title: A common sense approach to nursing research.
abstract: Two events conspired to force me to develop and then articulate a political or power perspective on nursing research. During my term as president of the American Nurses' Association (ANA) experience taught me that knowledge is the currency of politics--politics defined broadly as governance by the institution, by the profession, by the industry or by the Congress. Data describe. Data explain. Data persuade. And, where the mind is made up, data justify. The second event was the June 1988 meeting in Jerusalem of the Workshop of European Nurse Researchers (WERN) where I was invited to speak on The Power of Knowledge: The Knowledge of Power. This was the challenge to put into words what I had learned on this subject throughout a career as academician topped with a tour in professional politics. The result is a common sense approach to nursing research that I would like to present to the nursing community for further debate.
authors.affiliation: University of California, San Francisco, School of Nursing.
authors.forename: M M
authors.initials: MM
authors.lastname: Styles
mesh_terms: D006801:Humans; D015399:Nursing Research; D009742:Nursing Theory; D011057:Politics; D011209:Power, Psychological; D012951:Socialization