reflective essay on college experience

Home — Essay Samples — Education — College Life — My First Experience: A Reflection on the Impact of College Life

My First Experience: a Reflection on The Impact of College Life

Categories: College Life

About this sample

Words: 497 |

Published: Mar 8, 2024

Words: 497 | Page: 1 | 3 min read

Broadening horizons, skills and knowledge, personal growth and development, sense of purpose and direction.

Cite this Essay

Let us write you an essay from scratch

450+ experts on 30 subjects ready to help
Custom essay delivered in as few as 3 hours

Get high-quality help

Verified writer

Expert in: Education

+ 120 experts online

By clicking “Check Writers’ Offers”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy . We’ll occasionally send you promo and account related email

No need to pay just yet!

Related Essays

2 pages / 1031 words

2 pages / 823 words

2 pages / 819 words

1 pages / 450 words

Remember! This is just a sample.

You can get your custom paper by one of our expert writers.

121 writers online

Still can’t find what you need?

Browse our vast selection of original essay samples, each expertly formatted and styled

Related Essays on College Life

Being a college student in today's society, the pressure to be outgoing and extroverted is ever-present. Social events, educational settings, and work environments all seem to favor those who are communicative and open. However, [...]

The college experience is often associated with the party lifestyle. Students are known for their social gatherings, late-night outings, and alcohol-fueled events. While some may argue that this lifestyle is an essential part of [...]

In today's society, the pursuit of happiness is often regarded as the ultimate goal of human existence. However, finding true happiness can be a challenging and complex journey, especially for college students who are navigating [...]

College life is a unique experience that every student looks forward to. It is a time when you transition from being a teenager to an adult, when you step out of your comfort zone and explore new horizons. College life is more [...]

Brotherhood and sisterhood. Those two words have such a significant meaning. There is a difference between friendship and brotherhood or sisterhood. They create a bond that is completely different from others. If one needs help, [...]

The daily activities of the college based lifestyle can be challenging for many students to balance. A typical college student, like myself, can be putting up to eighty hours into work and school a week if not more. When one [...]

Get Your Personalized Essay in 3 Hours or Less!

We use cookies to personalyze your web-site experience. By continuing we’ll assume you board with our cookie policy .

Instructions Followed To The Letter
Deadlines Met At Every Stage
Unique And Plagiarism Free

Reflective Essay: Introduction, Structure, Topics, Examples For University

Table of Contents

If you’re not quite sure how to go about writing reflective essays, they can be a real stumbling block. Reflective essays are essentially a critical examination of a life experience, and with the right guidance, they don’t have to be too difficult to write. As with other essays, a reflective essay needs to be well structured and easily understood, but its content is more like a diary entry.

This guide discusses how to write a successful reflective essay, including what makes a great structure and some tips on the writing process. To make this guide the ultimate guide for anyone who needs help with reflective essays, we’ve included an example reflective essay as well.

Reflective Essay

Reflective essays require students to examine their life experiences, especially those which left an impact.

The purpose of writing a reflective essay is to challenge students to think deeply and to learn from their experiences. This is done by describing their thoughts and feelings regarding a certain experience and analyzing its impact.

Reflective essays are a unique form of academic writing that encourages introspection and self-analysis. They provide an opportunity for individuals to reflect upon their experiences, thoughts, and emotions, and effectively communicate their insights. In this article, we will explore the essential components of a reflective essay, discuss popular topics, provide guidance on how to start and structure the essay, and offer examples to inspire your writing.

I. Understanding Reflective Essays:

Definition and purpose of reflective essays
Key characteristics that distinguish them from other types of essays
Benefits of writing reflective essays for personal growth and development

II. Choosing a Reflective Essay Topic:

Exploring personal experiences and their impact
Analyzing significant life events or milestones
Examining challenges, successes, or failures and lessons learned
Reflecting on personal growth and transformation
Discussing the impact of specific books, movies, or artworks
Analyzing the influence of cultural or social experiences
Reflecting on internships, volunteer work, or professional experiences

III. Starting a Reflective Essay:

Engage the reader with a captivating hook or anecdote
Introduce the topic and provide context
Clearly state the purpose and objectives of the reflection
Include a thesis statement that highlights the main insights to be discussed

IV. Writing a Reflective Essay on a Class:

Assessing the overall learning experience and objectives of the class
Analyzing personal growth and development throughout the course
Reflecting on challenges, achievements, and lessons learned
Discussing the impact of specific assignments, projects, or discussions
Evaluating the effectiveness of teaching methods and materials

V. Common Mistakes to Avoid in Reflective Essay Writing:

Superficial reflection without deep analysis
Overuse of personal opinions without supporting evidence
Lack of organization and coherence in presenting ideas
Neglecting to connect personal experiences to broader concepts or theories
Failing to provide specific examples to illustrate key points

VI. Why “Shooting an Elephant” by George Orwell is Classified as a Reflective Essay:

Briefly summarize the essay’s content and context
Analyze the introspective and self-analytical elements in Orwell’s narrative
Discuss the themes of moral conflict, imperialism, and personal conscience
Highlight Orwell’s reflections on the psychological and emotional impact of his actions

VII. Reflective Essay Structure:

Engaging opening statement or anecdote
Background information and context
Clear thesis statement
Present and analyze personal experiences, thoughts, and emotions
Reflect on the significance and impact of those experiences
Connect personal reflections to broader concepts or theories
Provide supporting evidence and specific examples
Summarize key insights and reflections
Emphasize the personal growth or lessons learned
Conclude with a thought-provoking statement or call to action

VIII. Reflective Essay Examples:

Example 1: Reflecting on a life-changing travel experience
Example 2: Analyzing personal growth during a challenging academic year
Example 3: Reflecting on the impact of volunteering at a local shelter

During a reflective essay, the writer examines his or her own experiences, hence the term ‘reflection’. The purpose of a reflective essay is to allow the author to recount a particular life experience. However, it should also explore how he or she has changed or grown as a result of the experience.

The format of reflective writing can vary, but you’ll most likely see it in the form of a learning log or diary entry. The author’s diary entries demonstrate how the author’s thoughts have developed and evolved over the course of a particular period of time.

The format of a reflective essay can vary depending on the intended audience. A reflective essay might be academic or part of a broader piece of writing for a magazine, for example.

While the format for class assignments may vary, the purpose generally remains the same: tutors want students to think deeply and critically about a particular learning experience. Here are some examples of reflective essay formats you may need to write:

Focusing on personal growth:

Tutors often use this type of paper to help students develop their ability to analyze their personal life experiences so that they can grow and develop emotionally. As a result of the essay, the student gains a better understanding of themselves and their behaviors.

Taking a closer look at the literature:

The purpose of this type of essay is for students to summarize the literature, after which it is applied to their own experiences.

What am I supposed to write about?

When deciding on the content of your reflective essay, you need to keep in mind that it is highly personal and is intended to engage the reader. Reflective essays are much more than just recounting a story. As you reflect on your experience (more on this later), you will need to demonstrate how it influenced your subsequent behavior and how your life has consequently changed.

Start by thinking about some important experiences in your life that have had a profound impact on you, either positively or negatively. A reflection essay topic could be a real-life experience, an imagined experience, a special object or place, a person who influenced you, or something you’ve seen or read.

If you are asked to write a reflective essay for an academic assignment, it is likely that you will be asked to focus on a particular episode – such as a time when you had to make an influential decision – and explain the results. In a reflective essay, the aftermath of the experience is especially significant; miss this out and you will simply be telling a story.

Is Remote Learning a Genuine Alternative to More Traditional Methods?

Considerations

In this type of essay, the reflective process is at the core, so it’s important that you get it right from the beginning. Think deeply about how the experience you have chosen to focus on impacted or changed you. Consider the implications for you on a personal level based on your memories and feelings.

Once you have chosen the topic of your essay, it is imperative that you spend a lot of time thinking about it and studying it thoroughly. Write down everything you remember about it, describing it as clearly and completely as you can. Use your five senses to describe your experience, and be sure to use adjectives. During this stage, you can simply take notes using short phrases, but make sure to record your reactions, perceptions, and experiences.

As soon as you’ve emptied your memory, you should begin reflecting. Choosing some reflection questions that will help you think deeply about the impact and lasting effects of your experience is a helpful way to do this. Here are some suggestions:

As a result of the experience, what have you learned about yourself?
What have you developed as a result? How?
Has it had a positive or negative impact on your life?
Looking back, what would you do differently?
If you could go back, what would you do differently? Did you make the right decisions?
How would you describe the experience in general? What did you learn from the experience? What skills or perspectives did you acquire?

You can use these signpost questions to kick-start your reflective process. Remember that asking yourself lots of questions is crucial to ensuring that you think deeply and critically about your experiences – a skill at the heart of a great reflective essay.

Use models of reflection (like the Gibbs or Kolb cycles) before, during, and after the learning process to ensure that you maintain a high standard of analysis. Before you get to the nitty-gritty of the process, consider questions such as: what might happen (in regards to the experience)?

