Beyond the academic essay: Discipline-specific writing in nursing and midwifery

Although academic writing in higher education has been the focus of research efforts for more than two decades, the specific writing experiences, needs and difficulties of undergraduate nursing and midwifery students have remained largely under-researched. This article reports on a project that investigated the nature and dynamics of academic writing in pre-registration nursing and midwifery at a UK university. The project collected data from a survey completed by 135 students and two focus groups. The article examines the specific genres on these two programmes, the difficulties participating students face when writing them, and their views as to how they can be best supported to do these tasks. It concludes with an analysis of the implications that these issues have for teaching discipline-specific genres in nursing and midwifery and offers some suggestions to respond to such implications.