A solid 2.1 grade requires the ability to keep on topic and make all of the text of your essay ultimately relevant to the question. Context and background information is often an important part of academic writing, but should not be detailed at the expense of focus. Limit even the most interesting digressions.

A solid 2.1 grade requires the ability to keep on topic and make all of the text of your essay ultimately relevant to the question. Context and background information is often an important part of academic writing, but should not be detailed at the expense of focus. Limit even the most interesting digressions.

Awareness. Try to show your understanding of the important values, issues and debates in nursing today by letting these inform your approach to essay writing. This can be seen as a guide as much as an added requirement; when stuck with how to introduce an idea or set up a discussion, consider current issues as providing a way in.

Do not begin analysing the literature before clarifying in your own mind the research questions that will guide your dissertation. By formulating problems beforehand, you will avoid wasting hours in aimless reading. Know the issues of concern to you and consider the material through this lens alone.

Any extended piece of writing such as a dissertation naturally requires considerably more depth of analysis than undergraduate and Masters essays. Narrow, trivial or shallow research questions will not generate enough depth of discussion and will therefore limit the mark you can expect to achieve.

A dissertation constitutes your personal academic position, and should therefore by nature be substantially original in order to fulfil its basic requirement. Originality comes in shades and degrees, however, and for an upper 1st mark you must demonstrate in all aspects of your work an original critical stance and unique perspective, informed by your novel research aims.

With the new wave of education technology sweeping through our schools and colleges, we take a look at the pros and cons of the e-learning revolution.

How often does the supervisor expect to see you? How much time do you want to spend with them? You may feel quite happy dissertation writing by yourself, or perhaps you know that you won’t get anything done without a regular check-in session. Discuss the contact time with the supervisor to arrange a schedule that will suit both of you.

There is so much academic writing available online, from sites offering free essay advice, through to help with writing exam essays and revision notes. There are some first rate sites out there, but some writing blogs and websites can provide dubious advice. Some sites are easy to discount. These are the ones that are pure gibberish. Sentences make no sense and may even be written by a software package that jumbles words together, rather than being written by a human being. These are easy to spot!