Will there be any challenges? What knowledge will be needed to best prepare? When you are planning and writing, these questions may be helpful: what is happening within the learning process? Has everything worked according to plan? How am I handling the challenges that come with it?

Do you need to do anything else to ensure that the learning process is successful? Is there anything I can learn from this? Using a framework like this will enable you to keep track of the reflective process that should guide your work.

Here’s a useful tip: no matter how well prepared you feel with all that time spent reflecting in your arsenal, don’t start writing your essay until you have developed a comprehensive, well-rounded plan. There will be so much more coherence in what you write, your ideas will be expressed with structure and clarity, and your essay will probably receive higher marks as a result.

It’s especially important when writing a reflective essay as it’s possible for people to get a little ‘lost’ or disorganized as they recount their own experiences in an erratic and often unsystematic manner since it’s an incredibly personal topic. But if you outline thoroughly (this is the same thing as a ‘plan’) and adhere to it like Christopher Columbus adhered to a map, you should be fine as you embark on the ultimate step of writing your essay. We’ve summarized the benefits of creating a detailed essay outline below if you’re still not convinced of the value of planning:

An outline can help you identify all the details you plan to include in your essay, allowing you to remove all superfluous details so that your essay is concise and to the point.

Think of the outline as a map – you plan in advance which points you will navigate through and discuss in your writing. You will more likely have a clear line of thought, making your work easier to understand. You’ll be less likely to miss out on any pertinent details, and you won’t have to go back at the end and try to fit them in.

This is a real-time-saver! When you use the outline as an essay’s skeleton, you’ll save a tremendous amount of time when writing because you’ll know exactly what you want to say. Due to this, you will be able to devote more time to editing the paper and ensuring it meets high standards.

As you now know the advantages of using an outline for your reflective essay, it is important that you know how to create one. There can be significant differences between it and other typical essay outlines, mostly due to the varying topics. As always, you need to begin your outline by drafting the introduction, body, and conclusion. We will discuss this in more detail below.

Introduction

Your reflective essay must begin with an introduction that contains both a hook and a thesis statement. The goal of a ‘hook’ is to capture the attention of your audience or reader from the very beginning. In the first paragraph of your story, you should convey the exciting aspects of your story so that you can succeed in

If you think about the opening quote of this article, did it grab your attention and make you want to read more? This thesis statement summarizes the essay’s focus, which in this case is a particular experience that left a lasting impression on you. Give a quick overview of your experience – don’t give too much information away or you’ll lose readers’ interest.

Education Essay Can Come from Both a Brilliant and Mediocre Writer

Reflection Essay Structure

A reflective essay differs greatly from an argumentative or research paper in its format. Reflective essays are more like well-structured stories or diary entries that are rife with insights and reflections. Your essay may need to be formatted according to the APA style or MLA style.

In general, the length of a reflection paper varies between 300 and 700 words, but it is a good idea to check with your instructor or employer about the word count. Even though this is an essay about you, you should try to avoid using too much informal language.

The following shortcuts can help you format your paper according to APA or MLA style if your instructor asks:

MLA Format for Reflective Essay

Times New Roman 12 pt font double spaced;
1” margins;
The top right includes the last name and page number on every page;
Titles are centered;
The header should include your name, your professor’s name, course number, and the date (dd/mm/yy);
The last page contains a Works Cited list.

Reflective Essay in APA Style

Include a page header on the top of every page;
Insert page number on the right;
Your reflective essay should be divided into four parts: Title Page, Abstract, Main Body, and References.

Reflective Essay Outline

Look at your brainstorming table to start organizing your reflective essay. ‘Past experience’ and ‘description’ should make up less than 10% of your essay.

You should include the following in your introduction:

Grab the reader’s attention with a short preview of what you’ll be writing about.

Example: We found Buffy head-to-toe covered in tar, starved and fur in patches, under an abandoned garbage truck.

It is important to include ‘past experiences’ in a reflective essay thesis statement; a brief description of what the essay is about.

Example: My summer volunteering experience at the animal shelter inspired me to pursue this type of work in the future.

Chronological events are the best way to explain the structure of body paragraphs. Respond to the bold questions in the ‘reflection’ section of the table to create a linear storyline.

Here’s an example of what the body paragraph outline should look like:

Explicit expectations about the shelter

Example: I thought it was going to be boring and mundane.

The first impression
Experience at the shelter

Example: Finding and rescuing Buffy.

Other experiences with rescuing animals
Discoveries

Example: Newly found passion and feelings toward the work.

A newly developed mindset

Example: How your thoughts about animal treatment have changed.

Tips on How to Stay Productive While Working Remotely

Here’s How You Can Submit a Well-Written Reflective Essay for University

Even though writing a reflective essay may seem difficult at first, once you have a clear idea of what you will write and more importantly, how to write, it often gets easier as you go along. Here are five key writing tips to keep in mind when writing a reflective essay.

Choosing a Topic for Reflection

As a busy student, when was the last time you drowned yourself in thoughts and reflected on past experiences? Here is an assignment that intentionally puts you in that position.

Think about all of the experiences which have shaped you – a life-changing event, an interaction with someone you admire, a movie character that appealed to you, a book that gave you perspective, or any other experience which contributed to your character or thought process.

You should choose a topic that will help you reflect on your growth as an individual. Start brainstorming and record every idea that comes to mind.

Organize your thoughts in a mind map

The next step is to create a mind map to help you organize your essay once you have a rough idea of what you want to write.

You can use your mind map to quiz yourself by asking questions of relevance and putting together perspectives for your essay.

The purpose of this exercise is to give you an idea of what you want your essay to be about. It is important to keep pushing yourself to think more deeply and find meaning in your experiences in order to create a successful reflective essay.

From becoming a Writer Today, here are some tips on using mind maps to write better and faster

Start Freewriting

Sometimes, all you have to do is start writing. Essentially, that’s what freewriting is all about.

After brainstorming, creating a mind map, and organizing your thoughts, open a blank document and start writing. Do not stop to think or to edit – just write as your thoughts come to you.

The best part of freewriting is that it results in a steady flow of ideas you may not have thought of otherwise.

In other words, whether or not you’re motivated to write or are constantly second-guessing your ideas, it helps to let your ideas guide you and put them down on paper.

Structure the Essay

It’s time to put your ideas and thoughts into words and give them a proper structure. A reflective essay should have the following parts:

You should begin your essay with a hook to grab the reader’s attention. While setting the tone for the rest of the essay, your thesis statement should introduce the past experience you will be reflecting on;

In this section, you will elaborate on the experience and its significance, as well as its impact on your life. Avoid rambling on and on about the experience for readers to want to read more of your essay, you need to use your storytelling skills. If you can, use examples to strengthen your narrative;

A summary of your reflections is provided in the concluding paragraph. In your essay, you should describe how the experience shaped your life and how you intend to take your learnings and apply them.

Proofread, Proofread and Proofread

Be sure to proofread your reflective essay before submitting it. Before finalizing it, you need to do thorough proofreading. You will be surprised to see how many silly mistakes are made in the first draft.

Be on the lookout for grammatical, spelling, and sentence formation mistakes. Make sure your essay flows well and avoids plagiarism. If you want a fresh set of eyes on your essay, have a family member or friend read it too.

Reflective Essay Topics

Many students find choosing the right topic for a reflective essay difficult. Writing a reflective essay requires creativity and strong writing skills to express your emotions.

Reflective essays can be inspired by nature, places, relationships, and events. Here are some tips that will help you choose the right essay topic.

Decide on a topic idea for your reflective essay that you are familiar with. You will find it easier to write an essay about a topic you are interested in. Never choose a topic that is new to you. This makes the writing phase difficult.
Research your topic: Try to recollect minor details about it. Remember all the things that are related to your topic, and include them in your essay. Take notes about your topic.
Pick a topic that you can explain from a unique viewpoint: Choose a topic that you can explain from a different perspective. Writing something unique that demonstrates your personality in an interesting way is a good technique. Share a memorable and meaningful experience from your life.

Topics for Reflective Essays for Middle School Students

Essay topics can be difficult to choose for some students. The following list of topics can be classified according to grade level. Pick from them and make topic selection easier.

Topics for Reflective Essays in Grade 7

Taking a trip
To go scuba diving
Within your hometown
Was something you were proud of
Even when you were lost
To your favorite cartoon
During that time you lied
When you were hunting
Did your family play an important role in your life?
Spending time outdoors

Topics for Reflective Essays in Grade 8

Running in the outdoors
While picking berries
Will be your biggest loss
Who is your biggest inspiration?
What is your greatest fear?
Tell me about your most exciting moment.
What is your least favorite course?
When you go on a date
To a birthday party
Which is your favorite online space?

