Inside Higher Ed: Who Controls Journals?

“Who controls journals?” asks an article in the online Insider Higher Ed (7 July 2009):

As more journals shift from being run by university presses and scholarly societies to corporate entities, the goal is better management, better sales (since packages of journals are frequently sold together) and economies of scale. The fear of some involved in journal publishing is that corporate interests will limit the role of scholars in making key decisions.

On Monday, both the promise and concerns about corporate management of scholarly journals were evident. Sage Publishing announced that it would start publishing (but not owning) the flagship journal in sociology — American Sociological Review — along with seven other journals that until now have been directly published by the American Sociological Association. The move by sociologists follows by two years a similar announcement by the American Anthropological Association that it was shifting its journals from the University of California Press to Wiley-Blackwell.

The entire article (linked above) is accessible to all without subscription.

6,000 and Counting!

NursingWriting has just surpassed its six-thousandth visit since its July 2008 inauguration, thanks to you.

We are grateful to the many journal editors who have submitted calls for submissions to us and to the many nurse writers (both scholarly research writers and creative personal writers) who have visited and commented.

Usage stats for the past quarter are interesting.

By far the most visited and read blog posting: a call for submissions from Ars Medica, a Canadian journal of creative writing about health and healing (126 visits).

By far the most frequently “clicked” external link: Ars Medica, a Canadian journal of creative writing about health and healing (57 clicks).

By far the most frequently used search term: some version of “ars medica,” a Canadian journal of creative writing about health and healing (used 66 times).

We look forward to discovering more personal and creative writing by nurses in the future!

How To: Lit Reviews

A brief article “The Literature Review” by Nancy Rivenburgh, associate professor of communication at the University of Washington, in the Mentor Memo feature of Inside Higher Ed for June 10, 2009, offers a concise explanation of the purposes of this genre and some guidelines for writing a lit review. Readers also offer some helpful advice in the comments section of the article.

Chronicle: NIH Is Deluged With 21,000 Grant Applications for Stimulus Funds

According to a report in today’s Chronicle of Higher Education:

The National Institutes of Health has received about 21,000 applications for its main category of grants through the federal economic-stimulus measure, both thrilling and overwhelming agency reviewers responsible for evaluating the proposals and distributing the money.

“The response has been extraordinary,” Antonio Scarpa, director of the NIH’s Center for Scientific Review, said at an agency conference here on Monday.

The numbers are causing concern for the present, as each application requires an average of three reviewers working 12 hours apiece, Dr. Scarpa told agency representatives. And the numbers are a source of concern for the future, as about 99 percent of applications will be denied, and many of those could be resubmitted later, he said.

“This is not sustainable,” he told the meeting of the NIH’s Peer Review Advisory Committee.

The article is on line for subscribers.

Walt Whitman’s Birthday (May 31)

Yesterday, May 31, marked Walt Whitman’s birthday. Whitman served as a nurse in military hospitals in Washington, DC, during the Civil War. Here is an excerpt from his poem, “The Wound Dresser.”

On, on I go, (open doors of time! open hospital doors!)

The crush’d head I dress (poor crazed hand tear not the bandage away),

The neck of the cavalry-man with the bullet through and through I examine,

Hard the breathing rattles, quite glazed already the eye, yet life struggles hard

(Come sweet death! be persuaded O beautiful death!

In mercy come quickly).

 

From the stump of the arm, the amputated hand,

I undo the clotted lint, remove the slough, wash off the matter and blood,

Back on his pillow the soldier bends with curv’d neck and side-falling head,

His eyes are closed, his face is pale, he dares not look on the bloody stump,

And has not yet look’d on it.

 

I dress a wound in the side, deep, deep,

But a day or two more, for see the frame all wasted and sinking,

And the yellow-blue countenance see.

I dress the perforated shoulder, the foot with the bullet-wound,

Cleanse the one with a gnawing and putrid gangrene, so sickening, so offensive,

While the attendant stands behind aside me holding the tray and pail.

 

I am faithful, I do not give out,

The fractur’d thigh, the knee, the wound in the abdomen,

These and more I dress with impassive hand (yet deep in my breast a fire, a burning flame).

 

The complete poem may be found at:

http://www.bartleby.com/42/818.html

CFS: Mental Health/Inpatient & Acute Care

Issues in Mental Health Nursing seeks submissions for a special issue: Inpatient/Acute Care Psychiatric Environments

Manuscripts are being sought on contemporary issues in the area of inpatient/acute care psychiatric environments. Potential topics of interest include care quality, patient or family-centered care, psychiatric/mental health nursing workforce issues, consumer or patient perspectives, violence, and seclusion and restraint. Manuscripts may be research focused (qualitative or quantitative), practice oriented, or theoretical or conceptual in nature and may address needs or issues across the life span.

Deadline: Manuscripts must be received by July 1, 2009.

