 As you refine your writing style and you work at your writing, the most important thing to remember in journal writing is that you're not writing a term paper. And there's some important differences between term papers and journal articles. And one first difference is that in journal articles, you're making a synopsis of the literature, whereas sometimes in term papers, your faculty asked you to one by one, perhaps, summarize each individual reference that you've used. But in journal articles, the literature is a synopsis, a synopsis of what is known, what is not known, and how your paper, your study, your project filled that gap. Another important difference between term papers and journal articles is that in journal articles, we use headings to break up the text, which you probably didn't use in your term paper. So look at your targeted journal. Look at the type of headings they use. Some journals like all their headings to begin with action words, particularly for clinical articles, but somehow the text will be broken up. So begin to incorporate your own headings into your paper. If you're writing a clinical paper, you need to emphasize what are the clinical implications of your topic? What are your implications for practice? What is the practicing nurse need to know about your topic? Be sure as you're writing that you're keeping that targeted audience in mind. Don't get distracted trying to write for a secondary audience. What does your target audience already know about this topic? What do they need to know? What's new? How will you convey that information at what depth for your target audience? Journal writing style uses selected references, whereas when you wrote a term paper, you may have had the urge to reference every sentence because you were afraid to be accused of plagiarism. We certainly want you to reference journal articles, but we do that in an appropriate way. We do that when you're using ideas from others, even though you have put it in your own words. Journal articles use very few direct quotes, unless it's something so classic that you have to quote how it was said by the original author. Whereas often in term papers, students will list many, many direct quotes. But avoid that. I can tell you I received a paper once that was almost entirely direct quotes, all from the same book. And so that was a paper that was unacceptable in a journal. You want to include your tables, figures, photographs, charts. Be sure you have those included. They help the reader. They may be a good summary of key points. They may have an illustration that will show up a device. They may be a model that you're illustrating the relationship between different concepts in a model. But these are very helpful in journal articles that often may not appear in term papers. Another important tip in writing journal articles is to use simple, clear language. As an editor, you can easily spot a novice author because they think by going to the Tsarist and hitting the most complex, long, convoluted words that we as editors will be impressed. We won't. We will send the paper back and say, turn this back into simple, clear, concise language. Another important tip in writing your journal article is to stay within the page limits for that journal. If the author guidelines say that they will not accept papers more than 20 pages double-spaced, it's not good to send a 30-page paper. You may think, oh, well, if 20 is good, 30 must be better. It's not. Your paper will be returned to you to reduce it by 10 pages. So there's no point wasting your time making a paper much longer than the author guidelines allow. When you're writing, you want to look closely at the journal to see what writing style they use. Do they use first person, which would be I and we? Do they use second person, where they talk directly to the audience, to the reader, with words like, assess the patient every four hours? You should check their vital signs before they go to the operating room. Or does the journal write in the third person? That would be the nurse monitors the patient every four hours. So be sure you're writing in first, second, or third person that's consistent with that journal's style. You must also use the reference style of the journal. Many journals will use what's called the American Medical Association Referencing Style. And I'm sure you've seen that when you've read journal articles. That's where you see a superscript number at the end of the sentence, and then you go to the reference page and that reference has a number. Some journals use APA style. But the point is you must know the style of the targeted journal and you must write in that style. The journal's not going to do that for you. I received a paper once for my journal. And the journal I was doing at that time used AMA style. And the author sent the whole paper in in APA style. I returned the paper to the author and said, you're going to need to change your referencing and the whole formatting of the paper. And a response to me was, well, I'm just too busy. You'll have to do that for me. Let me assure you that editors don't have the time to do that for you. So that is your responsibility as the author. And there are software packages to help you take your reference list and put it right into the style that's required of the journal. Another writing tip I would give you is to avoid use of the passive voice and instead write in the active voice. And let me refresh your memory of what the difference is. Active voice would be, John read the book. Passive voice is, the book was read by John. Most writing, we encourage you always to use the active voice. And on our computers, when we write in