Topics for Reflective Essays in Grade 9

A new school
Makes me think about the future.
You participated in or watched a sporting event.
You moved to a new city.
You had an unforgettable dream.
You were running and hunting.
You cannot forget that dream.
It was your childhood home.
Watching the sunrise
An award ceremony

Topics for Reflective Essays in Grade 10

Defending someone in a situation
While playing with friends
It was a memorable dream
About lying and hiding
The most recent meal
While getting lost in the dark
As an intern at a hospital
Or when someone’s life inspired you to change your own
Challenges as a college freshman
By participating in sports

Topics for Reflective Essays for College Students

For college students, the most difficult part of writing a reflective essay is choosing a topic. Some students are better at choosing the essay topic than others, but some will get stuck in this phase.

Here are some excellent reflective essay topics for college students for your convenience. Choose one and write a well-written essay.

First time writing a thesis statement
Your favorite video game
The impact of social media on students
A place you always try to avoid
What was the best birthday memory you had?
What is your favorite restaurant?
The moment when you were proud of yourself
The bravest moment of your life
The most beautiful thing you have ever seen
A time you were embarrassed

Getting Higher Scores for an Essay: Tested Tips from Students

Topics for Reflective Essays for High School Students

The choice of a topic for a reflective essay can be confusing for high school students. Your topic should be engaging and you should be able to explain your personal experience easily. Here is a list of good topics for high school students; choose something from the list for your essay.

Shop at your favorite outlet store
To relive your favorite childhood memory
Of the most memorable holiday
That scared you?
That’s when you met your best friend
And what you love about yourself
Is playing with friends.
What’s your favorite book?
I loved playing in the mud as a kid.
Having to move to a new town or city

Topics for Reflective Essays about Places

Reflective essays should be based on strong emotions and memories. You could write an essay about a day spent at your favorite café, favorite restaurant, etc.

It is easy to write a reflective essay about a place where you have really good memories. Here are some topic ideas that you can use and write an essay on.

Your grandparents’ house
A skating rink
A place where you feel safe
A favorite vacation spot
A popular lunch spot
On your first day at the circus
The mall or your favorite store
Your first trip abroad
Best park in your town
Your most memorable adventure

Topics for Reflective Essays about Events

A good way to grab the reader’s attention is to write about any event. Your essay can be about a birthday party, a farewell, or any other event that you have enough information about.

If you are writing a reflective essay about an event, include vivid details. Here are some interesting topics for reflection essays, choose one and write a good essay.

Unexpected gift
To travel on vacation
While you were lost
The first time you voted
On your trip to the zoo
When you got a new job
It was one of your most memorable trips
During the holiday season
When you moved to a new city
Or when you swam fishing

Topics for Reflective Essays on Nature

A reflective essay should provide the reader with a deeper and more meaningful experience. In addition to making your writing process more interesting, writing about nature also stimulates your imagination.

The following are some good reflective essay topics about nature:

Mountain climbing
Ocean diving
Hiking in the woods
Climbing rocks
And watching the sunset
While running in the forest.
Spending quality time with your pet.
Taking a hike in the woods
And going swimming
While watching animals at a zoo

How to write a term paper

Topics for reflection on relationships

As relationships are filled with strong emotions, writing a reflective essay about them means expressing those emotions. The following are some good reflective essay topics about relationships:

A wonderful family reunion
When you spoke publicly for the first time
What friendship means to me
When you were punished by your parents
During a family reunion
When you apologized
For a time you spent with friends without parental supervision
Tell me about your relationship with a family member
An angry conversation
Or a genuinely funny laugh

Some reflective essay topics are the same as some of the questions you may ask in a job interview.

Examples of Reflective Essay

Check out some examples for inspiration now that you know what it takes to write a reflective essay.

An Example of a Reflective Essay on “My Little Brother”

Essay example reflecting on the arrival of a younger sibling, written at a middle or high school level.

“There have been many life-changing experiences in my short life. Every new experience has been the first experience at one point in time. For good or for bad, each event altered the course of my life. But, the most transformative event was the birth of my youngest brother.”.

Joel is someone my parents often refer to as a happy accident. My mother became pregnant when I was 13 and my other brother, Jake, was 10. We were what you would call a well-rounded family of four. In almost every way, we fit the ideal classification. My youngest brother’s striking blue eyes were the moment when we realized what we were missing.

Honestly, I resented having another sibling. It wasn’t necessary to add to our family, and my mother, already 38 at the time, was considered high risk because of her age. A pregnancy full of complications sent my life on a rollercoaster-like ride that my 13-year-old mind could not comprehend. Now I can see how forging through those loops helped me cope with the unforeseen challenges of life.

My mother took me to the hospital instead of my father on the day Joel was born. I was the next best alternative because Jake and my father were both feverish; it wasn’t a planned move. With each contraction, I gained a new appreciation for just how strong and powerful a woman could be at her weakest. Through holding her hand and feeding her ice chips, I gained a connection with my mother that I didn’t realize we lacked.

Almost simultaneously, my new baby brother entered this world. One doesn’t realize how much you need something until it’s sitting in your lap. Secondly, my life after this moment would never be the same the moment he curled his chubby little finger around mine, I understood the meaning of the words “happy accident.”.y.

Life has given me many experiences that have shaped me as a person. But, nothing so profoundly changed my views and outlook on life as the birth of my youngest brother. Joel’s arrival was a life-altering event that caused me to see the world through new eyes.”

Assignment Writing Purposes You Need to Know

Reflective Essay Example for “ Reading My Favorite Book”

This reflective essay example about a favorite book is something you might find at the middle or high school level.

When it comes to books, I don’t understand the appeal. Every time I was given an assignment, I would read one after another, not understanding what all the fuss was about. Nevertheless, the moment I read Pride and Prejudice, it was as if my literary eyes were opened for the first time. It stirred love within me for classics I didn’t realize could exist.

When I was first given the assignment of reading Pride and Prejudice, like many of my friends, I scoffed. With an eye roll, I internally calculated how much time I would have to read the book and write a report. I sighed at the loss of time with my friends for a stupid classic.

Cracking open the cover, I was determined to hate it before even reading the first words. By the time I reached page 3, I nearly stopped reading. But there was something about Elizabeth Bennet that quietly piqued my interest. I can’t say where, but somewhere along the way, my eyes devoured the pages instead of trudging along.

The moment I reached the end, I was ecstatic and disappointed at the same time. Their ending had been perfect, but I realized I would miss them. Not just them, but I would also miss being a part of their world.

It was the first time the characters of a story had affected me this way, so I tried to shake it off. However, after several days, that sadness carried me to the classics section of the school library. The moment I cracked open my next classic, my soul instantly felt more at ease, and I’ve never looked back.

I never thought I’d say a book changed me, but in this case, it’s true. The love I found in Pride and Prejudice introduced me to a beautiful world of classic literature I can’t imagine living without. Despite not reading Pride and Prejudice for a while, it will always be my favorite book.

In the conclusion of your reflective essay, you should focus on bringing your piece together. This will include providing a summary of both the points made throughout and what you have learned as a result. Try to include a few points on why and how your attitudes and behaviors have been changed.

Consider also how your character and skills have been affected, for example: what conclusions can be drawn about your problem-solving skills? What can be concluded about your approach to specific situations? What might you do differently in similar situations in the future? What steps have you taken to consolidate everything that you have learned from your experience?

Keep in mind that your tutor will be looking out for evidence of reflection at a very high standard.

Congratulations – you now have the tools to create a thorough and accurate plan which should put you in good stead for the ultimate phase indeed of any essay, the writing process.

Oxbridge Notes offers a wide array of meticulously crafted study resources tailored for law students, providing invaluable support for academic endeavors. Our platform boasts a comprehensive collection of notes, essays, and revision materials covering a diverse range of legal topics, meticulously curated by top students and academics from esteemed universities. Whether you’re preparing for exams, writing essays, or seeking to deepen your understanding of legal concepts, Oxbridge Notes is your trusted companion on the journey to legal excellence.

How do you start off a reflective essay?

As is the case with all essays, your reflective essay must begin with an introduction that contains both a hook and a thesis statement. The point of having a ‘hook’ is to grab the attention of your audience or reader from the very beginning.

Can you say I in a reflective essay?

In your reflective essay, you should use the first person with terms like I, me, my, and mine. The essay is an account of something that actually happened to you as well as your thoughts on the event.

What is an example of a reflection?

Common examples include the reflection of light, sound, and water waves. The law of reflection says that for specular reflection the angle at which the wave is incident on the surface equals the angle at which it is reflected. Mirrors exhibit specular reflection.

How do you start the first paragraph of a reflective essay?

Describe the subject matter of the paper in more detail. Include one or two sentences after the first sentence in which you describe the basic features of whatever topic you will be discussing in your essay. Describe them in terms of your feelings, and how you felt and experienced whatever you are discussing.

How many paragraphs should a reflective essay have?

The number of paragraphs depends on the requested essay length. However, it is recommended to write at least three paragraphs in this part. In the body, present your main points, arguments, and examples. This is the part of an essay where you express all your main ideas, develop them, and express your feelings and emotions.

What are the three parts of a reflective essay?

However, some major elements go into a typical reflective essay: introduction, body, and conclusion.

How Do You Write A Reflective Essay?

