What's with ...

Columnist · Jan 5, 2015

There are so many members here who write so well, so incisively, and so perceptively, and for free. Why pay someone else for a (so far) largely inferior product? Why not "pay" people here with, oh, free membership for good writing, even if it is anonymous? (I'm looking at you, Cheese Potato-- well, I would if I could see you. Where've you been? And so many others, from pre-nursing through and into old-bat-hood ...) Most of them don't feel the need to have some citation for a post on a nursing board (developed for entertainment value alone) on their CVs. I certainly wouldn't.

I agree with the posters above who note that much of the paid writing here seems superficial. Hell, I could dash of some of those things in my sleep. And one "author" (whose name I will not mention because I cannot remember it, and I wouldn't anyway) posted a piece that looked suspicious, so I ran through the plagiarism-detection software I use as an editor IRL. It came up 100% cut-and-pasted from online sources, not even an attempt to paraphrase, and most of those sources not credited. (Although the "author" did include the original citations included in the plagiarized material, (!!!), perhaps an attempt at looking like real work?) Bah. You can fool some of the people some of the time ...

I am hopefully assuming that since that article has been withdrawn (after I whined about it, and thank you for doing so) that AN will be making some attempt on quality control for the future.

AN really does have a lot of talent here already. I don't see why you would feel it necessary to solicit and pay contributors for this sort of thing. Reward the good people who help so many folks here out of the goodness of their hearts and love of the profession, why dontcha?

Members are always welcome and encouraged to write. Yes we have excellent articles by our staff and some of our members. However......we do not have enough articles. We have conducted article contests in order to encourage more articles. The fact is....we need more articles. You are encouraged to write articles which you think are about topics that members are looking for. And....as I said before, if there are specific articles that you or anyone else feel are "superficial".,please let me know via private message. Posting broad statements is not help. I cannot do anything to improve situations unless I know specifics.

Re. the article to which you are referring....that was written by a new member.....NOT a writer....and has been addressed. If you see questionable content, the best and most efficient way to notify staff is to report it rather than discuss it on the thread where it might be missed by staff.

Columnist · Jan 5, 2015

I feel like AN's heart is in the right place by wanting to increase the amount of articles and the number of writers here, but I also feel that you all could have turned to your own members with offers of free or discounted membership, as suggested above, and gotten higher-quality content.

The nurse writers position was posted here on the site anticipating we would get several applications. But that didn't happen, so we needed to open it for others outside of allnurses. We received well over 100 applications.

As posted earlier, we encourage our members to write articles. All you have to do is follow the criteria found in How to Submit an Article. The link can be found at the bottom of every page.

As Community Manager, I personally have contacted some of our members who have written quality articles and encouraged them to apply for a nurse writer position. Most have declined the invitation. If you want to write articles, please do. If you would like to apply to be a nurse writer, please apply. We are still taking applications. We base our hiring decisions on many factors, including writing samples. If you have already written articles for allnurses, you are many steps ahead in the process.

Columnist · Jan 5, 2015

Possibly because most of them (not all, but most) don't have very much experience in nursing: 2,3,4 years for the majority. Check the bios.

The one that has been a nurse for the longest has not worked in nursing in any capacity (as far as I can tell from her LinkedIn profile) for a really long time; although she seems to have a very successful coaching and self-help business, her degrees are not in nursing. She probably has some useful things to say, but again, not necessarily about nursing.

We hired writers from all backgrounds, education levels, and specialties because we want a variety of articles to reach our huge membership who have varied interests. Article preference is similar to people's preference with books; some want lighter reading, some more in depth. Others are interested in self-help topics; others want to be entertained. One size does not fit all with the writer, the article, or the reader.

Successful writing is not guaranteed just because you have decades of nursing experience.

A&Ox6, MSN, RN · Jan 5, 2015

I wonder whether the reason that articles aren't submitted as often by members is because of the lack of incentive. For example, if I submit an article for the contests, I have a very low chance of getting paid for it, but because allnurses.com now owns the content I can't submit it elsewhere.

Maybe it would help if all submissions could be considered individually for payment. I personally would love to be able to afford to submit my articles.

Also, even if payment was not in cash, other incentives such as membership credits would definitely make it more worthwhile for me to submit my content.

Columnist · Jan 5, 2015

I wonder whether the reason that articles aren't submitted as often by members is because of the lack of incentive. For example, if I submit an article for the contests, I have a very low chance of getting paid for it, but because allnurses.com now owns the content I can't submit it elsewhere.
Maybe it would help if all submissions could be considered individually for payment. I personally would love to be able to afford to submit my articles.
Also, even if payment was not in cash, other incentives such as membership credits would definitely make it more worthwhile for me to submit my content.

Excellent input!

We are definitely open to suggestions for incentives for articles. Feel free to post more ideas for this.

