This document provides information about an academic writing workshop for a graduate certificate in nursing. It discusses various topics that will be covered in the workshop, including academic writing style, time management, research skills, citations, referencing, summarizing, and quoting from academic sources. The document also provides examples and guidance for students on how to plan and write their assignment, focusing on developing paragraphs with topic sentences, evidence from sources, citations, and a reference list. Timelines are given for completing steps like research, note-taking, and draft writing ahead of the assignment deadline.

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Grad. Cert. in Contemporary
Nursing
Academic Writing 3
Monday Oct 3: Academic Writing 1
An introduction to academic style, and support for academic
writing from Student Success at UNDA
Thursday Oct 6: Academic Writing 2
Time management, paragraph length and structure, and making a
paragraph plan
Thursday Oct 6: Academic Writing 2
Research, note-taking, summarising and quoting from academic
sources
What we will cover in this
class…
1. Review of workshop 2
2. Citations and references
3. Summarising from academic sources
4. Quoting from academic sources
5. Questions & time to start your research
PART 1
REVIEW OF WORKSHOP 2
You have less than 2 weeks to complete
assignment 2
MON TUES WEDS THURS FRI SAT SUN
22 23 24 26
TODAY
27 28 29
30 31 1 2 3 4 5
6 7
DUE
DATE
8 9 10 11 12
REVISE YOUR
DRAFT
WRITE YOUR DRAFT
MAKE NOTES
RESEARCH AND
ANALYSE
& PLAN
You should have a paragraph plan that
looks something like this:
Introduction: 1 brief paragraph (100 words – about 4 sentences)
Scenario 1: 4 - 6 paragraphs (150 – 200 words each – about five
to seven sentences)
– attributes of nursing leadership
– impact on nurse’s confidence & empowerment
– impact on patient care
Scenario 2: 4 - 6 paragraphs (150 - 200 words each – about five
to seven sentences)
– strategies to ensure patient safety
Conclusion: 1 brief paragraph (100 words – about 4 sentences)

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So, during the next 4 - 5 days, you need to find
information from the required sources and make
notes for each paragraph, so that you can write up
these notes over the following 4 - 5 days.
PART 2
CITATIONS AND REFERENCES
Like students in other disciplines,
nursing students have had to cope
with the difficulties of adjusting to
online learning (Gaffney et al.,
2021). The transition has been
especially difficult for nurses, given
the critical importance of clinical
practice as part of their
programmes. For those whose
placements have been cancelled
or delayed, this has caused high
levels of stress (Ramos-Morcillo
et al., 2020).
summary
citation
summary
citation
Extract from the example paragraph from
Academic Writing 2
In common with other areas of nursing practice, the effects of the
COVID-19 pandemic on nursing education have also been
complex and variable. Like students in other disciplines, nursing
students have had to cope with the difficulties of adjusting to online
learning (Gaffney et al., 2021). The transition has been especially
difficult for nurses, given the critical importance of clinical practice
as part of their programmes. For those whose placements have
been cancelled or delayed, this has caused high levels of stress
(Ramos-Morcillo et al., 2020). One US study reported that more
than one in ten nursing students were considering withdrawal as a
result (Michel et al., 2021). However, the same study reported that
for most student nurses, the pandemic has had a positive effect on
their self-esteem. A British study found that this positive effect was
particularly strong among nursing students who had the
opportunity to volunteer for extended placements. They felt proud
of being able to contribute and to learn new skills. At the same
time, they needed support to cope with the added stresses of
social isolation (Swift et al., 2020).
What does ‘et al.’ mean in these
citations?
‘et al.’ is short for the Latin words ‘et alli’, which
mean ‘and others’. Because it’s an abbreviation,
it is always followed by a dot, and then there’s a
comma and space before the year.
In APA 7th, if there are more than two authors,
you put the first author’s surname and ‘et al.’ in a
citation.
What about the names of the other
authors, not to mention the title of the
article etc – where can the reader find
those?
In the reference list which starts on a separate
page at the end of your assignment.
Here is an example for the paragraph we have
seen.