Please send all queries and manuscripts to: Kathleen R. Delaney, PhD, RN, PMH-NP, Professor of Nursing, Rush College of Nursing, Phone: 312-942-6208, Fax: 312- 942-2549. Email: Kathleen_R_Delaney@rush.edu

and

Mona M. Shattell, PhD, RN, Assistant Professor, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, School of Nursing, PO Box 26170, Moore Building, Greensboro, NC 27402, Office Phone: (336) 256-0379. Email: mona.shattell@gmail.com,

Manuscripts must be submitted through Manuscript Central: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com:80/umhn

Instructions for Authors: http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~db=all~content=t713669522~tab=submit~mode=paper_submission_instructions

APA HIV/AIDS Cyber Mentors/Proteges

The American Psychological Association (APA) Office on AIDS is currently seeking qualified mentors and mentees to participate in a two-year, distance-learning, mentorship program designed to prepare doctoral-level behavioral and social scientists for careers as independent researchers in the area of HIV/AIDS and communities of color. The deadline for application materials is June 15, 2009. This one year old program called the Cyber Mentor Program (http://www.apa.org/pi/aids/cyber_mentors.html ), funded by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), utilizes state-of-the-art, distance-learning technologies (e.g., webcasts, online classrooms, etc.) to assist mentees achieve three major goals: develop and implement a career development plan focused on building the capacity to conduct independent research in the area of HIV/AIDS and communities of color; conceptualize, draft, and submit a high-quality research application to an appropriate NIH funding mechanism; and, establish a mutually supportive network of professional colleagues with common research interests.

Click Here for Mentor Application Information:  http://www.apa.org/pi/aids/mentor.html  

Click Here for Mentee Application Information: http://www.apa.org/pi/aids/mentee.html

For further information please contact: Umra Omar (Email: uomar@apa.org )

Telephone: 202.218.3596

Summer Mode

With the end of the academic year, postings on the NursingWriting blog will be less frequent.

You are probably shifting gears right now after the end of a busy (and, I hope, productive academic year), but summer is a good time to get some mileage on your writing. Don’t slip into neutral for the next three months!

Here’s what I’m working on for the next three months:

• Turning a conference podium paper that Jennifer Telford and I have presented into an article manuscript. (We are looking at gendered spaces and gendered pages of published American Civil War nurse narratives.)
• Completing two chapters for two reference books (one related to religion in the American South prior to the Civil War, the other related to Christian theologies about slavery in the antebellum period).
• Preparing a conference paper that I will present at a global health conference at Oxford.
• Continuing a review of the literature concerning the question: What are the facilatators and inhibitors of faculty scholarly productivity in clinical practice-based academic disciplines?

That should keep me off the streets and out of trouble.

CFS: Disasters & Emergencies (Nursing & Health Sciences)

Special Edition of Nursing & Health Sciences, December 2009

Disasters and Emergencies: Preparing, Managing, and Experiencing

Submissions are invited for a special edition of Nursing & Health Sciences in December 2009 when we will devote space to this critical and contemporary theme. We hope to assist health professionals, policy makers, governments and non-government agencies around the world to help communities and countries be better prepared to avoid or manage disasters and emergencies, either man-made or natural. Many countries are working to learn how to evaluate actions, policies and procedures in the aftermath of emergencies or disasters, and to research health effects of these on people and communities. So we want to raise awareness, stimulate debate, encourage research, and learn from one another about how to educate and prepare well for the future. Contributions can include research, review and student papers, book reviews, special reports, and short stories from the field. Content should focus directly on some aspect of the theme in relation to nursing and the health sciences. Remember to comply with all Author Guidelines available on our homepage http://blackwellpublishing/com.NHS

 Research articles should be no longer than 4,000 words; review articles 6,000 words; special reports 2,000 words; and book or video reviews on material related to the theme, 750 words. Short stories from the field are also welcome (1500 words), describing personal accounts of work in a disaster or emergency situations, or survivor accounts that have a focus on learning for the future. Photographs are welcome, but the cost of printing color photos will be the responsibility of the author(s). Manuscripts must be submitted online at http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/nhs  no later than June 15, 2009. For survivor accounts submitted from those without internet access, you can post these to:

NHS Editorial Office, Faculty of Health Sciences, Yamaguchi University, 1-1-1 Minami-Kogushi, Ube, Yamaguchi, 755-8505, Japan

or Fax +81 (0)836 22 2812

If you have any queries about your submission for this Special Edition, please email the journal’s editorial office: nhs@yamaguchi-u.ac.jp

Performance: Honoring Nursing with Dance and Stories

HONORING NURSING with Dance and Stories

Celebrate the work of nurses and the nursing profession during three evenings of dance and readings.

Verb Ballets, Cleveland’s National Repertory Dance Company, performs “Lift. Breathe. Carry.” – based on the works of Jeanne Bryner, R.N., B.A., C.E.N. – “Tenderly Lift Me – Nurses Honored, Celebrated, and Remembered” and other works.

Cortney Davis, R.N., M.A., A.N.P. – readings from her latest book “The Heart’s Truth: Essays on the Art of Nursing.”

Akron 7 p.m., Thursday, May 28, 2009, Akron Art Museum, Charles and Jane Lehner Auditorium, RSVP: www.akronartmuseum.org or 330.376.9186 x 229 to get tickets

Cleveland 8 p.m. Friday, May 29, 2009, Trinity Cathedral, Cathedral Hall, RSVP: Center for Literature, Medicine and Biomedical Humanities, 330.569.5380 jacksonb1@hiram.edu.

Pittsburgh 8 p.m. Saturday, May 30, 2009, University of Pittsburgh-Johnstown, Pasquerilla Performing Arts, Center Black Box Theatre, RSVP: required, Consortium Ethics Program, 412.647.5832 or cep@pitt.edu

All events are free and open to the public on a space-available basis. Reservations recommended.

Presented by the Hiram College Center for Literature, Medicine and Biomedical Humanities. For more information, contact the Center at Hiram College 330.569.5380, http://litmed.hiram.edu .