Academic Writing and Referencing for your Nursing Degree

by Jane Bottomley, Steven Pryjmachuk

Overview

Invaluable jargon-free guide for anyone doing a nursing degree, providing study support and helping you to improve your academic writing and referencing skills.

Academic Writing and Referencing for your Nursing Degree provides you with a sound knowledge and understanding of:

• what constitutes good academic writing in nursing
• a range of strategies for writing successful essays and reports
• the importance of clarity and coherence in your writing about nursing
• how to improve your academic style, grammar and punctuation, and formatting and presentation
• referencing conventions in the field of nursing, and of how to avoid plagiarism.

If you are embarking on a university nursing degree, the books in our Critical Study Skills for Nursing series will help you acquire and develop the knowledge, skills and strategies you need to achieve your goals. They provide support in all areas important for university study, including institutional and disciplinary policy and practice, self-management, and research and communication. Tasks and activities are designed to foster aspects of learning which are valued in higher education, including learner autonomy and critical thinking, and to guide you towards reflective practice in your study and work life.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781911106975
Publisher:	Critical Publishing
Publication date:	07/26/2017
Series:	Critical Study Skills
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	120
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Jane Bottomley is a Senior Language Tutor at the University of Manchester and a Senior Fellow of the British Association of Lecturers in English for Academic Purposes (BALEAP).She has been involved in the development of a number of content-based academic study skills courses at the University of Manchester and has published widely in this field. 

Steven Pryjmachuk is Professor of Mental Health Nursing Education in the School of Health Science's Division of Nursing, Midwifery and Social Work at the University of Manchester and a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. His teaching, clinical and research work has centred largely on supporting and facilitating individuals – be they students, patients or colleagues – to develop, learn or care independently. 

In December 2014, Steven was elected as vice Chair (2015-16) and Chair (2017-18) of Mental Health Nurse Academics UK, an organisation representing 65 Higher Education Institutions providing education and research on mental health nursing.

Jane Bottomley is a lecturer in English for Academic Purposes at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden and previously worked in the same capacity at the University of Manchester. Jane has considerable experience teaching academic writing and has worked with undergraduates, postgraduates and university staff to help them develop their understanding and practice in their discourse communities. 

You can visit her website at: https://janebottomley.co.uk/

Steven Pryjmachuk is Professor of Mental Health Nursing Education in the School of Health Science's Division of Nursing, Midwifery and Social Work at the University of Manchester and a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. His teaching, clinical and research work has centred largely on supporting and facilitating individuals – be they students, patients or colleagues – to develop, learn or care independently. 

In December 2014, Steven was elected as vice Chair (2015-16) and Chair (2017-18) of Mental Health Nurse Academics UK, an organisation representing 65 Higher Education Institutions providing education and research on mental health nursing.

Read an Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

Academic writing: text, process and criticality

Learning outcomes

After reading this chapter you will:

• understand what it means to be part of the academic writing community;

• be aware of the different text types you might need to produce as a student nurse;

• have developed an effective, systematic approach to the academic writing process;

• understand what it means to write critically;

• have learned about the foundations of different academic text types in nursing, in particular, the critical essay.

There are many challenges facing you as you embark on your nursing degree. You need to assimilate a great deal of information, and engage in new ideas and intellectual processes. What's more, you need to become proficient in academic writing, and learn how to produce the different types of text that are common in nursing.

Academic writing is central to your university studies, as written assignments and exams will be one of the main ways in which you are assessed. This chapter explores the nature of academic writing in universities, and helps you to develop an effective, systematic approach to the academic writing process. All assignments are different, and universities vary slightly in terms of the types of writing assignments they employ. This chapter focuses on some general principles which can be applied to most academic writing, including what it means to write 'critically'. It also discusses some of the most common features of individual text types in your discipline, with a particular focus on the critical essay.

Academic writing at university: a new start?

Nursing students in the UK come from a range of backgrounds: some come straight from A levels (or Scottish Highers); some have been away from formal education for some time, maybe working and/or bringing up a family; some come from other countries to study in the UK. This means that students starting university differ in terms of their writing abilities, their experience of academic writing, and how confident they feel about tackling written assessments.

So where do you fit in?

You may be feeling confident. You may be relishing the prospect of writing your first assignment, seeing it as an exciting opportunity to explore your subject and demonstrate your knowledge and ideas. You may be able to draw on recent experience of academic writing and positive feedback from teachers.

Conversely, you may be feeling rather apprehensive about your first written assignment. Like many students, you perhaps see academic writing as one of the most difficult challenges of university life. There are a number of reasons why you may be feeling apprehensive. You might not have much experience of academic writing. Or maybe you do have experience, but it might have been a long time ago, or in your mother tongue, not English. You may have struggled with writing in the past and received some negative comments from teachers. All of these things can make the prospect of that first written assignment rather daunting.

When starting to write at university, it is important for students to draw on any strengths they have in terms of ability and experience. But it is also important for all students to identify aspects of their writing which can be improved on. At university, you are part of a writing community, comprised of students, lecturers and researchers, and all members of that community are constantly striving to improve as writers, even those who publish in journals and books.