To write a reflective essay, follow these steps:

Choose a topic: Select a specific event, experience, or concept that you want to reflect upon.
Brainstorm and outline: Reflect on your chosen topic and jot down key points, thoughts, and emotions associated with it. Create an outline to organize your ideas.
Introduction: Begin with an engaging hook to grab the reader’s attention. Provide background information and context related to the topic. End the introduction with a clear thesis statement that expresses the main insights or lessons you will discuss.
Body paragraphs: Each paragraph should focus on a specific aspect or experience related to your topic. Reflect on your thoughts, feelings, and observations, and support them with specific examples or evidence. Analyze the significance and impact of these experiences.
Use reflection techniques: Incorporate reflection techniques such as asking yourself questions, exploring the “why” behind your thoughts and emotions, and connecting your experiences to broader concepts or theories.
Conclusion: Summarize your key insights and reflections from the essay. Emphasize personal growth, lessons learned, or changes in perspective. Leave the reader with a thought-provoking statement or a call to action.

Which Of These Best Describes A Reflective Essay?

A reflective essay is best described as a type of academic or personal writing that allows individuals to examine and reflect upon their experiences, thoughts, and emotions. It involves introspection, self-analysis, and the exploration of lessons learned or personal growth. Reflective essays provide a platform for individuals to communicate their insights and understanding of a particular event, concept, or life experience.

What Is A Reflective Essay And Examples?

A reflective essay is a form of writing where individuals express their thoughts, feelings, and observations about a specific experience, event, or topic. It goes beyond simply describing the experience and delves into analyzing the impact, significance, and lessons learned. Reflective essays encourage self-reflection and introspection, allowing writers to gain deeper understanding and insight.

Examples of reflective essay topics include:

Reflecting on a life-changing travel experience and its impact on personal growth.
Analyzing the challenges and successes encountered during a group project and the lessons learned.
Reflecting on the influence of a particular book, film, or artwork and its effect on personal perspectives.
Examining the role of personal values and beliefs in decision-making processes.

What Are The Parts Of A Typical Reflective Essay?

A typical reflective essay consists of the following parts:

Introduction: It provides an engaging hook, background information, and context for the topic. The introduction ends with a clear thesis statement that states the main insights or lessons to be discussed.
Body paragraphs: Each paragraph focuses on a specific aspect or experience related to the topic. Writers reflect on their thoughts, feelings, and observations, supporting them with examples or evidence. They analyze the significance and impact of these experiences and connect them to broader concepts or theories.
Conclusion: The conclusion summarizes the key insights and reflections from the essay. It emphasizes personal growth, lessons learned, or changes in perspective. A thought-provoking statement or a call to action is often included to leave a lasting impression on the reader.

What Is A Goal Of The Introduction In A Reflective Essay?

The goal of the introduction in a reflective essay is to capture the reader’s attention and provide them with the necessary background information and context related to the topic. It should set the stage for the reflective journey that follows. The introduction concludes with a clear thesis statement that outlines the main insights or lessons the writer will discuss in the essay. It acts as a roadmap, guiding the reader through the writer’s reflections.

What Idea Would Most Likely Make The Best Reflective Essay?

The best idea for a reflective essay is a topic that holds personal significance and offers opportunities for introspection and deep reflection. An idea that involves a transformative experience, a significant life event, or a challenging situation often makes for a compelling reflective essay. It should be something that evokes strong emotions, prompts critical thinking, and allows for self-analysis. The best reflective essays are those that offer meaningful insights, growth, or lessons learned.

What Makes A Good Reflective Essay?

A good reflective essay possesses several key qualities:

Authenticity: It reflects the writer’s genuine thoughts, emotions, and observations.
Depth of reflection: It goes beyond surface-level descriptions and delves into meaningful analysis, exploring the “why” behind the experiences.
Coherence and organization: The essay is well-structured, with clear paragraphs and logical flow of ideas.
Use of specific examples: It supports reflections with specific examples, evidence, or anecdotes to enhance understanding and engagement.
Connection to broader concepts or theories: It links personal experiences to broader concepts, theories, or societal issues to demonstrate critical thinking and understanding.
Insight and personal growth: The essay offers meaningful insights, lessons learned, or personal growth as a result of the reflection.

By incorporating these elements, a good reflective essay effectively communicates the writer’s introspection and provides a thought-provoking reading experience.

Safe Freelancing: What Students Need to Know About Freelance Scammers

+44 (0) 207 391 9032

How Long Should a Thesis Statement Be?

How to Write a Character Analysis Essay
Best Colours for Your PowerPoint Presentation: How to Choose
How to Write a Nursing Essay
Top 5 Essential Skills You Should Build As An International Student
How Professional Editing Services Can Take Your Writing to the Next Level
How to Write an Effective Essay Outline
How to Write a Law Essay: A Comprehensive Guide with Examples
What Are the Limitations of ChatGPT?
Academic News
Custom Essays
Dissertation Writing
Essay Marking
Essay Writing
Essay Writing Companies
Model Essays
Model Exam Answers
Oxbridge Essays Updates
PhD Writing
Significant Academics
Student News
Study Skills
University Applications
University Essays
University Life
Writing Tips

A complete guide to writing a reflective essay

(Last updated: 3 June 2024)

Since 2006, Oxbridge Essays has been the UK’s leading paid essay-writing and dissertation service

We have helped 10,000s of undergraduate, Masters and PhD students to maximise their grades in essays, dissertations, model-exam answers, applications and other materials. If you would like a free chat about your project with one of our UK staff, then please just reach out on one of the methods below.

“The overwhelming burden of writing my first ever reflective essay loomed over me as I sat as still as a statue, as my fingers nervously poised over the intimidating buttons on my laptop keyboard. Where would I begin? Where would I end? Nerve wracking thoughts filled my mind as I fretted over the seemingly impossible journey on which I was about to embark.”

Reflective essays may seem simple on the surface, but they can be a real stumbling block if you're not quite sure how to go about them. In simple terms, reflective essays constitute a critical examination of a life experience and, with the right guidance, they're not too challenging to put together. A reflective essay is similar to other essays in that it needs to be easily understood and well structured, but the content is more akin to something personal like a diary entry.

In this guide, we explore in detail how to write a great reflective essay , including what makes a good structure and some advice on the writing process. We’ve even thrown in an example reflective essay to inspire you too, making this the ultimate guide for anyone needing reflective essay help.

Types of Reflection Papers

There are several types of reflective papers, each serving a unique purpose. Educational reflection papers focus on your learning experiences, such as a course or a lecture, and how they have impacted your understanding. Professional reflection papers often relate to work experiences, discussing what you have learned in a professional setting and how it has shaped your skills and perspectives. Personal reflection papers delve into personal experiences and their influence on your personal growth and development.

Each of these requires a slightly different approach, but all aim to provide insight into your thoughts and experiences, demonstrating your ability to analyse and learn from them. Understanding the specific requirements of each type can help you tailor your writing to effectively convey your reflections.

Reflective Essay Format

In a reflective essay, a writer primarily examines his or her life experiences, hence the term ‘reflective’. The purpose of writing a reflective essay is to provide a platform for the author to not only recount a particular life experience, but to also explore how he or she has changed or learned from those experiences. Reflective writing can be presented in various formats, but you’ll most often see it in a learning log format or diary entry. Diary entries in particular are used to convey how the author’s thoughts have developed and evolved over the course of a particular period.

The format of a reflective essay may change depending on the target audience. Reflective essays can be academic, or may feature more broadly as a part of a general piece of writing for a magazine, for instance. For class assignments, while the presentation format can vary, the purpose generally remains the same: tutors aim to inspire students to think deeply and critically about a particular learning experience or set of experiences. Here are some typical examples of reflective essay formats that you may have to write:

A focus on personal growth:

A type of reflective essay often used by tutors as a strategy for helping students to learn how to analyse their personal life experiences to promote emotional growth and development. The essay gives the student a better understanding of both themselves and their behaviours.

A focus on the literature:

This kind of essay requires students to provide a summary of the literature, after which it is applied to the student’s own life experiences.

Pre-Writing Tips: How to Start Writing the Reflection Essay?

As you go about deciding on the content of your essay, you need to keep in mind that a reflective essay is highly personal and aimed at engaging the reader or target audience. And there’s much more to a reflective essay than just recounting a story. You need to be able to reflect (more on this later) on your experience by showing how it influenced your subsequent behaviours and how your life has been particularly changed as a result.

As a starting point, you might want to think about some important experiences in your life that have really impacted you, either positively, negatively, or both. Some typical reflection essay topics include: a real-life experience, an imagined experience, a special object or place, a person who had an influence on you, or something you have watched or read. If you are writing a reflective essay as part of an academic exercise, chances are your tutor will ask you to focus on a particular episode – such as a time when you had to make an important decision – and reflect on what the outcomes were. Note also, that the aftermath of the experience is especially important in a reflective essay; miss this out and you will simply be storytelling.

What Do You Mean By Reflection Essay?

It sounds obvious, but the reflective process forms the core of writing this type of essay, so it’s important you get it right from the outset. You need to really think about how the personal experience you have chosen to focus on impacted or changed you. Use your memories and feelings of the experience to determine the implications for you on a personal level.

