One of the most challenging tasks that I faced during my nursing degree was writing a nursing essay. I used to struggle with securing good grades in these essays due to unfamiliarity with the format, structure, and content. As a result, my essays fail to meet the high standards of nursing programs, leading to my overall poor academic performance.
Do you also fail to achieve good grades in your nursing essays? No worries because I am here to help you!
In this blog, I will discuss the correct structure of nursing essays and how to write them. Additionally, I will share with you the things to avoid in your nursing essays, based on my own experience and mistakes.
So, are you ready to upgrade your nursing essays and achieve improved grades? Let’s dive into it!
Why Do Students Struggle With their Nursing Essays?
Let’s begin our discussion by discussing why nursing students actually struggle with their essays.
As I mentioned earlier, I used to struggle with my nursing essays for numerous reasons. The following are some reasons why other nursing students and I often struggle with our essays:
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Insufficient Time:
Firstly, one of the most common reasons why students struggle with their nursing assignments is due to a lack of sufficient time to spend on writing these time-consuming and tiring nursing essays. In addition to this, countless nursing students have to complete long hours of clinical rotations or hospital internships. As a result, they don’t get enough time to work on their essays.
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Complexity Of Topics:
Besides that, many healthcare topics are actually quite complex. Nursing students often struggle to remember diseases, symptoms, treatments, and difficult medical terminology. Hence, to write their nursing essays, they mostly cram these things that can juggle their previous concepts.
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Unsatisfactory Writing Skills:
Additionally, many nursing students like me possess unsatisfactory writing skills. Due to this, their essays do not meet the required demands of the nursing programs. As a result, they fail to achieve the grades they desired.
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Extensive Research:
Furthermore, nursing essays require comprehensive research, which can take a significant amount of students’ time. In addition to this, students often lack valid and accurate sources, which reduces the credibility of their essays. This results in poor grades.
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Lack Of Soft Skills:
Apart from that, several students lack essential soft skills, such as:
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Critical thinking
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Problem-solving
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Evidence-based decision making
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Time management
Due to a lack of these skills, the essays of nursing students often lack quality.
How to Structure your Nursing Essays?
Now that we have discussed the reasons for the struggles of nursing students with their essays, let’s take a look at the structure of a nursing essay.
One of the major reasons I struggled to achieve good grades in my nursing essays was a lack of awareness of the structure of these essays. As I had no one to guide me with the structure, I kept on repeating the same mistake. However, I will ensure that you don’t repeat the mistakes that I made. For that, I will guide you with the structure of nursing essays, so that you gain improved grades in your next nursing essay.
Here is the standard structure of nursing essays:
Introduction:
Begin by writing an engaging introduction to your essay. Write a hook thesis statement that develops the interest of the readers, or give a brief background of your topic. In addition to this, explain why your topic has significance in the nursing industry. Moreover, give an overview of the things that you are going to discuss in your essay. This will help the reader get a hint of what to expect in your nursing essay. Also, ensure that you state the main argument or thesis statement of your essay in 1-2 lines.
Body:
After writing the introduction, start your body paragraphs. However, ensure that each of your paragraphs focuses on only one main idea. Also, support your point with evidence-based points and critical analysis. In addition to this, avoid summarizing your ideas; rather, critically analyse them. Besides that, you must support your points with credible research, data, and theory from reliable sources. To enhance the quality of your essays, link your theories with real-life nursing concepts. Apart from that, end every paragraph by concluding and connecting it back to the thesis statement or main point of your nursing essay.
Conclusion:
Finally, write the conclusion of your nursing essay. This is where you end things by summarizing everything you have discussed in your essay. In addition to this, you must also share the importance of your topic in the nursing field in clear words. Sum up the main points and also tell the readers why and how your topic is vital for the future of the healthcare field. However, remember not to add any new examples, evidence, or information in the conclusion; instead, review what you have discussed earlier in the writing.
How to Write a Nursing Essay?
I hope you now have a strong grip on the structure of a nursing essay. This means you are halfway there to reach the goal of securing your desired grades. Let’s now learn how to write an exceptional nursing essay.
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Choose a Topic:
The quality of your nursing essay primarily depends on the topic of your essay. Firstly, begin by selecting a topic that relates to current nursing and healthcare-related issues and challenges. Also, ensure that you choose a topic of your interest and that you have a deep understanding of it. Moreover, make sure that your selected topic has enough sources and gaps to discuss in your nursing essay.
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Conduct Deep Research:
Now that you have chosen the topic, conduct extensive research and try to identify gaps and real-world issues related to that topic. Once you have done the research, formulate some questions related to that topic. Gather all relevant sources, such as textbooks, notes, case studies, research papers, and articles. You can get these sources from libraries, your professors, seniors, friends, and the internet. When you are doing your research, ensure that the source is valid and accurate.
However, if you struggle with finding credible sources or spend a significant amount of time on research, then you can consider seeking Nursing Essay Help from a professional.
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Create an Outline:
Besides that, create an outline of your essay as it helps to keep you organised throughout the writing process. In your outline, include the ideas, main arguments, important arguments with evidence, and relevant references. This will also help you track your progress. Once you are done with the outlining of your essay, start writing it.
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Proofread and Edit:
Lastly, proofread your essay and edit all the major and minor errors in your writing. Apart from that, you can ask your friends or seniors to review your essay and seek their feedback. This will help you improve the quality of your essays.
Finally, submit your nursing essay.
Things to Stay Away from in Your Nursing Essays
Even after getting familiar with the structure and writing criteria of nursing essays, many students fail to achieve improved grades. To ensure that you succeed in securing your desired grades, you must stay away from the following things in your nursing essays:
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Repetition:
Firstly, one of the most important things that you must avoid in your nursing essays is repetition. Whether it's a reference, evidence, or an example, don’t repeat them, as constant repetition makes them lose importance.
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Unreliable Sources:
In addition to this, you must ensure that you are not relying on unreliable sources. This will reduce the credibility of your essay; hence, resulting in poor grades.
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Lack of Focus:
Moreover, your writing must remained focus on your thesis statement. Avoid adding too much irrelevant information so that the reader doesn't get confused after reading your essay.
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Plagiarism:
Furthermore, you must cite your references correctly to avoid plagiarism in your nursing essays. Plagiarized essays can have a negative impression on the professors, leading to poor grades in the essay.
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Ignoring Guidelines:
Besides that, you must not avoid reading the guidelines that are provided by your program. These instructions and guidelines allow you to get familiar with the structure, format, word count, due date, and referencing style of your nursing essay. This will help you write essays according to the demands of your program, boosting the chances of securing improved grades in your essay writing.
Wrap up!
All in all, indeed, nursing essays are challenging for students. However, getting an expert’s guidance to get familiar with the structure and writing of these essays would definitely help you secure exceptional grades, resulting in an overall improved academic performance. Also, ensure that you keep the things that you should stay away from in your nursing essays in your mind.
This brings us to the end of our guide!
I hope that this blog will help you get an idea of the structure and writing of nursing essays, and also help you understand the things that you should stay away from in your nursing essays. Best of luck with your essay writing!