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References
Gaffney, M. K., Chargualaf, K. A., & Ghosh, S. (2021). COVID-19 disruption of nursing
education and the effects on students’ academic and professional confidence. Nurse
Educator, 46(2), 76–81. https://doi.org/10.1097/NNE.0000000000000986
Michel, A., Ryan, N., Mattheus, D., Knopf, A., Abuelezam, N. M., Stamp, K., Branson, S.,
Hekel, B., Fontenot, H. B. (2021). Undergraduate nursing students’ perceptions on
nursing education during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic: A national sample. Nursing
Outlook, 69(5), 903-912. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.outlook.2021.05.004.
Ramos-Morcillo, A. J. , Leal-Costa, C., Moral-Garcia, J. E., & Ruzafa-Martinez, M. (2020).
Experiences of nursing students during the abrupt change from face-to-face to e-learning
education during the first month of confinement due to COVID-19 in Spain. Int. J.
Environ. Res. Public Health, 17(15), 5519. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17155519
Swift, A., Banks, L., Baleswaran, A., Cooke, N., Little, C., McGrath, L., Meechan-Rogers, R.,
Neve, A., Rees, H., Tomlinson, A., & Williams, G. (2020). COVID-19 and student nurses: A
view from England. Journal of Clinical Nursing, 29(17-18), 3111-3114.
https://doi.org/10.1111/jocn.15298
How can you learn how to format your
citations and reference list correctly in
APA 7th?
A university librarian will be covering this in more
detail in a separate session on your programme
You can also see advice, examples and videos
on the UNDA website (and in many other places
on the web)
https://library.nd.edu.au/instruction/referencing/apa7
PART 3
SUMMARISING FROM
ACADEMIC SOURCES
As shown in the example paragraph from Part 2,
summarising is the main way to use information from
academic sources.
Summarising means:
– Explaining the point in your own words
– Putting in a citation / in-text reference when you’ve
finished
To summarise effectively, you need to:
1. Find relevant peer-reviewed articles (as well as the
Nursing Standards and Codes of Ethics)
2. Identify usable ideas, definitions and evidence
3. Make concise notes in your own words, from memory as
much as possible, so that you avoid ‘lifting’ phrases from
the original, and organize your notes according to the
paragraphs you are going to write
4. Write your own sentences using your notes, without
looking at the original article
5. Put in the citation to the original article

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Step 1: Find relevant peer-reviewed articles
Step 2: Identify usable ideas, definitions, & evidence

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Step 3: Make concise notes in your own words
TL = relevant for nursing because of its focus on the goals and ethics
of team members
T leaders achieve change by sharing their vision and communicating
this so that all team members are committed
TL works through:
example & expectations
motivating team members to achieve
support learning
empowerment
Step 4: Write sentences from your notes
Within Nursing, transformational leadership has
been recommended as an appropriate and effective
way of aligning individual and organisational goals
and activities. Transformational leadership involves
nursing leaders sharing their vision with team
members in order to draw upon the commitment
their team already has as members of an ethical
profession. Transformational nursing leaders need
to set high standards, motivate others to achieve
them, support them in their ongoing and, crucially,
empower them to take responsibility for their own
decisions.
Step 5: Put in the citation to the original article
Within Nursing, transformational leadership has been
recommended as an appropriate and effective way of
aligning individual and organisational goals and
activities. Transformational leadership involves nursing
leaders sharing their vision with team members in order
to draw upon the commitment their team already has
as members of an ethical profession. In order to achieve
this transformational nursing leaders need to set high
standards, motivate others to achieve them, support
them in the ongoing learning they need to do so and,
crucially, empower them to take responsibility for their
own decisions (Collins et al., 2020).
If the article was just written by Emma Collins
alone, what would the citation be?
…. (Collins, 2020).
And what if she had written the article just with
Patricia Owen, what would the citation be?
… (Collins & Owen, 2020).
If you wanted to include a single author in the
sentence, because they were important for some
reason, what would the citation be?
As Collins (2020) explains, transformative leadership is
….
According to Collins (2020), transformative leadership is
…

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And what if she had written the article with one
other author, notice the difference when instead of
inside brackets, the authors are in the sentence:
… (Collins & Owen, 2020).
As Collins and Owen (2020) explain, transformative
leadership is ….
PART 4
QUOTING FROM ACADEMIC
SOURCES
Quoting (i.e. copying some words directly from the source)
is much less common in academic writing than summarizing
in your own words.
Quoting is mainly used to provide a brief definition of a key
term or to include the exact words of a Nursing Standard or
an element of a Code of Practice.
If you do decide to copy a phrase or sentence from the original
article, it needs:
• to be kept as short as possible, so that it is usually ‘dropped
into’ a sentence that you have started in your own words
• to have double quotation marks before and after
• to have the number of the page (or section) it was taken from
included with the citation
Let’s say you want to write a definition of empowerment, copying
something from this text:
First choose the phrase you are going to quote:

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Then start writing your sentence and fit the quote naturally
in the middle, inside double quotation marks.
In relation to patient safety, empowerment may be
defined as “the extent to which nurses possess the
power to influence the behaviours of those around
them”.
It comes from page 13 of this article:
What is the complete citation that we need to write?
Finally, put in the citation, including the page number,
before the full stop.
In relation to patient safety, empowerment may be
defined as “the extent to which nurses possess the
power to influence the behaviours of those around them”
(Richardson & Storr, 2010, p. 13).
PART 5
QUESTIONS & TIME TO START
YOUR RESEARCH