Supervision and guidance during the process of essay writing in the life sciences

Many years of supervision in essay writing have led to a strategy that has worked for many students and is based on a clearly structured schedule of events. It is highly effective, saves the student's and supervisor's time, and it provides opportunities to give high quality feedback and detailed guidance at appropriate stages of the writing process. Any feedback given during this process is cost neutral for the student, i.e. will not be considered when deciding the final mark, since the student performs the final write-up phase independently and has therefore sufficient opportunity to show his/her abilities and understanding. Notably, the structured approach applied here presents a transferable skill that will improve the student's performance also during exam essay writing.