Once you’ve chosen the topic of your essay, it’s really important you study it thoroughly and spend a lot of time trying to think about it vividly. Write down everything you can remember about it, describing it as clearly and fully as you can. Keep your five senses in mind as you do this, and be sure to use adjectives to describe your experience. At this stage, you can simply make notes using short phrases, but you need to ensure that you’re recording your responses, perceptions, and your experience of the event(s).

Once you’ve successfully emptied the contents of your memory, you need to start reflecting. A great way to do this is to pick out some reflection questions which will help you think deeper about the impact and lasting effects of your experience. Here are some useful questions that you can consider:

What have you learned about yourself as a result of the experience?
Have you developed because of it? How?
Did it have any positive or negative bearing on your life?
Looking back, what would you have done differently?
Why do you think you made the particular choices that you did? Do you think these were the right choices?
What are your thoughts on the experience in general? Was it a useful learning experience? What specific skills or perspectives did you acquire as a result?

These signpost questions should help kick-start your reflective process. Remember, asking yourself lots of questions is key to ensuring that you think deeply and critically about your experiences – a skill that is at the heart of writing a great reflective essay.

Consider using models of reflection (like the Gibbs or Kolb cycles) before, during, and after the learning process to ensure that you maintain a high standard of analysis. For example, before you really get stuck into the process, consider questions such as: what might happen (regarding the experience)? Are there any possible challenges to keep in mind? What knowledge is needed to be best prepared to approach the experience? Then, as you’re planning and writing, these questions may be useful: what is happening within the learning process? Is the process working out as expected? Am I dealing with the accompanying challenges successfully? Is there anything that needs to be done additionally to ensure that the learning process is successful? What am I learning from this? By adopting such a framework, you’ll be ensuring that you are keeping tabs on the reflective process that should underpin your work.

How to Strategically Plan Out the Reflective Essay Structure?

Here’s a very useful tip: although you may feel well prepared with all that time spent reflecting in your arsenal, do not, start writing your essay until you have worked out a comprehensive, well-rounded plan . Your writing will be so much more coherent, your ideas conveyed with structure and clarity, and your essay will likely achieve higher marks.

This is an especially important step when you’re tackling a reflective essay – there can be a tendency for people to get a little ‘lost’ or disorganised as they recount their life experiences in an erratic and often unsystematic manner as it is a topic so close to their hearts. But if you develop a thorough outline (this is the same as a ‘plan’) and ensure you stick to it like Christopher Columbus to a map, you should do just fine as you embark on the ultimate step of writing your essay. If you need further convincing on how important planning is, we’ve summarised the key benefits of creating a detailed essay outline below:

Now you’re familiar with the benefits of using an outline for your reflective essay, it is essential that you know how to craft one. It can be considerably different from other typical essay outlines, mostly because of the varying subjects. But what remains the same, is that you need to start your outline by drafting the introduction, body and conclusion. More on this below.

Introduction

As is the case with all essays, your reflective essay must begin within an introduction that contains both a hook and a thesis statement. The point of having a ‘hook’ is to grab the attention of your audience or reader from the very beginning. You must portray the exciting aspects of your story in the initial paragraph so that you stand the best chances of holding your reader’s interest. Refer back to the opening quote of this article – did it grab your attention and encourage you to read more? The thesis statement is a brief summary of the focus of the essay, which in this case is a particular experience that influenced you significantly. Remember to give a quick overview of your experience – don’t give too much information away or you risk your reader becoming disinterested.

Next up is planning the body of your essay. This can be the hardest part of the entire paper; it’s easy to waffle and repeat yourself both in the plan and in the actual writing. Have you ever tried recounting a story to a friend only for them to tell you to ‘cut the long story short’? They key here is to put plenty of time and effort into planning the body, and you can draw on the following tips to help you do this well:

Try adopting a chronological approach. This means working through everything you want to touch upon as it happened in time. This kind of approach will ensure that your work is systematic and coherent. Keep in mind that a reflective essay doesn’t necessarily have to be linear, but working chronologically will prevent you from providing a haphazard recollection of your experience. Lay out the important elements of your experience in a timeline – this will then help you clearly see how to piece your narrative together.

Ensure the body of your reflective essay is well focused and contains appropriate critique and reflection. The body should not only summarise your experience, it should explore the impact that the experience has had on your life, as well as the lessons that you have learned as a result. The emphasis should generally be on reflection as opposed to summation. A reflective posture will not only provide readers with insight on your experience, it’ll highlight your personality and your ability to deal with or adapt to particular situations.

In the conclusion of your reflective essay, you should focus on bringing your piece together by providing a summary of both the points made throughout, and what you have learned as a result. Try to include a few points on why and how your attitudes and behaviours have been changed. Consider also how your character and skills have been affected, for example: what conclusions can be drawn about your problem-solving skills? What can be concluded about your approach to specific situations? What might you do differently in similar situations in the future? What steps have you taken to consolidate everything that you have learned from your experience? Keep in mind that your tutor will be looking out for evidence of reflection at a very high standard.

Congratulations – you now have the tools to create a thorough and accurate plan which should put you in good stead for the ultimate phase indeed of any essay, the writing process.

Step-by-Step Guide to Writing Your Reflective Essay

As with all written assignments, sitting down to put pen to paper (or more likely fingers to keyboard) can be daunting. But if you have put in the time and effort fleshing out a thorough plan, you should be well prepared, which will make the writing process as smooth as possible. The following points should also help ease the writing process:

To get a feel for the tone and format in which your writing should be, read other typically reflective pieces in magazines and newspapers, for instance.
Don’t think too much about how to start your first sentence or paragraph; just start writing and you can always come back later to edit anything you’re not keen on. Your first draft won’t necessarily be your best essay writing work but it’s important to remember that the earlier you start writing, the more time you will have to keep reworking your paper until it’s perfect. Don’t shy away from using a free-flow method, writing and recording your thoughts and feelings on your experiences as and when they come to mind. But make sure you stick to your plan. Your plan is your roadmap which will ensure your writing doesn’t meander too far off course.
For every point you make about an experience or event, support it by describing how you were directly impacted, using specific as opposed to vague words to convey exactly how you felt.
Write using the first-person narrative, ensuring that the tone of your essay is very personal and reflective of your character.
If you need to, refer back to our notes earlier on creating an outline. As you work through your essay, present your thoughts systematically, remembering to focus on your key learning outcomes.
Consider starting your introduction with a short anecdote or quote to grasp your readers’ attention, or other engaging techniques such as flashbacks.
Choose your vocabulary carefully to properly convey your feelings and emotions. Remember that reflective writing has a descriptive component and so must have a wide range of adjectives to draw from. Avoid vague adjectives such as ‘okay’ or ‘nice’ as they don’t really offer much insight into your feelings and personality. Be more specific – this will make your writing more engaging.
Be honest with your feelings and opinions. Remember that this is a reflective task, and is the one place you can freely admit – without any repercussions – that you failed at a particular task. When assessing your essay, your tutor will expect a deep level of reflection, not a simple review of your experiences and emotion. Showing deep reflection requires you to move beyond the descriptive. Be extremely critical about your experience and your response to it. In your evaluation and analysis, ensure that you make value judgements, incorporating ideas from outside the experience you had to guide your analysis. Remember that you can be honest about your feelings without writing in a direct way. Use words that work for you and are aligned with your personality.
Once you’ve finished learning about and reflecting on your experience, consider asking yourself these questions: what did I particularly value from the experience and why? Looking back, how successful has the process been? Think about your opinions immediately after the experience and how they differ now, so that you can evaluate the difference between your immediate and current perceptions. Asking yourself such questions will help you achieve reflective writing effectively and efficiently.
Don’t shy away from using a variety of punctuation. It helps keeps your writing dynamic! Doesn’t it?
If you really want to awaken your reader’s imagination, you can use imagery to create a vivid picture of your experiences.
Ensure that you highlight your turning point, or what we like to call your “Aha!” moment. Without this moment, your resulting feelings and thoughts aren’t as valid and your argument not as strong.
Don’t forget to keep reiterating the lessons you have learned from your experience.

Bonus Tip - Using Wider Sources

Although a reflective piece of writing is focused on personal experience, it’s important you draw on other sources to demonstrate your understanding of your experience from a theoretical perspective. It’ll show a level of analysis – and a standard of reliability in what you’re claiming – if you’re also able to validate your work against other perspectives that you find. Think about possible sources, like newspapers, surveys, books and even journal articles. Generally, the additional sources you decide to include in your work are highly dependent on your field of study. Analysing a wide range of sources, will show that you have read widely on your subject area, that you have nuanced insight into the available literature on the subject of your essay, and that you have considered the broader implications of the literature for your essay. The incorporation of other sources into your essay also helps to show that you are aware of the multi-dimensional nature of both the learning and problem-solving process.

Reflective Essay Example

If you want some inspiration for writing, take a look at our example of a short reflective essay , which can serve as a useful starting point for you when you set out to write your own.

