I am excited to announce a new feature at Writer’s Camp: Trail Packs! We will kick off the new year with a Trail Pack authored by Jacqueline Owens and colleagues, Evidence-Based Recommendations to Inform Currency and Number of References. This inaugural Trail Pack will be posted on January 1, 2026, at 7 am. Watch for it!
What is a Trail Pack, you ask?
A Trail Pack is a multi-faceted learning experience that brings together an original research report, a podcast or video interview, and a concise article written exclusively for Writer’s Camp that summarizes the study and highlights its key insights. Begin with the Writer’s Camp exclusive article, and when your curiosity is sparked, follow the trail to the full research report. The accompanying podcast or video offers a personal touch and shares the story behind how the study came to be.
A Trail Pack is an idea that has been 50 years in the making. When I was in my undergraduate nursing program, during my senior year we had the obligatory “Issues in Nursing” course. I very clearly remember the professor talking about disseminating nursing research and scholarship. She emphasized the importance of publishing findings for different audiences. “Not everyone reads Nursing Research,” she said. “Publish there, and then write a second article for clinicians—perhaps for the American Journal of Nursing.” (Remember, in those days we didn’t have as many journals as we do today!)
Her words have stayed with me all these years, and Trail Packs are one way of operationalizing that advice. The Writer’s Camp article is the short, accessible report of a longer study that has been published elsewhere. And the podcast? I love stories, and I love hearing how things come to be. Not everyone is a visual learner, and an audio format helps cement information for those who learn best through listening.
My goal is to publish one Trail Pack per month. If you have a project and a published paper that would translate well into this format, please reach out. I will work with you to develop the elements and create the required content. And if you already have a podcast or video abstract—so much the better! You’re already two-thirds of the way there.
I hope you enjoy our inaugural Trail Pack, which will be posted in just 10 days. And I look forward to hearing from campers who have ideas for this very special feature.
—Leslie H. Nicoll
Camp Director