Being one of the grounded professions, nursing offers students to incorporate evidence-based practice and critical thinking approach. Student nurses find it difficult to complete their academic assignments as they have to struggle in forming the foundation for the development of clinical judgement along with communication and professional reflection. Students who do not acquire these skills face difficulty in writing their assignments and meet the academic expectations and professional standards. Most common mistakes that occur while writing the assignment stems from lack of clarity about the assignment requirements, poor evidence use, weak structure and limited understanding of the academic writing conventions. Thus, it is important for students to identify the most common errors that can occur while writing an academic assignment and providing significant strategies that helps in avoiding them while ensuring them to produce high-quality reflective work.
One of the most common issues that can occur is to misunderstand the academic question, especially when writing a nursing assignment. Many students start writing their assignment without fully understanding what the assignment is asking to do which often leads to irrelevant content. This can be clearly understood with the help of an example, where the assignment asks the student to critically evaluate an intervention strategy, however, the student describes the intervention strategy in detail without analysing it properly. This leads to misinterpretation in understanding the academic question which further leads to lower marks as the students fails to align with the assessment criteria given in the requirement. This can also be avoided when the students reads the question carefully and underline the main verbs like evaluate, analyse, compare and discuss. All these verbs require a different level of engagement within the assignment. As when the asks the student to analyse, it means to break down the information into various sub-parts, while evaluation asks students to form an evidence-based judgement. Additionally, it is also important for the student to review the learning outcomes and the marking criteria to clearly understand what the assessor wants in the assignment. Planning the structure in such a way that the content that is to be written in the assignment effectively contributes towards answering the question.
The next error that can occur while writing an academic assignment is lack of structure and logical flow. Nurse students must understand that to write an academic assignment, it is important for them to understand a clear and logical structure. As many students find it difficult to follow a coherent flow while writing the assignment, they often jump between ideas without having any clear transition of what to write. This leads to disconnected paragraphs and arguments which does not build up progressively. And writing a poorly structured essay result in confusing the reader and weakens the ability of the student to convey a proper understanding. Thus, to avoid this error, students must determine how to write a well-organised essay by following the structure which involves an introduction, main body, and conclusion. The introduction gives the background of the question, outlines the purpose and discusses the key points briefly. The main body focuses on developing each idea in different paragraphs starting with a clear topic sentence and also provides evidence. This also involves transition phrases like however, in contrast, or furthermore, which helps in maintaining the flow between ideas. Finally, the conclusion emphasises on summarizing the main findings and relating them back to the main question of the assignment. The structure also involves using a clear plan or mind map before writing the assignment. This effectively helps in maintaining the flow and the logical progression of the assignment.
Students also find difficulty in using appropriate evidences which reflect best current practices. Students often make mistakes by relying on outdated sources, anecdotal experiences and personal opinions without having any support of proper scholarly articles. Additionally, students also make mistakes in referencing style used in the university. When they fail to cite the sources used in the assignment, it leads to affect the credibility of the assignment and also leads to plagiarism issues. To avoid this, students must prioritise the peer-reviewed journal articles, the NHS code of standard and the guidelines by the university which involves the NMC codes, NICE guidelines and the textbooks. These help in clearly understanding the arguments and provide appropriate evidence. Moreover, students have to ensure that every in-text citation used in the assignment has a corresponding entry in the reference list. Moreover, the student can also use several reference management tools which can effectively help in simplifying the referencing process appropriately. In addition to this, students must also understand the need to engage critically with appropriate evidences which helps in explaining the need to involve supporting sources or references in the argument. This helps in demonstrating a higher level of understanding.
Another mistake that can occur is over descriptive writing instead of critically analysing the study. Many students think that writing the assignment means describing all the things that have been read or experienced by the students in their clinical practice without determining the significance of what is asked in the assignment. For instance, if the assignment asks about the care model, it must be understood that the student should emphasise on explaining the care model and also focus on assessing the advantages, limitations and applicability of the care model. Moreover, descriptive writing also restricts the depth of the analysis and fails to meet the standards of higher education. This error can be avoided when student focuses on analysing the question instead of describing it. The student must focus on how and why of the question. The student should also focus on explaining why this particular intervention is effective. Additionally, the student should also focus on aligning with evidence-based practice and understanding the important implications for patient care. It is also important to compare various perspectives, critiquing research quality and linking theory to practice demonstrate analytical thinking. Moreover, the assignment also involves using several reflective models that help support deeper discussion by connecting with the evidences having experiential learning.
Another issue that can occur is using informal language where it is not appropriate. Writing the nursing assignment requires a formal, objective and academic tone. When the student uses colloquial expressions, emotional statements and contractions, it can result in reducing professionalism. Moreover, writing excess long sentences without explaining it properly can result in obscuring meaning. This can be avoided by using a concise, clear and formal language. Effective communication means that nurses can write that empathetic communication skills help in improving the satisfaction and emotional wellbeing of patients instead of writing that patients feel better when nurses behave kindly with them. Students can also learn disciplined-specific writing style by reading the academic journals. In addition to this, grammar checkers and proofreading tools can effectively assist in refining their academic tones and readability. Another issue can occur when critical reflection is neglected when writing the assignment. This results in restricting the demonstration of personal as well as professional growth. This can be avoided by adopting a structured framework for writing critical reflection by prompting a deeper thinking stage which include description, analysis, evaluation and action planning. It must also include evidences, ethical considerations, codes and NMC competencies which demonstrates a clear understanding of continuous professional development.
Writing nursing assignments requires the students` to link their theoretical models to the real-world scenario in the clinical settings. Student often find it difficult in connecting the theories in the real-world clinical setting due to which the assignment is either too practical or theoretical. The assignment lacks depth, when it does not show how the theory can be applied into real-world practice. This can be avoided when the students focus on explaining the theories by determining how these theories can guide clinical decision-making, communication and patient education. Giving examples from the clinical practice can help in strengthening the link. Time management is also a major issue that affects nurse students in their assignment leading to poor research, rushed work and careless errors and if they leave the assignment for last minute, they have to struggle to plan, proofread and refine their writing. This can be avoided when the student starts managing their time by breaking their assignment into smaller parts and by setting deadlines for each part. Student should also focus on writing the assignment regularly instead of writing all of it in one go. It is also important for the assignment to allocate proper time for proofreading and referencing which enables students to submit higher quality assignments.