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The complete guide to writing a 2:1 standard university essay

Understanding what is being asked of You
The first thing you must do in the process of writing a successful health essay is to make sure you fully understand what the essay question is asking you to do. There are key terms that you should look out for which will act as signposts to how you should construct your response to the essay question. For example, if asked to evaluate the impact of the Health and Social Care Act upon the patient experience, it is important that you provide a critique of the strengths and weaknesses of the outcomes of the implementation of the Act. If asked to discuss the statement ‘the Health and Social Care Act has been ineffective in improving patient outcomes’ then you are required to decide whether or not you agree with this statement, and present your arguments accordingly. Understanding what you are being asked to do will not only enable the structuring of your essay but will also demonstrate the directions in which you should take your reading in order to address the essay question effectively.

Researching your Health Essay
Essays that achieve the highest marks tend to primarily source research articles from peer-review journals. This ensures that established research that directly bears on the research topic is evaluated by the writer directly. This is understandably preferable to the writer regurgitating previously expressed opinions and literature summaries that appear in text books and on various internet sources. Furthermore, disseminating research findings from journal articles, which are the platform at which scientific debates occur, is a highly valuable skill and an effective method of demonstrating understanding in your essay. Articles from peer-review journals can be accessed online through electronic databases such as PUBMED and MEDLINE. For a full list of electronic resources that are useful to health essay research see Winship & McNab (1998). (more…)