I have just done a rough calculation and estimate that I've written 100 assessed essays in my nursing career, ranging from initial registration through to a PhD. I also calculated that I've read and marked approximately 10 000 assignments from students nurses, postgraduate specialist nurses, and a variety of advanced allied health professionals. Out of that educational experience, I've identified nine main reasons why someone might fail their written assignment, and some hints on how to avoid these common errors.
Failure to answer the question
The essay may be well written. It may reference the literature in an informed way, and even apply theory to clinical practice; however, if it does not attempt to answer the question set, it will almost certainly fail. This usually happens for one of two reasons. The student has a passion for a particular topic and gets carried away, forgetting what the question is asking, or, the student doesn't spend any time thinking about what the question is asking them to do. To prevent this, spend 1 hour thinking about the question and understanding its focus, then write a 10-bullet-point plan to discuss with your lecturer before you start to write the essay.
Personal crisis
We all experience some form of personal crisis during our lives. If such stressors occur while we are studying, then the priority, quite rightly, is to focus on the crisis. Discussion with a personal tutor at an early stage will help the student to access the appropriate level of support that all universities provide. This could be some form of simple extension to a more substantive interruption of the course. The important principle is to let the university know of the problem, rather than either not submit an assignment or submit one that is very poor and will almost certainly fail.
Stress caused by the assignment
Most students find assignments stressful, often for different reasons. Be truthful and logical with yourself; identify your weaknesses and look for ways of strengthening your weak areas, rather than just ignoring them and repeating the same mistakes in future assignments. Reflect on what your teachers have told you in the past, reflect on previous feedback from other course work and make sure you don't repeat errors. Seek help from appropriate sources. This could be academic support staff, librarians, lecturers, friends. Replace your stressors with positive actions.
Plagiarism
It is tempting to copy sentences from articles, journals or other people's essays: don't! The university plagiarism detection software will find you out. Base your work on published literature, but make sure you read, understand and then write in your own words, referencing appropriately.
Incorrect facts
It is not unusual to read a student's essay and find a poorly expressed or incorrect fact; most of the time this is acknowledged by the marker, but it does not become a fail issue unless the error is life-threatening or there are numerous errors. Make sure you understand what it is you are writing and check the facts with two sources.
Breach of confidentiality
This is a serious academic offence in nursing and often an automatic fail. Make sure you state clearly that you have used a synonym for a patient's name, give no addresses and anonymise any reference to a hospital, and reference the Nursing and Midwifery Council Code.
Lack of evidence
The purpose of an assignment is to test a student's knowledge of the evidence underpinning nursing theory and practice. This requires references to the evidence found in articles and text books, and its application to the specific aspect of nursing practice required by the question. Use your experience to direct your exploration of the question and literature searching. Present the evidence and reference the source. If appropriate, follow this with your own experience, discussing the evidence and its application to the specific context of nursing care you are writing about.
Inadequate referencing
Many students make the occasional error when referencing the literature. This is not a big problem. While you may lose a few marks, it is unlikely to be the sole reason for failing an assignment. However, if all the references have major errors, and are presented illogically or are just absent, then the work begins to border on a fail. If that is combined with other careless errors, then the work may be failed. All universities provide guidelines on referencing: make sure you follow them.
Poor writing skills
If your use of language, spelling, sentence structure and grammar are poor throughout the essay, it becomes difficult to read. If you know this is your weak area, make sure you plan your work, seek specialist help from the university, don't rush your writing, ask someone to give you feedback on your grammar, read your work aloud and keep practising. Essay writing is a skill that develops with practice.
The next article will identify how a marker recognises an essay worthy of a high mark.