**LibraSunCNM, BSN, MSN, CNM** · Jan 5, 2015

The nurse writers position was posted here on the site anticipating we would get several applications. But that didn't happen, so we needed to open it for others outside of allnurses. We received well over 100 applications.
As posted earlier, we encourage our members to write articles. All you have to do is follow the criteria found in How to Submit an Article. The link can be found at the bottom of every page.
As Community Manager, I personally have contacted some of our members who have written quality articles and encouraged them to apply for a nurse writer position. Most have declined the invitation. If you want to write articles, please do. If you would like to apply to be a nurse writer, please apply. We are still taking applications. We base our hiring decisions on many factors, including writing samples. If you have already written articles for allnurses, you are many steps ahead in the process.

Thanks for the info!

nurseprnRN, BSN, RN · Jan 5, 2015

Successful writing is not guaranteed just because you have decades of nursing experience.

Certainly true. But a certain level of depth may be. Not to say that newbies can't communicate deep feelings and topics; I don't think that's what we're talking about here. I just don't see the context, I guess.

What's the urgency about getting more articles per se? Is there a lack of material on AN? Too few provocative threads? Is there a fall-off in membership / income, or absolute numbers or posts, or of posters? Do you need more pot-stirring? (OK, these can be taken as rhetorical questions if nobody wants to answer them.) It looks like there's plenty to go around here, allowing for the ebb and flow of most online communities and the idea that students are off on vacation at regular intervals, so their participation declines during vacations.

As for the pot-stirring, that's in the eye of the beholder (as we know), and in any event certainly generates a lot of participation (and ok, more heat than light sometimes). I believe that for every person who stamps his/her electronic feet and says, "I'm outta here, NETY NETY NETY," there are a dozen more who stay and are emboldened to post more mature content, although somebody has probably done the AN equivalent of sabermetrics on that and I could be wrong. But we do know, in this age of customer satisfaction surveys, that "customer satisfaction" isn't always congruent with "good nursing care being delivered." Tell that guy in the bed that he is really NPO and cannot has cheezburger, or the woman that grandma cannot have that ice cream and cake because her BG is already 280, and see how your Press-Gainey looks. So here.

I dunno, I'm just not seeing the advantage either to AN's considerable bottom line or the quality of the community discourse from what we've seen so far from your paid columnists. If you really want to pay people for whatever randomness flows off the ends of their fingertips, feel free to send some my way, though. You know where to find me (or at least my billing statement) :)

Tenebrae, BSN, RN · Jan 5, 2015

WGU is a low-cost option here in the US, especially compared to other online schools. Tuition is $3,250 per six-month term, which means I will be paying less than $6,000 for my BSN degree. I paid a lower prorated rate for my second term, which is why I'll pay less than $6,000.
I know of others who have paid in the $20,000 to $30,000 range in tuition for online BSN degree programs, so WGU is a lower cost option.

Yikers.......

I did my bachelor of nursing at a zero fees insitution. The biggest cost was a $1000 a year materials cost.

Even at other insitutions with full fees they only pay around $6-7000 a year

klone, MSN, RN · Jan 6, 2015

Hey tnbutterfly and Joe and all the other admins - I just want to say that I really do appreciate you guys and the work you do here. As I come home from work to a sullen teenager who does nothing lately but complain, I kind of feel like we're a bunch of teenagers here, just ********, but not really providing a lot of solutions or suggestions. So I wanted to say that as much as I might *****, I really do appreciate this website (except my inner trucker gets a little annoyed at the asterisks at times ).

Columnist · Jan 6, 2015

Thanks, Klone! I appreciate that.

Ya know.......you hit the nail on the head.

anon456, BSN, RN · Jan 6, 2015

I appreciate that some people feel they received a good education from them (though really, how would you know until you got out in the workforce to use it?). We'll see.

What about the ones who are already in the workplace and are forces to get BSNs?

I work with several strong, experienced nurses who have obtained that RN to BSN through WGU. Several have gone on to obtain their master's so they can make the step to manager. Most have full-time jobs, children, and other responsibilities. They are already strong nurses but no one seems to care these days if they only have an ADN and 10 more years experience.

Through WGU they can get those BSN letters after their name from an accredited program. It works around their schedules, and there are no group projects to deal with (those never go well), and get to keep their jobs when all is said and done. It's not the most prestigious program in the world, but gets those letters after our names so we can keep our jobs. It IS fairly inexpensive compared to most programs out there, at least in my area.

And for the record, although learning about the history of nursing and theories of nursing and all that has been enlightening, it has not made me a better bedside nurse.

TheCommuter, BSN, RN · Jan 6, 2015

I did my bachelor of nursing at a zero fees insitution.

Zero-fees institutions do not exist in the United States. Unless the student can prove that he/she lives in abject poverty, everyone in the US pays for their college educations (if they choose to attend).