Some Final Notes to Remember

To recap, the key to writing a reflective essay is demonstrating what lessons you have taken away from your experiences, and why and how you have been shaped by these lessons.

The reflective thinking process begins with you – you must consciously make an effort to identify and examine your own thoughts in relation to a particular experience. Don’t hesitate to explore any prior knowledge or experience of the topic, which will help you identify why you have formed certain opinions on the subject. Remember that central to reflective essay writing is the examination of your attitudes, assumptions and values, so be upfront about how you feel. Reflective writing can be quite therapeutic, helping you identify and clarify your strengths and weaknesses, particularly in terms of any knowledge gaps that you may have. It’s a pretty good way of improving your critical thinking skills, too. It enables you to adopt an introspective posture in analysing your experiences and how you learn/make sense of them.

If you are still having difficulties with starting the writing process, why not try mind-mapping which will help you to structure your thinking and ideas, enabling you to produce a coherent piece. Creating a mind map will ensure that your argument is written in a very systematic way that will be easy for your tutor to follow. Here’s a recap of the contents of this article, which also serves as a way to create a mind map:

1. Identify the topic you will be writing on.

2. Note down any ideas that are related to the topic and if you want to, try drawing a diagram to link together any topics, theories, and ideas.

3. Allow your ideas to flow freely, knowing that you will always have time to edit your reflective essay .

4. Consider how your ideas are connected to each other, then begin the writing process.

And finally, keep in mind that although there are descriptive elements in a reflective essay, we can’t emphasise enough how crucial it is that your work is critical, analytical, and adopts a reflective posture in terms of your experience and the lessons you have learned from it.

Essay exams: how to answer ‘To what extent…’

How to write a master’s essay

essay writing
reflective essays
study skills
writing a good essay
writing tips

Writing Services

Essay Plans
Critical Reviews
Literature Reviews
Presentations
Dissertation Title Creation
Dissertation Proposals
Dissertation Chapters
PhD Proposals
Journal Publication
CV Writing Service
Business Proofreading Services

Editing Services

Proofreading Service
Editing Service
Academic Editing Service

Additional Services

Marking Services
Consultation Calls
Personal Statements
Tutoring Services

Our Company

Frequently Asked Questions
Become a Writer

Terms & Policies

Fair Use Policy
Policy for Students in England
Privacy Policy
Terms & Conditions
[email protected]
Contact Form

Payment Methods

Cryptocurrency payments.

Link to facebook
Link to linkedin
Link to twitter
Link to youtube
Writing Tips

How to Write a Reflective Essay

3-minute read
29th August 2018

If you think that a “reflective essay” is a college paper written on a mirror, this post is for you. That’s because we’re here to explain exactly what a reflective essay is and how to write one. And we can tell you from the outset that no mirrors are required to follow our advice.

What Is Reflective Writing?

The kind of “reflection” we’re talking about here is personal. It involves considering your own situation and analyzing it so you can learn from your experiences. To do this, you need to describe what happened, how you felt about it, and what you might be able to learn from it for the future.

This makes reflective writing a useful part of courses that involve work-based learning . For instance, a student nurse might be asked to write a reflective essay about a placement.

When writing a reflective essay, moreover, you may have to forget the rule about not using pronouns like “I” or “we” in academic writing. In reflective writing, using the first person is essential!

The Reflective Cycle

There are many approaches to reflective learning, but one of the most popular is Gibb’s Reflective Cycle . This was developed by Professor Graham Gibbs and can be applied to a huge range of situations. In all cases, though, it involves the following steps:

Find this useful?

Subscribe to our newsletter and get writing tips from our editors straight to your inbox.

Description – You will need to describe your experiences in detail. This includes what happened, where and when it happened, who else was involved, and what you did.
Feelings – How you felt before, during, and after the experience you describe.
Evaluation and Analysis – Think about what went well and what could be improved upon based on your experience. Try to refer to ideas you’ve learned in class while thinking about this.
Conclusions – Final thoughts on what you’ve learned from the experience.
Action – How you will put what you’ve learned into practice.

If your reflective essay addresses the steps above, you are on the right track!

Structuring a Reflective Essay

While reflective essays vary depending upon topic and subject area, most share a basic overall structure. Unless you are told otherwise, then, your essay should include the following:

Introduction – A brief outline of what your essay is about.
Main Body – The main part of your essay will be a description of what happened and how it made you feel . This is also where you will evaluate and analyze your experiences, either as part of the description or as a separate section in the essay.
Conclusion – The conclusion of your essay should sum up what you have learned from reflecting on your experiences and what you would do differently in the future.
Reference List – If you have cited any sources in your essay, make sure to list them with full bibliographic information at the end of the document.

Finally, once you’ve written your essay, don’t forget to get it checked for spelling and grammar errors!

Share this article:

Post A New Comment

Got content that needs a quick turnaround? Let us polish your work. Explore our editorial business services.

5-minute read

Free Email Newsletter Template (2024)

Promoting a brand means sharing valuable insights to connect more deeply with your audience, and...

6-minute read

How to Write a Nonprofit Grant Proposal

If you’re seeking funding to support your charitable endeavors as a nonprofit organization, you’ll need...

9-minute read

How to Use Infographics to Boost Your Presentation

Is your content getting noticed? Capturing and maintaining an audience’s attention is a challenge when...

8-minute read

Why Interactive PDFs Are Better for Engagement

Are you looking to enhance engagement and captivate your audience through your professional documents? Interactive...

7-minute read

Seven Key Strategies for Voice Search Optimization

Voice search optimization is rapidly shaping the digital landscape, requiring content professionals to adapt their...

4-minute read

Five Creative Ways to Showcase Your Digital Portfolio

Are you a creative freelancer looking to make a lasting impression on potential clients or...

Make sure your writing is the best it can be with our expert English proofreading and editing.

Apr 16, 2023

How to Write a Reflection Essay | Outlines and Examples

Do you ever struggle to put your thoughts into words? If you've ever felt stumped by a reflective essay assignment, you're not alone. In this article, we'll explore some strategies for writing effective reflection essays that will help you communicate your ideas clearly and powerfully!

Reflective Essays take a look at a piece of writing or an experience in your life and write down how you feel about it. This strategy not only reveals fascinating insights about your perspective and personality, but it also makes for entertaining reading. Examining some model papers is a great way to hone your skills in outlining introspective essays.

What Is a Reflective Essay?

A reflective essay (also called a critical reflection) involves a deep examination of one's assumptions, beliefs, and reactions to knowledge, events, or experiences. This type of writing encourages the author to introspect and articulate their personal insights on various subjects, influenced by literature, experiences, or lectures. Unlike traditional academic essays, reflective essays focus on the writer's individual perspective, employing a more subjective and expressive language without the necessity for scholarly sources. Essentially, while maintaining the core criteria of effective essay writing, a reflective essay distinguishes itself by centering on the writer's internal dialogue and personal growth.

Reflection isn't something that comes naturally to everyone. Whether one is contemplating one's own life experiences or a piece of literature, it can be challenging to put one's thoughts into words and express them adequately. Because of this, utilising this ability effectively when writing is necessary. The more time you devote to contemplating and learning about a topic, the more straightforward and understandable it will become. This situation is more complex than it initially appears to be.

What is the Purpose of Reflective Writing?

Reflective writing is another way to convey both your growth and the feelings you've experienced. You can discover a lot about yourself and how you function by conducting an in-depth investigation of your interior workings. It is interesting to watch how they mature and change over time. The initial move is always the one that presents the greatest challenge. Because of this, developing a strategy for your reflective essay is a fantastic way to kick off the writing process.

How to Create a Reflective Essay Outline?

The first part of an essay, known as the introduction, is generally composed of three parts. On the other hand, as was stated earlier, a conventional formula might experience significant shifts when written down in this manner.

Introduction

The introduction needs to be so captivating to the reader that they feel compelled to keep going with the story. To achieve this, writers will often include ambiguities, sarcastic circumstances, and tense situations in their works. An outline can be used for any kind of essay, but it is especially helpful for introspective writing because it organizes your thoughts and makes it easier to read. The abstract, just like the remainder of the essay, should be broken up into three main sections that are presented in the same order as the rest of the essay. On the other hand, as was stated earlier, a conventional formula might experience significant shifts when written down in this manner.

An engaging and interesting opening statement will pique the interest of the audience and encourage them to continue reading. To achieve this, authors will often include ambiguities, irony, and conflict within their works. The expression "my first bachelor celebration" is a good example of this concept in action.

Reflection Essay Example:

This past weekend I attended my first college frat party thanks to some friends who invited me.

That one phrase perfectly exemplifies an attention-grabbing opening to a reflective essay. In just one phrase, you've hooked the reader and set the stage for what you'll be discussing. Your essay's opening should always provide a teaser for the more in-depth explanation that follows in the essay's body.

The conclusion of your reflective essay, which you'll write based on the most significant event, should be the last line of the introduction. This sentence effectively summarises the changes brought about by the catalytic event and their importance in the grand scheme of things.

