The whole story: towards an ethical research methodology.

In this paper Alex Carson and Gavin Fairbairn argue that closer links between nursing education, research and practice may be developed through the use of a narrative methodology. The debate is cited in the wider practical and political context of a more democratic model of healthcare delivery. The authors provide a rationale for the use of stories in both nursing research and nursing practice by suggesting that each rests upon an ethic of helping whole people, rather than simply amounting to a technical undertaking.

Writing about nursing research: a storytelling approach.

In this article Gavin Fairbairn and Alex Carson argue that much of what is written by nurses is needlessly difficult, especially when it concerns research they have carried out. The authors make a positive contribution to the ways in which nurses think about what they write and how they write it, suggesting that one way in which things might become better would be for nurses to view their writing as a form of storytelling.