You should commit yourself to improving as a writer throughout your degree programme, and beyond, in your professional life. It is not a question of achieving perfection; it is rather a case of committing yourself to making many small improvements over time, and not giving up when faced with a disappointment or hurdle. University lecturers see many students develop into very good writers after a shaky start. What these students have in common is a positive attitude, an ability to reflect on and critically assess their own work, and a willingness to seek and act on advice.

This book will support you in your development as a writer by helping you to approach writing in a systematic way. It will enable you to:

• analyse and respond to writing tasks;

• plan and structure your writing effectively;

• achieve clarity and coherence in your writing;

• produce writing which is accurate and academic in style;

• write critically in assignments;

• use and reference sources appropriately;

• prepare assignments to a high professional standard for submission.

This chapter sets you on your way by exploring the context of academic writing at university and providing guidance on how to approach writing assignments on your nursing degree.

Academic writing for nursing undergraduates

Undergraduate nurses may be asked to produce a number of different types of academic writing, including essays, written reflections, exams, reports, reviews of journal articles, and dissertations. This chapter sets out a general approach to academic writing that will help you with all types of assignments. It also provides specific information on essays, written reflections, exams and dissertations. Advice on practical writing tasks in nursing is provided in Communication Skills for your Nursing Degree.

• Essays. There are different types of essays. The main one, sometimes called a 'critical' or 'analytical' essay, requires you to explore a particular topic in depth, usually in response to a question or statement, and to explain your own viewpoint, or 'stance', supported by arguments and evidence. A 'reflective' essay requires you to analyse and evaluate a particular experience, explaining its impact on your understanding and future practice.

• Written reflections. Nurses are often required to produce short written reflections on their experience in practice, usually as part of a professional portfolio.

• Exams. In exams, you may be required to provide short or long written responses to questions or statements. These are usually designed to demonstrate that you have assimilated and understood the core work covered in a particular module. They may require you to recall factual information and/or to explain and support your viewpoint on a particular issue you have examined as part of your studies.

• Dissertations. A dissertation is a long evidence-based or research-focused essay written in the final year of your undergraduate studies.

Each of these types of academic writing will be discussed in more detail later in the chapter.

The writing process

Writing is a process and it involves a number of stages, including:

• 'unpacking' (analysing and understanding) the writing task and any guidelines provided;

• drawing up a provisional plan/outline;

• identifying relevant material that you need to read;

• reading and gathering information;

• drafting, redrafting, editing;

• revisiting and reworking your plan/outline;

• formatting your text;

• double-checking the assessment guidelines;

• proofreading.

It is important to fully engage with the writing process, and to understand that the writing process is part of the learning process. Writing is not just a question of getting fully formed thoughts down on paper (apart from in exams); it is a way of clarifying your thinking on a particular topic. Woodford (1967) put this nicely many years ago:

The power of writing as an aid in thinking is not often appreciated. Everyone knows that someone who writes successfully gets his thoughts completely in order before he publishes. But it is seldom pointed out that the very act of writing can help to clarify thinking. Put down woolly thoughts on paper, and their wooliness is immediately exposed.

(p 744)

Your exact approach to the writing process will depend on the particular context of the assignment and your individual way of working, but some essential aspects of the writing process are discussed in the following sections.

Approaching a writing assignment

A writer needs an audience, a purpose, and a strategy, and these things are interconnected (Swales and Feak, 2012, p 10). When approaching a writing assignment, ask yourself:

• Who is reading my work? (your audience)

• Why am I writing? (your purpose)

• How will I achieve my purpose? (your strategy)

Your purpose is to meet the requirements of the assignment, and satisfy the needs and expectations of a particular reader. To determine your purpose, you need to analyse the wording of the task or question carefully. It may specify certain aspects of the topic that you should cover, and the verbs it uses, such as 'describe', 'explain', or 'evaluate', will determine how you treat this content. However, notwithstanding these specifications, there is no single 'right answer': different students will respond to a task in different ways. Your individual approach and strategy will determine:

• the selection of content (information, arguments, evidence etc);

• the way this content is structured and organised.

The person reading your essay must be able to discern why you have included particular content and organised your essay in the way that you have.

The question of the 'reader' is a tricky one. Of course, the actual human being reading your assignment is your university lecturer – probably the one who set the task and taught the module. However, lecturers often ask (or expect) you to imagine a 'hypothetical' or 'target' reader. This is usually someone with a similar level of knowledge to your own, or someone with a similar level of education but who is not an expert in nursing. Lecturers want you to write for such a reader because they want you to demonstrate your understanding, and you cannot do this if you assume too much knowledge on the part of the reader. It is not uncommon to ask a student about something which is unclear in their essay, only to have them explain that 'the lecturer already knows this'! But this is not the point. The lecturer wants to know that you know this, and that you can explain it to other people, including non-experts, in a clear way. Always ask yourself:

• What can the target reader be expected to know?

• What does the target reader need me to explain?

