Scholarly and Professional Writing Search

Scholarly and Professional Writing Search

This is my first time exploring Walden University’s library resources, and I’m very impressed with the variety available for students. I’m sure that from now on I will be utilizing this library for my future writings. I chose to use ScienceDirect for the purpose of this post, but there are other great resources to choose from as well (Walden University Library, 2019). I searched for evidence-based and peer-reviewed nursing articles using the advanced search engine available and got several good articles. The one I chose was titled “Job satisfaction among nurse practitioners”.  The article was published in the Journal for Nurse Practitioners in 2005; so, a little outdated but I still thought it was a relevant and interesting read.  

In fact, the article is so interesting that I would like to share the gist of it with my colleagues and fellow future nurse practitioners. According to the article, a sample study of nurse practitioners was selected to participate – most of these nurses were family nurse practitioners, but other nurse practitioners participated in the study as well. The sample group was given a series of surveys consisting of questions related to job, clinical, and personal factors. Other similar studies mentioned in the article referred to these factors as intrinsic vs extrinsic. Job and clinical are examples of extrinsic factors. Job factors were considered work-related: hours worked, vacation time, sick policies, and paid education.

Clinical factors considered topics such as variety in patient age, diagnoses seen, amount of time spent with patients, and so on. Personal factors, which were considered intrinsic by the article, were represented by questions on demographic and quality of care given. At the end of study, the sample group was asked to rate the top 5 factors in order from what they considered to be most important to what they considered to be the least important (5 being most, 1 being least). Overall job satisfaction – reported as a percentage – was described as “extremely satisfied” at 85.8% (Miller et al., 2005). The selected sample group rated the quality of care they provided to their patients as the most important factor contributing to their job satisfaction.

Other factors important to this group included higher recognition of their expertise and higher levels of respect from their peers and patients. It is great study for both new and experienced nurses as well as for employers. New nurse can gain valuable knowledge of what to look for when searching for a new job, while an experienced nurse stuck in a less-than-desired work environment can learn of potential options and can use that to negotiate with their employers. For the employers themselves, this study can help them find ways to enhance the job satisfaction for their current work base, which will lead to higher job retention.

I could tell that the tone of writing in this article was both professional and scholarly. The professional tone came through given that the individuals selected for study were professional nurse practitioners, and the questions asked of them by were based on their establish work experience. The scholarly writing tone came through in the fact that it was clear, concise, fact-stating, and remaining unbiased (Laureate, 2018).

I liked this article very much; it gave me guidelines of what to look for in my search for new employment after graduation. I would recommend using the Walden Library for future scholarly searches and writing since it is well organized and easy to access. It contains a large amount of evidence-based and peer-reviewed nursing articles and studies that will certainly come in handy for future writhing assignments. One of the biggest problems I have when searching for reference to use is trying to find something that interests me enough to write about. Searching through the Walden Library resources helped me find several articles that I was interested in reading – it was even hard to pick just one. I also must admit that before taking this course and reading through the library resources, I had trouble distinguishing between scholarly and professional writing. So far, this course and Walden Library resources has provided me with great resources explaining that distinguishment very well. I honestly believe that I’m developing a great foundation to becoming a better writer.

Thank you for the information you provided through your search for evidence-based research. I have heard of treatments involving platelet-rich plasma (PRP) and was very curious to look into your selected article’s findings and to see it well supported by the literature. Thank you for bringing light to an excellent treatment option. Have you heard of these therapies utilized in biological dentistry, reproductive medicine, or orthopedics? What co