program. My big picture advice would be to not stress about it, but take steps to prepare for the eventuality.

I had to write a paper for every nursing class except one, which was actually a presentation that we posted on this website for other students in our group to read/review it. I'll give you a breakdown on the type of papers I had to write:

* Intro to Nursing: we had to write about an area of nursing that was interesting to us.

* Foundations 1: assessment paper. basically we did a review of systems and formulated two nursing diagnoses with interventions/outcomes.

* Foundations 2: basically the same paper as Foundations 1.

* Older Adults: case management paper. We took care of a patient in the hospital and after discharge we had to do a home visit and use at least 5 tools (such as assessing ADL's/IADL's, etc) to assess an elderly patient's progress from the hospital environment to the home environment.

* Mental Health: we had to write 2 process recordings.

* OB: we had to write a paper on a women's health issue...and honestly I don't remember too much after that.

* Adults: fluid & electrolyte paper. we had a patient, had to interpret their labs and come up with 4 nursing diagnoses: 2 pertaining to a fluid problem and 2 pertaining to an electrolyte problem. The paper had a heavy emphasis on pathophysiology related to F&Es. This was probably the most difficult (and also probably the best!) paper I have written.

* Critical Care: this was more like a case study format than a paper. We had a patient, had to get 3 days-worth of lab data (including ABG's and hemodynamic stuff) and interpret them, come up with 2 nursing diagnoses with interventions/outcomes. This paper also had a heavy emphasis on pathophysiology. We had include 5 of the most important medications the patient was on and perform a mcg/kg/min or mcg/min or mg/min calculation. We also had to provide an EKG strip and interpret the EKG.

* Peds: this is the class where I had to put together a presentation, though honestly I would have much rather have written a paper. My topic was accident & injury prevention from birth to adolescence (yeah, talk about BROAD! )

* Community Health: we had to perform a community assessment and come up with a community diagnosis and write about that. It was very pointless. I hated public health with a passion, but that is probably because of the way my class was taught!

* Preceptorship: each group had to come up with debatable topic and write about it. My group did drug testing for employees. Other examples were the healthcare reform, legalization of marijuana for medical use, stem cell research, and use of restraints.

* Nursing Research: we had a group paper. We had to formulate a research question and then do a review of literature to fill the gaps in knowledge, etc.

The only nursing classes that didn't require a paper were patho and pharm.

Melosaur made me remember that I wrote a paper for pharm as a small group project. Although I wouldn't consider this writing papers, we have done a lot of writing for our care plans.

I had to write a paper for every nursing class except one which was actually a presentation that we posted on this website for other students in our group to read/review it. I'll give you a breakdown on the type of papers I had to write:[/quote']

Yikes.. so this is what I have to look forward to! Thanks for the very detailed explanations I will be somewhat prepared.

Yikes.. so this is what I have to look forward to! Thanks for the very detailed explanations I will be somewhat prepared.

I know the Foundations 2 paper changed a bit from what one of my friends told me, and so did the OB paper, because I was trying to give him a heads up. Everything else should still be the same though!

Wow melosaur...sounds intense. I'm assuming this was for your BSN.

yeah this was for my BSN. It actually wasn't that bad, even though it seems that way lol.

At my school we don't write any kind of papers or do any kind of projects. We are told the state considers that "grade padding".

I guess they could give them to us as "busy work" but they haven't so far.

Also, I was worried about the math but I find its really no biggie.

At my school we don't write any kind of papers or do any kind of projects. We are told the state considers that "grade padding"

Wow- I have never heard of writing papers as grade padding before. Don't get me wrong, I'd be happy to never have to write another academic paper again, but how is something so foundational to learning considered 'grade padding'?