‘Publish or perish’, a common academic mantra appears to reinforce the focus on productivity and output and resources have frequently been aimed at encouraging nurse academics to publish more and at enhancing the quality of publications to increase the likelihood of success . More recently attention has also been directed towards the quality and impact of journals reflected by the expression ‘be cited or perish’ . However, beyond this there remains little attention given to the subject matter. Nurse academics consequently are encouraged to think more about how much to write and where to write for than what they are writing about.