At the 2016 Master's Essentials Conference, the editor of Nurse Educator, Marilyn H. Oermann, delivered a keynote address entitled "Are Nurse Faculty Prepared for Their Role?" The short answer is no. The role of nursing faculty has become more demanding, and there are many new teaching strategies and delivery methods for educators to learn. The role of developing a scholarly practice takes time. Scholarly writing, in particular, stands out as an area that warrants more discussion. In prelicensure nursing education, writing is geared primarily toward clear communication about the patient. This matures in the graduate program to clear communication about evidence-based practice projects and research as well as clinical practice and leadership. What about the instructors responsible for grading these assignments? Are they competent in their literacy skills? There is still much lament about the inability of students to write, and this continues into the graduate level. Common themes of writing woes include subject-verb agreement, changing tenses within a paragraph, use of passive sentences, and spelling errors. In graduate nursing programs, these students often become nurse educators and may not have scholarly writing skills themselves to help their students learn to write.

Some faculty think that writing ability is not that important. Many are not aware that it is one of the competencies in the Information Literacy Competency Standards for Nursing.1,2 Suggestions for helping faculty include pairing up a new faculty member with someone who is competent in writing and evaluating writing. Writing coaches are also an option. Librarians are perfect coaches in literature searches as well. Sometimes seasoned faculty also can use some assistance. As Dr. Oermann said, "Everybody needs a mentor for teaching."

Submitted by: Alma Jackson, PhD, RN, COHN-S, News Editor atmailto:[email protected].

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