 So how I got started in my first publication was the encouragement of the director of my department. So I had led a very successful change process and she thought that it would be something that other nurse administrators would be interested in. So she was the one who really got me interested in publishing and writing about that particular process. I guess my first writing endeavor that turned into a completed publication was the result of work done in one of my early PhD courses. The key assignment of the course was to complete a review paper based on our own selected domain of knowledge that we'd wanted to investigate. And I completed that assignment. The faculty member of the course actually recommended that I develop an abstract around the paper and submit it for presentation at a professional conference and actually also had recommended a journal. So my first publication actually happened right after I graduated with my master's degree and at the time my chair was very adamant that I not consider myself finished until I actually had turned my thesis into a publication. And she insisted that I continue on and not stop until that got at least submitted somewhere. So I took her challenge and immediately after I graduated I really truly didn't let any time pass. I tried to turn that into a publication. Thankfully it got accepted. I think I had one revision and it got accepted. But I think the challenge for me was finding the time because it's always easy to come up with excuses while you don't have the time. And I remember thinking I have to get it done. It has to be a priority just like everything else. And luckily for me it got turned into a publication. I think having somebody with experience to help lead me through the whole thing. So she was the one who helped me kind of figure out what journal we should be targeting because nurse administration wasn't my area of specialty at the time. And she also kind of showed me author guidelines and really how to be successful. She had published quite a bit and so she helped me avoid the rookie mistakes. I had assignment guidelines so I was really following what had been set forth as far as course expectations for this particular paper. With some other papers that I've written that aren't necessarily reports of research findings, some of my strategies have been, first of all just sitting down and thinking through an outline, structuring what are the key take home messages that I want to communicate through that particular paper and then filling in the bullets, the sub-bullets so that I have a fairly complete outline and let's pull the pieces together and add the content. I do outline major sections. I think the key for me is to have an idea of what journal I want to submit to, make sure I'm really clear about who that journal is intended to reach, so who's the audience. And then all journals will have kind of an outline of what they want you to follow in terms of section headings. And so I always look and see, A, who is my intended audience and B, what are the requirements that that journal has. And then based on that, I kind of form my outline on the headings that the journal recommends. So typically it's introduction and background, what were the methods that you used, what are the results, discussions, implications for clinical practice or whatever. For me I think the strategy is just do it, do something. I mean people sit in front of a computer and I can't think of anything, I can't start writing. And I think even if you don't, you feel like you can't start at the beginning how you'd like to have a wonderful introductory paragraph, just start writing about the topic, what you know about that. It's really helpful for me to go through all the articles that I'm using kind of to get the background information. And I always start with a table. So my table is pretty classic. In the far left column I have what the reference is and then I have sample size, methodology, findings or results. And then my final column is how can I tie that into my manuscript. So every article I've ever written I have an accompanying table. And that way if I have to refer back to an article or I want to quote something, I don't have to sift through 15 copies of articles or relook them up. I already have the pertinent points on this sheet. I would say as a new author it really was helpful for me to have somebody with experience by my side. Definitely to help keep me motivated and kind of give me an idea of what to realistically expect for a timeline for me writing and then also the timeline to expect after things have been submitted and to understand the whole process and the rewriting process. It was very important for me because then I understood my experience in the context of a bigger experience. I would say if you can take some of your coursework and turn it into a publication, that's an easy way to get started I think part because you have to have completed the assignment as part of the coursework anyway so it's not just starting with a brand new idea but taking something you had to complete and then perhaps seeking additional faculty guidance on how you might further refine it based on the journal of choice, the type of publication, whether it's a case report, a review of the literature. I'm someone that for me I like examples so for good or for bad I'm probably too much of a rule follower myself when it comes to writing and sometimes I need to learn to think a little more creatively but my suggestion would be if I had a given topic area I was interested in and a given style of article so maybe a clinical review. I would take a look at other similar article styles that have been published in that journal and use them as a framework not necessarily thinking I need to organize precisely in this manner unless that's something that the journal's instructions say to do. I feel like I'm blessed because there are lots of people in the academic setting that can serve as mentors. I look for people that have successfully published I think both inside and outside of academic settings so I think if you have someone that you know has been a successful publisher there are great person to say I'm just starting out what advice would you give People are very free I think with their advice and their time because we want to mentor other people so I think finding someone who's been successful that seems to have managed it all and ask them how they did that and would they be willing to be a mentor is helpful. So I think mentors can be even people that we've interacted with in the past that have influenced us academically can still serve to influence us professionally after we're out of school. Before I entered academia I was in the service setting for 25 years to be honest other than my thesis for my masters. I didn't publish anything because no one had challenged me to and I feel like I missed out on some great opportunities. I mean I think of some projects that we did that I look back and I think that was I could have contributed to the science. I mean we did some amazing things clinically and I'm disappointed that I didn't take that opportunity to publish. I think because at the time you know you might think oh this is a great quality improvement project who would be interested in this but that's exactly what people are looking for is you see something and you can figure out a way to make it better and you don't think of writing it up and I think that's a disservice. I know even if you don't know get IRB approval first and then if you end up thinking this is really interesting I think other people might want to know about this then at least you've got that step done.