• Problems of practice should guide nursing research
• Practice and theory are dynamically related
• Theory research must provide the knowledge base necessary for nurse interventions, training, patient education, etc.
• Nursing research should develop midrange theories and its results are nursing theory is strengthened when it uses theories confirmed by is integrated with other disciplines
  

Key features

• Clear and accessibly written
• Accurate and philosophically well-informed,
• Discusses philosophical problems in contexts familiar to nurses 
• Systematically examines the philosophical issues involved in nursing research
• Examines epistemology (how we know what we know), theory development, and the philosophical foundations of scientific methodology. 
• Develops a new model of nursing knowledge

Dr. Mark Risjord is Associate Professor in Philosophy at Emory University, and has a faculty appointment in the Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing. His main research areas have been in the philosophy of social science and the philosophy of medicine.  He was invited to has been teaching philosophy of science and theory development in the new PhD program in the Nell Hodgson School of Nursing at Emory University insince 1999.  He has been awarded two competitive teaching prizes: Emory Williams Distinguished Teaching Award (2004) and the Excellence in Teaching Award (1997).  He is presently serving as the Masse-Martin/NEH Distinguished Teaching Chair (2006-2010).