| Course | NR 351 Foundational Concepts for the Practicing RN |
|---|---|
| Week | 1 |
| Paper type | Introduction discussion post with reply |
| Length | About 530 words |
| Format | Discussion post with APA 7 citations |
| School | Chamberlain University |
| Program | RN-to-BSN |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for NR 351 Week 1
Week 1 Discussion: Introductions and Returning to Study
Nine Years of Telemetry, and a Reference List I Have Never Written
Initial Post
Hello, everyone. I am a registered nurse with nine years of experience, all of it on an adult cardiac telemetry unit in a community hospital, where I now work night shift and precept new graduates. I earned my associate degree in nursing and went straight to work, and until this term I had not written an academic paper since my prerequisites more than a decade ago.
My reason for starting the bachelor's degree now is specific. Our hospital has begun requiring a bachelor's degree for charge nurse and educator roles, and I want to move into the unit educator position within two years. The requirement did not come out of nowhere. The Institute of Medicine (2011) called for 80 percent of the registered nurse workforce to hold a bachelor's degree by 2020, citing research linking a more highly educated nursing workforce with better patient outcomes, including a study that found lower surgical patient mortality in hospitals where a larger share of nurses held bachelor's degrees (Aiken et al., 2003). I will admit that my first reaction to the requirement was frustration, because I felt my experience already covered what a degree would teach. Reading that study for this post, I started to see the argument differently: the claim is about what a workforce knows collectively, not about any one nurse.
My main academic concern is citation. I am comfortable writing a clear nursing note, but I have never built a reference list, and APA formatting already looks like a separate language to me. I expect to be slow at finding scholarly sources that are not simply the first search result, and slower still at judging which are good. My goal for this course is to write one paper where every in-text citation matches a reference-list entry and my instructor finds no formatting errors on the title page or reference list. That is modest, but I can check whether I have met it. I also expect the course to change how I read the research articles our unit educator posts, which until now I have skimmed for the conclusion.
For classmates coming back after a long gap: what have you found helps most with APA? I have heard some people use the university library's citation guide and others use citation software, and I would like to know which is less likely to produce errors I will not notice.
Reply to a Classmate
Your worry about finding time to write after twelve-hour shifts is one I share, and I think your plan to write for thirty minutes before each shift instead of after is a good one. I would add one thing I learned from precepting: new nurses do better when they finish one small task completely rather than starting several. You might try making each thirty-minute session about one part of the paper only, the introduction on Monday, one source on Wednesday, so that each session ends with something done. Have you worked out which days of the week you will actually have those thirty minutes?
References
Aiken, L. H., Clarke, S. P., Cheung, R. B., Sloane, D. M., & Silber, J. H. (2003). Educational levels of hospital nurses and surgical patient mortality. JAMA, 290(12), 1617-1623. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.290.12.1617
Institute of Medicine. (2011). The future of nursing: Leading change, advancing health. The National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/12956
NR 351 Week 1 instructions, in plain terms
In the NR 351 opening forum you present yourself as a practicing nurse, explain why you are pursuing the BSN and identify what you expect from the course. The checklist generally covers your clinical background, your reasons for returning to school, an academic strength or concern, a goal, a source in APA and an answer to one peer. Keep the introduction professional: setting, years and role rather than family history. Give one specific reason for the degree now. Name your academic concern precisely, such as citation or judging sources. Set a goal someone could check. Format your sources in APA from the first week. Reply with a practical suggestion and a question.
Inside the NR 351 Week 1 example
The post opens with nine years on an adult cardiac telemetry unit in a community hospital, night shift and precepting. The second paragraph explains the hospital's new bachelor's requirement for charge and educator roles and the goal of the unit educator position within two years, with the Institute of Medicine's 80 percent target and Aiken and colleagues' surgical mortality study explaining the requirement. The third names citation as the main concern: comfortable writing a nursing note, never having built a reference list. The goal is one paper in which every citation matches the reference list and the title page and references carry no errors. The fourth asks classmates who returned after a long gap what helps most with APA, the library's guide or citation software. The reply to a classmate supports writing before shifts and adds a tip from precepting.
Where the points sit in the NR 351 Week 1 rubric
Introduction discussions in the RN-to-BSN program are usually graded on answering each part of the prompt, professional presentation, reflection on goals, use of a scholarly source, peer interaction and APA, with timely posting. Answering every part earns the most, and this post covers background, reasons, concern and goal in that order. Professional presentation is credited for describing the setting and role in general terms rather than personal life. The goal row scores when the goal can be checked, which a specific educator role does. Two correctly formatted sources meet the scholarly and APA rows in a week when many students skip them. The peer response scores because it offers the precepting tip and ends on a question.
NR 351 Week 1 help from the desk
The most common loss on this post is the biography, several paragraphs of personal history with nothing professional or academic in them. A second is ignoring the academic part of the prompt, so the post never says what the student expects to find hard. Goals such as "become a better nurse" cannot be checked. Many students also skip citation in Week 1, which costs APA points that are easy to earn. Replies that only welcome the classmate add nothing for the peer row. Keep employer names and patient details out of the post. If you have been away from school for many years and are unsure how to start, tell us your background and an NR 351 introduction can be planned with you.
Get a NR 351 Week 1 example written to your instructions
Send the Week 1 prompt from your classroom along with a few lines about your own background, and a custom example is written to that prompt and returned inside 24 to 48 hours. The first one is free. Your own introduction stays yours to write from it.
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NR 351 Week 1 questions, answered
How personal should the introduction be?
Professional first, personal second, and brief in both. A line about family or interests is normal where the prompt invites it, and pages of it are not. The safe test is whether a colleague reading the post would learn something relevant about you as a nurse and a student, which is what the section is being introduced to.
Does week one really need APA?
Check the prompt, because many sections require it from the start and grade it. Where a reference is asked for, formatting it correctly in the first week is the cheapest mark in the course. Where it is not required, a correctly formatted one does no harm and sets the habit the rest of the term depends on.
What if I have been out of school for twenty years?
Say so plainly, since a large share of the section is in the same position and instructors expect it. What reads badly is either apologizing at length or claiming no difficulty at all. Naming one specific thing you expect to find hard is more useful to you and more interesting to a classmate than either.
Where can I find a free NR 351 Week 1 sample paper?
This page has the complete Week 1 introduction post from a telemetry nurse returning to study, the citation concern, the question for classmates, the reply and two APA references.
Why does the NR 351 Week 1 post cite sources in an introduction?
The course begins teaching APA in the first week, and two correctly formatted sources on BSN education show the habit early while supporting the writer's reason for the degree.