Tags: #essay writing tips

Nursing School Essay: Writing Guide from Professionals

A nursing essay is a piece of writing created with the purpose of publishing in a professional source, like website or magazine, or as a regular school assignment. A nursing school essay, even though submitted for an instructor, can also be subsequently published on an online platform or presented during a professional conference, which automatically makes the task of creating such an essay more stressful. Some students wonder why nurses have to submit essays if their profession is a practical one. Yet, essay writing is a useful procedure both for students and for practicing nurses because it helps to sharpen one’s research skills, encourages research and analysis of the recent trends in the field, and it is also a great way to demonstrate one’s knowledge and understanding of the material. As the result, a nurse should also be a skillful writer if he/she wants to maintain a reputation of a knowledgeable professional. So how to write a nursing school essay that impresses the readers and brings a high grade? We have collected some brilliant nursing essay writing tips that will be useful for anyone who wants to text their nursing essay writing skills to the next level.

Understanding the Topic

This is the crucial stage and somehow many writers manage to skip it, which leads to essays that might be well written but do not receive the expected acclaim because they are off topic. In this regard, writing in nursing follows the typical academic writing principles, when a learner has to both show their individual thinking and creativity and strictly follow the requirements. So the first step of writing is carefully reading the prompt and making sure all its elements are clear. For example, if the task is to compare the models of Boyd and Atkins and Murphy, the readers will expect to find the similarities and differences between their models, which means that simply describing and summarizing their approaches one by one is not acceptable. The same applies to the task of evaluating some theory or practice, which means that a writer has to highlight their strengths and weaknesses rather than provide a summary of the topic. Generally speaking, the purpose of writing a nursing school essay is to show how the theoretical knowledge will inform the practice of a nurse, which means that the latter is expected to support their reasoning with specific examples and personal experience.

Data Collection

A nurse’s ability to demonstrate his/her competence and awareness of the topic depends on the successful completion of this step. Note that nurses are expected to be involved in lifelong learning, which means that ideally, a nurse has to read and analyze medical publications on a regular basis. When faced with a task to prepare a nursing school essay, a nurse has to study the up-to-date publications on the topic in professional journals, synthesize the material, and use the most reliable and suitable data to back up their arguments. If you do not know where to start the search, use such online databases as MEDLINE, Winship, or McNab. Remember that even though you are free to use any available sources to familiarize yourself with the topic, you are allowed to cite only scholarly publications in the paper.

Paper Outline

This one is going to be relatively easy because a nursing school essay is no different from a typical academic essay in terms of structure. In particular, it is comprised of an introduction telling the reader what the paper is going to be about, the main body, which presents the author’s arguments and evidence, and conclusion, which summarizes the findings. However, keep in mind that all these components have to be interconnected and united by a common purpose. Experts recommend checking with the essay prompt as you write to make sure that you do not diverge from the topic. Here is what to pay attention to when writing each of the above-mentioned sections:

Introduction

It is recommended to draw a brief plan (outline) of an essay prior to writing it. This plan ensures that you do not forget to include something important and that you successfully transition from one idea to another. After you have drawn an outline, rely on it to create the introduction, in which you will include a brief description of the background and present a roadmap of the whole paper, i.e. write a thesis statement. In some cases, it might be useful to include the definitions of some concepts or complex ideas.

Body Paragraphs

This is the most voluminous part of the essay in which the writer presents his/her arguments and supports them with evidence collected during research. However, beware of plagiarism because it is not tolerated in educational institutions. All papers are scanned on plagiarism checkers, so you have to carefully cite all the information taken from outside sources and use citations sparingly. Another rule to keep in mind is that the body should consist of two or more paragraphs, meaning that a three-paragraph paper with an introduction, one body paragraph, and conclusion is not acceptable. We recommend following a classical five-paragraph structure unless the requirements state otherwise. Finally, check each body paragraph against the thesis statement and make sure each of them is directly related to the main idea of the essay. Otherwise, a paragraph has to be ruthlessly removed.

Conclusion

A traditional approach to writing a conclusion requires restating the thesis statement (but not verbatim, of course) and summarizing the main ideas of the entire essay. However, this paragraph should not be too long, so avoid going into details. Apart from summing up the discussion, conclusion should contain some recommendations or call for action. Alternatively, the author can propose areas for future research stemming from the limitations of the available studies. Nevertheless, they have to be a logical continuation of the discussion in the body of the paper because no new information should appear in conclusion.

We hope these tips help you produce a strong and interesting essay. Remember that you can always rely on professionals if you experience some difficulties at any stage of the writing process.