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The central thesis of this article is that scientific rigor is necessary but not sufkient to address the broad human issues that challenge the nursing profssion. The pursuit of scientific rigor has led nurse researchers away from personal engagement in the issues they wish to study. Clinical scholarship demands active engagement in the practice arena. Three modes of knowledge acquisition-quantitative, qualitative, and personal-are identified and discussed in the context of Pirsig's (1974) "participant philosophy. " A structure explaining the relationships between each of the major modes of knowledge acquisition is presented.

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