Beating essay-writing block, Nursing Standard

In his second article on writing skills for nursing students, Rob Ashton explains what to do when inspiration doesn’t strike.

D-Day has arrived. And the essay you’ve sat on for weeks is due tomorrow morning. It’s not that you haven’t put pen to paper yet. In fact, you’ve done lots of research and written copious notes. But bringing them all together into an even semi-coherent essay has become what seems like an insurmountable task. Now you’re staring hopelessly at a blank screen with a feeling of panic in the pit of your stomach. It threatens to overwhelm you.

Fear not though. The first thing to understand is that you’re certainly not alone in feeling this way. Writer’s block affects everyone at some time – even famous authors. Biologically, it occurs because your brain perceives a harmless task as a dire threat, and starts to do everything it can to keep you away from it. An essay, though not exactly fun, can’t actually harm you of course. But you’re dealing with millions of years of evolution here, and mere logic may not be enough to beat the problem. The secret to blasting through it is to arm yourself with a set of techniques that will enable you to blast through those blocks.

Put on your thinking cap

Grab a pencil and paper and brainstorm what you want to include in your essay. Write down everything you can think of, including scientific studies, ideas, arguments and counter-arguments. Take a series of coloured pencils and group together the points that have elements in common. Then rank these groups in order of importance.

Build an effective structure

Next, write headings that relate to the groups in your brainstorm. For example, if your essay is to evaluate the clinical treatment of diabetes, you might write ‘Medical model of diabetes’ and ‘Social psychology of sugar consumption’. You won’t necessarily keep these headings in your final essay. Instead, think of them as guide posts to keep you on course.

Find your flow

Now – and only now – it’s time to put fingers to keyboard. But forget settling down for an all-nighter. Instead, set an alarm for five minutes from now, and write until it goes off. This will be far less daunting than seeing a marathon writing session stretching out before you. After all, how bad can five minutes be? Yet what you’ll probably find is that you start speeding up to try to beat the clock. And in doing so, you’ll start to create momentum. Three or four of these five-minute burst are normally all it takes to get things moving. For it to work, you have to be honest with yourself and stop at five minutes if it’s just not happening for you. But when you do, make sure you reset your alarm and start another five-minute session five minutes from now.

Forget your grade

Although your heart may be set on producing a first-class essay, put these thoughts aside while you’re writing. Focusing fully on answering the essay question gives you the best chance of scoring top marks.

Pay attention to detail

Once you have your first draft, carefully comb through it and weed out any meaningless words. Make sure your opening paragraph directly answers the question and that you’ve fully explored your arguments. Finally, proofread carefully by stopping a pen at each word to make sure there are no typos or spelling mistakes.

You don’t need the mad panic of an imminent deadline to get started. So don’t delay the writing process by doing too much research. Just take a deep breath, begin your brainstorm and write your way to essay success.