Microsoft Word, you may have noticed that sometimes the sentences are underlined. And it gives you the option to change your sentence to active voice. Active voice means the doer of the action is the subject of the sentence. John read the book. So please turn your paper into active voice and avoid the use of passive voice. Unfortunately, too often in nursing writing, we tend to write in passive voice. The vital signs are monitored by the nurse every four hours. That's passive voice. Instead, we would write, the nurse monitors the vital signs every four hours. I know this next tip might sound simple, but believe me as an editor, I need to say it. Only one idea per paragraph. I have received papers where one paragraph is five or six type pages long. That's just too much. That's not one idea. So one idea per paragraph, each paragraph has an opening sentence that introduces the topic of that paragraph and the paragraphs have transitions between them. Another tip for good writing is that all abbreviations used in the paper must be defined the first time they're used. Even if you think the entire world knows what CPR means, or IVs, or the OR, all terminology must be defined. I'll tell you a story of a person I know who submitted her paper and she used the abbreviation the AV valves. And what she was really referring to was the atrioventricular valves of the heart, but she never defined AV. The editor thought AV meant arterial venous. Unfortunately, the author didn't proofread the final version of her paper, so the paper was published with the entire wrong meaning of AV valves. So be sure you define all abbreviations the first time they're used. Another writing tip is to avoid starting sentences with the word it, or this, or the phrase, it's important to note that. When you start a sentence with just it or this, it can be distracting to the reader to try to remember what you're referring to. What did it mean? What is this? So say instead this book, say what the this is. Never start a sentence with it's important to note that. If it wasn't important, it wouldn't be in your paper. So all your sentence should be important to note. So avoid that kind of language in your paper. Please, please use your computer spell check. It's simple to use, but I can't really begin to tell you how many papers I get that have never had spell check run on the paper and there's lots of errors. But in addition to spell check, you need to proofread the paper because we've probably all had experiences where the word is spelled properly, but it's the wrong word. So be sure to carefully proofread your manuscript before you submit to the journal. Next you want to be sure in your paper that you refer to your tables and your figures. They must be mentioned in the text with phrases like as shown in figure one. Or a sentence, please see table four for an additional description of the pathophysiology associated with the signs and symptoms. It's essential that you do this so that the reader has the option then to stop and go to that table or figure. But it's also incredibly helpful to the person who's going to do the layout of your article so that they can put the tables and figures close to that reference sighting in your paper. For a table, you always place the title at the top of the table and for a figure, you always place the title at the bottom of the figure. When you're writing your tables and figures, if you're using abbreviations within the figure or within a table, it is important that you define those abbreviations in what's called a legend or a line at the bottom of the figure or the bottom of the table, even if those abbreviations were already defined within the text. Again, it's there to help the reader who just wants to skim your paper, look at your tables or look at your figures and be able to understand what it means. Most journal author guidelines ask you to place each table or chart and each figure on a separate page at the end of the manuscript, usually double spaced. Do not embed your tables and your figures within the paper. So carefully read your author guidelines, but I suspect most are going to tell you each table, each figure on a separate page at the end of the manuscript. As I've mentioned in an earlier module, it is essential that you get permission for any work for which you have directly lifted a table or figure or even if you have adapted a table or a figure, you must obtain permission. And the author guidelines or your editor or your publisher can help you do that if you're unfamiliar, but you get the permission from the publisher of the work, not the author of the book chapter or the author of the journal article. The publisher holds the copyright and therefore it is from the publisher that you obtain the permission. So you go on the publisher's website and usually on the website is a link where you request for permissions, a little permissions department, and they have a form for you to complete and they make it pretty easy. Now the question may be, are they going to give you a bill for use of that figure or table? Are they going to charge you or allow you to use it for free? If they bill you, you may want to decide whether or not now it's worth the expense that table or figure because you as the author will pay for that, not the publisher of the journal. It's up to the author to pay for it. So my advice to you is if you're searching for a figure or a table, try to go to the same publisher that publishes the journal. For instance, my journal is published by Elsevier, the journal which I edit. So I would encourage an author to go to an Elsevier publication because they're much less likely to charge you to use the work.