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Narrating or storytelling is a fundamental practice for human survival and a means for finding meaning in experiences and for enhancing self-understanding. The use of story has been present in nursing since its origins. Biographical narrative has rarely been used as a research method in nursing, and there are no examples conceptualizing biographical narrative research methods within a unitary science perspective. The purpose of this paper is to describe one specific narrative methodological approach—the biographical narrative research method—and to link the method to the science of unitary human beings as a means of creating a unitary understanding of the storied nature of human-health experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Model development may seem a daunting task for the novice. The purpose of this article is to illustrate the steps of model development applied to a real-life phenomenon using an inductive theory-generating research approach. The value of the illustration is that nurse researchers can follow the application of the process as a point of departure for their own work. A logical stepwise discussion is followed for empirical theory development. The logical thought process from identifying the phenomenon to describing the model as a visual metaphor of the phenomenon is illustrated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]