A good writer anticipates the reader's questions, and does not ask them to guess, fill in gaps, or work out how one thing relates to another.

Analysing a writing assignment

One of the most common – and perhaps surprising – reasons for low marks in written assessments is the failure on the part of the student to read the assignment title or question thoroughly enough. A student may go on to produce something which is interesting and of a good standard, but if they do not directly address the specific task, they will not meet the actual requirements of the assignment and so will end up failing. It is therefore essential to start any assignment by carefully analysing the assignment title or question.

You should read the title or question several times to 'unpack' it and get absolutely clear in your mind what is expected of you. It is helpful to highlight key terms, including verbs comm

Assignments usually come with a set of assessment guidelines and marking descriptors detailing the various criteria that you need to meet in order to achieve success. These criteria relate to areas such as:

• task achievement;

• content and organisation;

• relevance to nursing practice;

• writing style;

• referencing.

Be sure to read and digest these guidelines and descriptors as they are the very same ones that assessors will use to mark your work.

Planning

Always begin an assignment by considering the constraints of the task: how long it should be and how long you have to write it. You could then draw up a provisional schedule which allocates time to the various sub-tasks. This schedule should leave sufficient time for you to read through and proofread the whole text several times before submitting.

A good piece of writing starts with a good plan or 'outline'. This should be primarily based on your analysis, or 'unpacking', of the task, but it should evolve as you engage in the reading and writing process. Your outline is therefore much more than a list of items related to the assignment topic: it is a developing conceptual representation of your response to the task. For example, in relation to the essay titles analysed above, your outline would reflect your position, or 'stance', in relation to the given topic, ie:

• A: the extent to which you believe, supported by your investigation of the arguments and evidence, that nurses can influence the health of others

• B: your assessment of the evidence you find to support or challenge the main proposition that communication is the core skill of nursing

An outline should identify key sections of the text (with possible subheadings), and, in a critical essay, the arguments and evidence that would feature in each one.

As discussed earlier in this chapter, different students will approach the same task in different ways. Sometimes an essay title will specify broad organisational requirements. For example, in B above, you are asked to 'outline the arguments for and against' the proposition. However, you might decide either to look at all the 'for' arguments in the first half of the essay and all the 'against' arguments in the second half, or, alternatively, to examine the proposition from both angles with reference to a series of different areas of nursing. In other essays, you may have more leeway. One common approach is to examine different positions one by one, finally making a case for the one which the majority of the evidence seems to support. Another approach is to make a strong case for one particular position right from the start, while acknowledging and examining alternative (but in your view, weaker) viewpoints along the way.

Reading and information gathering

Most academic writing assignments require you to read about a particular topic and use scholarly sources to inform your ideas. A good place to start the reading for an assignment is your lecture notes. These will provide an overview of the topic, and they will probably include links to some relevant literature, such as key chapters from core textbooks, and important journal articles, case studies, official reports etc. At the beginning of your studies, lecturers will tend to direct you to relevant sources in this way, but as you progress through your degree, you will be expected to explore the literature more widely and independently. As you develop these research skills, you will be increasingly assessed on your ability to find and select sources, and to use your critical judgement to assess their relevance and credibility. Lecturers will expect you to refer both to sources which support your position on a topic, and sources which challenge it.

Academic texts can be long and difficult to read because of the technical content, much of which may be new to you. It is essential that you devote enough time to reading, but it is also important that you develop effective reading strategies so that you use that time efficiently. When you approach a book, chapter or journal article, first adopt a 'global' approach, ie identify:

• what you expect to find out from it, and how these things relate to your assignment;

• the main message (the author's purpose in writing), and how this relates to your assignment;

• the main points made by the author(s), and how they relate to the main message of the article, and to your assignment.

As you think about how what you are reading relates to the assignment in hand, you might use highlighting, annotations, or note-taking to reflect this. You should also mark or make a note of parts of the text that you think you may need to read more closely at some stage.

Writing essentials

There are three things which are especially important in academic writing.

1) Relevance. Be sure to make everything you write relevant to the task or question. If the relevance of a point is not immediately clear, then try to make it clear; if you cannot make it clear, leave it out. You will usually have a strict word count, so it is vital not to waste words on irrelevant material which cannot contribute to your mark.

2) Coherence. Lecturers often comment on the need for a piece of writing to be 'coherent', or deduct marks for 'lack of coherence'. To be coherent, a piece of writing must make sense to the reader. Coherence is tied up with issues discussed earlier, such as having a clear purpose and direction, and writing with a target reader in mind. It is also defined by clear organisation and expression. Coherent texts are crafted: they need careful planning and editing. The concept of coherence is examined in detail in Chapter 2.

3) Criticality. Most academic writing is 'critical' writing, ie it is analytical and evaluative, rather than just descriptive. This will be discussed below and in other chapters.

(Continues…)

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by .
Copyright © 2017 Jane Bottomley and Steven Pryjmachuk.
Excerpted by permission of Critical Publishing Ltd.
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Table of Contents

1. Academic writing
2. Putting down words on the page
3. Language
4. Preparing your work for submission
5. Referring to Sources