Body Paragraphs

The body of an introspective essay needs to expand on the topic presented in the essay's thesis. Students' first challenge in writing such essays is expressing their thoughts uninhibitedly. It's simple to get sidetracked and leap from one thought to the next. This leads us to a useful piece of advice: be consistent with the story arc you've established. If possible, create a distinct outline for the paragraphs in the main body.

You're free to include as many or as few body lines as you like. The text may have a one-sentence introduction and a secret closing, for instance, but the body will always be the largest section. Put your viewpoint on display as much as possible in the middle section. Put forth justifications to back up your claim or corroborating details to back up your statements. Examples, facts, occurrences of public life, events, real-life circumstances and experiences, scientific proof, references to scholars and scientists, etc., can all serve as argumentative points.

If you don't want to appear uncertain of your views, avoid giving too many examples. A personal reflective essay only needs one piece of proof. For reflective essays, interacting aspects of literary analysis, or speculative writing about a variety of phenomena, two examples will suffice. Overloading a free reflective essay with more than three examples of the facts to be discussed will be apparent.

For Example:

My weekend at a house party made it clear that the vast majority of my fellow college students have no tolerance for alcohol.

An effective introduction to a body paragraph is provided above. Your paragraph's subject sentence should tell the reader exactly what the paragraph is going to be about. The first line of each paragraph in the body of your writing should do what the introductory paragraph did: make the reader want to keep reading. Body paragraphs are where you can bring the essay to life with specific descriptions and examples.

In other terms, immerse the reader by providing relatable examples of circumstances and describing minor details with great care. A reader's excitement and interest will increase in proportion to the originality and literary charm of each phrase.

An independent closing paragraph is optional in reflective essays. If you choose an essay format that calls for a conclusion with supporting notes, keep it brief. The end must not be overly formal, however. The paragraphs in the body of the essay need to be supervised naturally by this section.

If you look for a model reflective essay online, you will most likely find one that has a complete, detailed conclusion. You could, of course, use them as models for your essays. However, if you want your viewers to be impressed and reflect deeper on your work, you shouldn't spoon-feed them your observations. Get your readers to ignore the surface-level explanations and focus on the meat of the text where your ideas and feelings are revealed.

As I reflect on my time spent at a college party, I realize that I can no longer advocate for the consumption of alcoholic beverages by minors.

As you probably know by now, the end of your essay is where you restate your thesis and discuss its significance. Then, using the details from the body paragraph, you should draw a conclusion in which you quickly restate how this experience changed you physically and/or mentally. Conclude by giving the reader your concluding thoughts on the subject.

What is the Format of a Reflective Essay?

There is a unique structure for reflective writing. In this form of writing, the author employs a specific style, such as the Modern Language Association (MLA) or the American Psychological Association (APA) .

There are a few things to keep in mind when writing in APA style:

Use Time New Roman Font

Double-space your work and use a font height of 12 points.

The page number appears in the upper right-hand area.

The major sections of an essay are the introduction, the body, and the bibliography or list of sources.

Equally to APA, there are a few things to keep in mind when using MLA format:

Use Time New Roman Font

Select 12 as a font size

Make sure to center all of your essay's names.

Include your name, the course number, the instructor's name, and the date in the header of your work.

On the last page of the essay, include the cited work.

Some Tips on Writing the Reflective Essay

The essay's structure serves as the paper's framework. You can't write a winning essay without first crafting a plan. If you have to write a reflective essay, here are some tips to follow.

References should be listed on the final page of the writing.

In the essay, try to avoid using the same phrase multiple times.

Give your take on the topic in the writing.

Verify that you have explained everything that was previously unclear.

Connect your parts with appropriate transitional language.

Make sure your plan covers everything important.

Avoid using difficult language and provide an argument to support your position.

Learn to identify your best qualities and highlight them in the writing.

Before sending or publishing the essay, make sure it has been thoroughly proofread.

Writing a reflective essay can be challenging, but you can make your way through the process with the help of a good plan. Some pupils simply don't have enough time to complete all of the required essay writing assignments. They lack the time necessary to offer essay writing their full attention.

3 Reflective Essay Examples

Impact of social media on students

Social media has become an integral part of our lives in recent years. With the advent of smartphones and the internet, social media platforms have become more accessible to everyone, including students. Social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, TikTok, and others have had a profound impact on the way students interact with each other, access information, and learn.

Social media has created a platform for students to interact with their peers, teachers, and other individuals from different parts of the world. Social media platforms provide students with the opportunity to express their thoughts, share their experiences, and discuss topics that interest them. Through social media, students can participate in discussions, exchange ideas, and learn from others.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Social Media on Students’ Life

One of the primary benefits of social media is its ability to provide students with access to information. Social media platforms have become a significant source of news, information, and educational resources for students. Students can learn about various topics, including history, science, literature, and more, from different social media platforms. For instance, Twitter provides students with the latest news on various topics, while Facebook and LinkedIn provide them with access to professional networks and job opportunities.

However, the impact of social media on students is not all positive. Social media has become a distraction for students, and many students spend more time on social media than they do studying. Social media platforms are designed to be addictive, and many students find themselves spending hours scrolling through their feeds and interacting with their peers. As a result, many students experience a decline in their academic performance and find it difficult to focus on their studies.

Moreover, social media has also had a significant impact on the mental health of students. Social media platforms can be a breeding ground for cyberbullying and online harassment, which can have a profound impact on a student's mental health. Additionally, social media platforms have been linked to anxiety, depression, and other mental health issues in students. Many students feel pressured to present a perfect image of themselves on social media, which can lead to low self-esteem and feelings of inadequacy.

Furthermore, social media has also affected the way students interact with each other. Many students now prefer to communicate through social media rather than in person, which can lead to a lack of social skills and interpersonal communication skills. This can make it challenging for students to form meaningful relationships and communicate effectively in the workplace and other settings.

In conclusion, social media has had a significant impact on students, both positive and negative. While social media provides students with access to information and a platform to express themselves, it has also become a significant distraction and can hurt their mental health and social skills. Therefore, students need to use social media responsibly and balance their time between social media and other activities. Additionally, educators and parents can play a significant role in guiding students on how to use social media effectively and responsibly.

Taking a Hike Through Forest

Introduction:

Nature is a therapeutic and rejuvenating element in our lives. Walking through a forest is an excellent way to connect with nature, relieve stress, and experience a sense of calmness. A hike through the forest provides a sense of freedom, and the tranquillity of the trees helps to reconnect with oneself. In this essay, I will reflect on my experience of taking a hike through a forest.

I woke up early one morning, feeling the need to get out of the city and spend some time in nature. I packed my bag with essentials and set off on a drive to a nearby forest. Upon arriving, I took a deep breath and took in the fresh air, which filled my lungs with a sense of peace.

The path was lined with tall trees, and the forest floor was soft and covered with leaves. As I walked, I could hear the rustling of leaves and the chirping of birds. The serenity of the forest made me forget about the outside world and its pressures.

I kept walking deeper into the forest, and soon enough, I came across a stream. The sound of the water flowing over the rocks was soothing, and I sat down by the bank to take it all in. The quietness of the forest made me feel like I was in a different world altogether, away from the hustle and bustle of everyday life.

As I continued my hike, I came across a clearing, and there, I saw a herd of deer grazing. I stood there, frozen, watching the beauty of nature unfold in front of my eyes. It was a moment of pure bliss, and I felt grateful for the opportunity to witness it.

I reached a hilltop, and from there, I could see the entire forest. The view was breathtaking, and it made me realize how small we are in the grand scheme of things. It also made me appreciate the beauty of the earth and the environment around us.

Conclusion:

Taking a hike through the forest was a humbling and rejuvenating experience for me. The calmness of the trees, the sound of the water, and the sight of the animals made me feel connected to nature. It reminded me that we are all a part of this beautiful planet and that it's our responsibility to take care of it. The forest gave me the space to reflect and connect with myself, and it was a reminder that sometimes, the best therapy is found in nature.

The role of Friendship in my Life

Friendship is one of the most essential aspects of human life. It is an integral part of our social fabric, as it provides a sense of belonging, support, and joy. Friendship is not just about having someone to talk to or hang out with; it is about having a deep and meaningful connection with someone who accepts and loves us for who we are. In my life, friendship has played a crucial role in shaping my personality and helping me navigate through different phases of life. This essay aims to explore the role of friendship in my life, its significance, and how it has impacted me.

The significance of friendship:

Friendship is essential for our well-being and mental health. It is a bond that helps us feel connected and loved , even in the most challenging times. A good friend can help us navigate through difficult situations, offer us a fresh perspective on our problems, and provide us with emotional support. Friends also provide us with a sense of belonging, a feeling that we are part of something greater than ourselves. The sense of community and companionship that comes with friendship can help us develop a positive outlook toward life and a strong sense of self-esteem.

