CHEAT SHEET FOR YOUR FINAL PAPER.

6021 - I know this stuff is in the book… really…

Items requiring attention:

1) Title page No running head required. Name of the paper should be bold. There
should be an extra space between the title of the paper and your name. You should not
have any initials after your name. There should be Department of Nursing, William
Paterson University under your name. There should be NUR 6021 (800 or 801), Nursing
Research Strategies under WPUNJ line. Then Dr or Professor Name under that, and
then the date.
2) Background - The background is comprised of only facts – so every sentence should be
cited. The first paragraph (of 6 or more sentences) should not be a quote, it should be
facts paraphrased from an article or website that explain the big problem. The second
paragraph, also using citations for the sentence, should be zeroing in on the problem
you have discovered and want to examine.
3) Literature review: Each of the three paragraphs in the lit review should deal with a
separate research paper. If you have not been using a research paper, then at least one
of the three articles must be a research paper. You will minimally provide a sentence
for the background, a sentence for the design and sample, a sentence for the results and
a sentence or two for their conclusion. If it is not a research paper you will identify the
problem they were examining and the outcomes they identified. DO NOT QUOTE THE
ARTICLE. This is a review. Also, your professor is looking at your writing, not theirs.
4) Aim Purpose: The aim is to examine… not to prove. You are examining if what you
hypothesize will turn out to be true after doing the research.
5) Hypothesis. Not a question. It is what you think you might find.
6) Research question: One sentence. A question. You can include your PICO if it makes it
easier for you to write up the question, but the question must be there.
7) Methods: Qualitative or Quantitative? What kind of design? (See below). What
sample? How many? What setting? What time frame?
8) Analysis: This will depend on your methods.
9) Importance to nursing – I will accept the importance of research to nursing or the
importance of your research topic to nursing, but make a case for yourself.
10) APA references – please go to
https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/apa_style/apa_formatting_and_styl
e_guide/apa_sample_paper.html
Seriously, the whole APA 7 format is there and really easy to do. It is not where you
should miss any points.
METHODS:
IF
1) You are going to interview people about what they believe, think, do and look for
themes you are doing Qualitative Methods
2) You are going to conduct focus groups about what the participants believe, think, do
and look for themes you are doing Qualitative Methods
CHEAT SHEET FOR YOUR FINAL PAPER. 6021 - I know this stuff is in the book… really…

DESIGNS:
IF YOU ARE USING NUMBERS you are doing Quantitative analysis
IF
1) You are not going to do anything but conduct a survey one time to see what people
believe, think, do and that survey only allows the participant to choose an answer from
a list of answers (like in a Likert Survey) , you are doing Cross sectional, non-
experimental, descriptive design.
a. Demographics can be used to compare two or more groups.
b. The outcome variable is what is being measured by the survey
2) You have two groups and are going to implement a class or (some other intervention) to
one of them and then compare if the class worked, you are doing a quasi-experimental
design.
a. You will have your demographics
b. You will have the independent variable (which would be the intervention)
c. You will have the dependent or outcome variable (which would be the change).
3) You have an intervention that you will be conducting in a laboratory where you can
control all the variables, you are doing a true experiment. No one is doing a true
experiment.
SAMPLE: Purposive (there is a specific quality you are using to recruit)
Random (anyone can be recruited)
Convenience ( You have access to this group of people so you are using them)
Snowball (You use one person to bring others in – usually for qualitative interviews).
Setting: where is this going to happen
Time frame: When is the study going to happen.
ANALYSIS – depends on the design

I know all of this information is in the text book but now here it is on a cheat sheet. Please use
this to make your paper as good as possible… even in its first draft!