Academic essays part 1: the importance of academic writing

How confident are you in your ability to write academic essays? If you are a student nurse in your first year of training then your answer will depend largely on your previous success, or not, in GCSEs, A levels and the equivalent. If you entered nursing via an alternative route that had less emphasis on traditional academic preparation, then your confidence in writing an essay that draws on referenced literature will probably be much reduced. Even if you were quite strong at school or college work, you may find the transition to self-directed degree study quite difficult. If you are a qualified nurse with a pre-registration diploma or degree, returning to university study to complete a post-registration master's degree, you may still have reservations about your ability to re-engage with academic writing. If you are confident of your ability to communicate nursing theory and its application to clinical care, then this series of articles is probably not for you! However, my experience of teaching nurses, from first-year students to specialist nurses undertaking PhDs, is that very few are confident in their academic writing skills.