Each day we work hard to overcome problems using different solutions based on the problem, some solutions may include changing a behavior, communicating with peers or the community, or even simply just acknowledging that there is a problem. Along with growing up and encountering problems, some of us choose to take the extra step into college after completing high school, which can sometimes come with a lot of problems, learning how to change from everything we have known for the past eighteen years. From studying business, to criminal justice each major may come with some challenges although nursing school tends to lead to many problems for students in English classes considering it is a very science heavy major. Throughout this article we will learn how to address when a nursing student may have a problem in English and include the studies that have been done to come up with solutions. 

Just like everything in life our attitudes towards something have a major impact on the outcome of the problem. For nursing students changing their attitudes towards writing can sometimes be an easy solution to not doing so well in English class, instead of saying “I hate that I have to write a 1,000 word essay right now I will do it later”. 

One way to deal with this problem is to break down longer writing projects into smaller chunks. Instead of writing a 1000 word essay, we might instead say “I am going to write 200 words of my essay everyday this week to have it completed by Sunday”. By adjusting the way we go about writing a paper it can make the process of actually writing a lot easier and less overwhelming. Using the method of creating a schedule or planning out how to write the paper over a period of time instead of writing it all two hours before it’s due is my favorite solution. Not only in writing but in everyday life it can feel a lot less stressful to have a plan for the day of the errands or tasks you may need to complete instead of just trying to tackle them all just at random. 

Another big problem that may be causing a nursing student to not do so well in English class is because it is not something that they are good at. After all, math and science are the major courses that are needed for a nursing major, so English is usually a struggle. For some nursing students they were not taught correctly how to write an essay or how to research information to include, or even what information to include in their essay. 

A really creative solution that came from the scientific article “When Nursing Students Write: Change Attitudes” by Ann Dobie, she offered the solution of “designing writing activities deemed likely to have a positive effect on students’ personal involvement in subject matter, data comprehension, and critical thinking”(Dobie). This solution is great for any nursing students that may feel like they do not know how to effectively write, because it causes them to think critically about something English related. 

Another idea to make writing an essay easier and not so overwhelming is to brainstorm and gather all the information before writing the actual essay. The scientific article offered the solution that “having all of the notes and information organized before writing the essay is a lot easier and a huge time saver”(Dobie). 

One of the last solutions to this problem is writing the “body paragraph” of the essay before writing the introduction and conclusion. By doing this it allows all of your thoughts and ideas to be in the essay and you are able to better introduce the information and make conclusions on what is in the essay to bring it all together. 

The last problem that I will address in this essay with a few different solutions is not knowing where to start or what to even write for a prompted essay in an English class. This problem may occur when a professor says the essay must follow certain rules and be about a certain topic that you have no idea about. A solution to this problem can be to create questions about the prompt with a few different answers one of the most common questions that the scientific article offers is “what do I already know about this material”(Dobie), even if you only know a few things about the topic it can be helpful to write them down and work to expand on those thoughts. If there is a topic that you may not know a single thing about it helps to know how to also know how to research information. There are many different techniques to researching and at times many different steps to fulfilling a full research process. The first step of this is finding a credible source, a lot of these articles can be found on a scholarly website for example “Compile” is a great resource to find scholarly articles about English. The second step is selecting the article and finding what information may be necessary, not writing down everything and taking simple notes can be very helpful. These few research process steps can help to find information about something you may have never heard of before. 

Although each of these problems have solutions sometimes we may run into problems that have no solution, or have a solution that we do not like it is important to keep a positive attitude when working through these problems, just by saying “I will figure out a way to get understand this essay prompt” is a lot better than staring at it and waiting till two hours before it is due to complete it. A positive attitude will almost always lead to a more positive outcome.

Works Cited:

 Dobie , Ann. When Nursing Students Write: Changing ... - Wac.colostate.edu. https://wac.colostate.edu/llad/v1n3/dobie.pdf.