Friendship in my life:

In my life, friendship has played a vital role in shaping my personality and helping me grow as an individual. Growing up, I was a shy and introverted child who struggled to make friends. However, I was fortunate enough to find a group of friends who accepted me for who I was and helped me come out of my shell. They encouraged me to pursue my passions and interests and supported me through the ups and downs of life.

As I grew older, I realized the true value of friendship. I have made many friends over the years, and each one of them has played a unique role in my life. Some have been there for me through thick and thin, while others have helped me discover new interests and passions. Some have challenged me to step out of my comfort zone, while others have offered me a shoulder to cry on. Regardless of the role they played, all my friends have helped me grow as a person and provided me with a sense of belonging.

Impact of friendship on my life:

The impact of friendship on my life has been profound. My friends have helped me develop a positive outlook toward life and have taught me to appreciate the little things. They have taught me to be more empathetic, kind, and compassionate toward others, and have helped me develop a strong sense of self-worth. They have been a source of strength and inspiration, and have helped me navigate through difficult times.

In conclusion, friendship is an essential aspect of human life. It provides us with a sense of belonging, support, and joy, and helps us grow as individuals. In my life, friendship has played a vital role in shaping my personality and helping me navigate through different phases of life. My friends have been there for me through thick and thin, and have taught me valuable life lessons. I am grateful for their presence in my life, and I believe that everyone should have a good friend or a group of friends who accept and love them for who they are.

Final Words

In conclusion, writing a reflection essay is a powerful tool for gaining self-awareness and insight into our experiences. By following a few simple steps, such as choosing a meaningful experience to reflect on, asking yourself critical questions, and structuring your thoughts into a clear and organized essay, you can effectively convey your thoughts and emotions to your reader. Essay topics like composing a reflective essay are a great opportunity to delve deeper into your own thoughts and feelings, and to connect with your readers on a deeper level.

However, we understand that the process of writing can sometimes be challenging, and that's where Jenni.ai comes in. Our AI-powered software can help you streamline the writing process, with features such as autocomplete and citation assistance that make it easier to create high-quality content efficiently.

Whether you're a seasoned writer or just starting out, Jenni.ai can help you take your writing to the next level. So why not give it a try today, and see how it can help you create even better reflection essays, and other types of written content?

Start Writing With Jenni Today

Sign up for a free Jenni AI account today. Unlock your research potential and experience the difference for yourself. Your journey to academic excellence starts here.

Reflective Essay Guide

Writing Reflective Essay

Last updated on: Feb 9, 2023

A Step by Step Guide to Writing a Reflective Essay

By: John K.

Reviewed By: Jacklyn H.

Published on: May 11, 2021

If you have been assigned the task of writing a reflective essay, it will be an excellent opportunity to polish your creativity and writing skills.

A reflective essay is slightly different from other essays as it requires a personal point of view of a chosen subject. Thus, you need to analyze a particular subject with your personal experience, understanding, and knowledge.

The only key to write a reflective paper is that you need to be more expressive. The more expressive you are, the merrier it will be for your essay. Feel free to talk about life experiences that are valid to your topic. Writing your reflections can actually be a strength in this kind of essay.

If this sounds like something that interests or concerns you, then keep reading! This blog contains every detail necessary to produce an impressive reflective essay.

On this Page

What Is a Reflective Essay?

A reflective essay describes an experience or event and analyzes the meaning of that particular experience and the lessons it delivers. One thing that makes it a reflective essay is that the writer analyzes an event of the past from the present.

When writing a reflective essay, you are required to open up about your emotions and thoughts to paint a clear picture of your personality, history, and individual traits.

It is required that you include a description and a vivid summary of the experience; it will make the reader feel that he has experienced it as well. Moreover, you need to explain your reactions, thoughts, feelings, and emotions.

A good reflective paper should be creative, insightful, and authentic. It needs to express your opinions on a specific topic interestingly so that the reader wants to follow what you're saying without getting bored or leaving it before reading.

Reflective Essay Format

REFLECTIVE ESSAY FORMAT AND TEMPLATE

How to Start a Reflective Essay?

Writing a great reflective essay is a chance to polish your skills of writing and enhance your creativity. However, sometimes, it gets difficult and confusing to write it. There are many high schools as well as college students who get confused thinking where to start.

So, we have compiled some steps that will help you to write a perfect essay.

Let’s discuss them in detail.

1. Choose Your Topic Carefully

If you are given the freedom to choose a topic and don’t have any idea regarding it, the best way is to brainstorm and research some trending and good topic ideas. Unfortunately, a common mistake when writing a reflective essay is to choose a topic that is too broad or too narrow.

2. Research About Your Subject

Make sure you do thorough research on your topic first. Close your eyes and start imagining or remembering. Then, watch, listen, and read the information regarding your topic.

3. Brainstorm

Before you even start writing, brainstorm your ideas first. It is always a wise step to take before writing anything.

4. Choose Reflection Questions

Take a look at the questions below to get a better idea:

What did I notice?
What do I feel about it?
Why am I feeling this way?

5. Answer the Questions You Have Chosen

After selecting your questions, you need to give their answers. Start from one essay question; make sure you answer it properly. After that, head on to the next one.

6. Recognize Your Experience Meaning

Before you even start writing, you need to choose the most significant lesson you have learned from your experience. This “most significant lesson or thing” is going to be the thesis of your essay.

7. Follow the Structure

Like all the other essays, the reflective essay also has the same format, which comprises the introduction, body, and conclusion paragraph.

Therefore, follow these steps and makes your essay writing process easy.

Paper Due? Why Suffer? That's our Job!

How to Write a Reflective Essay?

Here are some steps that you should follow when you start writing your reflective paper.

1. Write the Introduction

To understand and know how to start a reflective essay introduction, you must first understand that an introduction is a piece of brief information about the main topic and its background.

In the reflective essay introduction, you will recognize the subject and provide the reader with an overview of the impression you have taken from it. Therefore, the introductory paragraph of your reflective essay needs to include a thesis statement that will act as a focal point of your paper.

2. Body Paragraphs

The first body paragraph should mention the impactful impression your subject has made on you. Then, provide relevant facts to support your thesis statement.

Moreover, the body of your essay will also describe most of the ideas you touched on in your introduction.

3. Write a Conclusion

Restate your thesis statement and summarize all the reasons you have mentioned in the essay’s body paragraphs. After that, sum up your essay with your final thoughts on the subject; close your essay with some reflective thoughts.

4. Proofread and Edit

Never submit your essay without editing or proofreading. Even though you have spent hours of effort and put a lot of hard work in doing your essay, your essay will have no worth if you haven’t proofread and edited it.

Here is the reflective essay outline sample for your ease.

Reflective Essay Outline

REFLECTIVE ESSAY OUTLINE

Reflective Essay Examples

We have compiled some perfect reflective essay examples below to help you get started on your paper.

Personal Reflective Essay Examples

PERSONAL REFLECTIVE ESSAY EXAMPLES

ENGLISH REFLECTIVE ESSAY EXAMPLES

Tough Essay Due? Hire Tough Writers!

Reflective Essay Topics

Check out these reflective essay ideas on the most common subjects you can write about:

Something from your imagination
Something you have experienced in real
A special object
Something you have seen, heard, read, watched, touched, or smelled.

We are sure these subjects must have sparked your imagination, but here are a few essay topics that will help you get the bigger picture. In addition, these topics will help you understand the kind of topics teachers like to assign.

The desert, mountains, countryside, or beach
A special room or hideaway
The house you grew up
Home of some relative
A person that taught me how to improve reflective writing skills
New Experiences
When your piece of writing published
Important conversation
The older man line of thought
The time you overcame your fears

A list of topics will help you get a picture of what good ideas are like and how to come up with one of your own.

5StarEssays.com is the best essay writing service online with exceptional quality work and insanely affordable rates. In addition, our round-the-clock customer support is ready to help you out with your academic growth.

Your essays are assigned to highly qualified essay writers who have years of experience and education. They make sure to provide you with mind-blowing, error-free, and on-time essays. They don’t just cater to the reflective essay but help with all types of essays.

So, contact us now and get the best write my essay for me? service at affordable rates.

Frequently Asked Questions

How long is a reflective essay.

The reflective essay should be between 300 and 500 words. However, it will vary according to the chosen topic.

What is the purpose of a reflective essay?

A reflective essay is a great opportunity for the author to explore what has happened in their life and show how this specific event may have changed them.

PhD Essay, Literature

John K. is a professional writer and author with many publications to his name. He has a Ph.D. in the field of management sciences, making him an expert on the subject matter. John is highly sought after for his insights and knowledge, and he regularly delivers keynote speeches and conducts workshops on various topics related to writing and publishing. He is also a regular contributor to various online publications.

Was This Blog Helpful?

Keep reading.

Best Reflective Essay Topics Recommended by Experts

How to Write a Reflective Essay: A Quick Guide + Examples

Speech Topics
Basics of Essay Writing
Essay Topics
Other Essays
Research Paper Topics
Basics of Research Paper Writing
Miscellaneous
Chicago/ Turabian
Data & Statistics
Methodology
Admission Writing Tips
Admission Advice
Other Guides
Student Life
Studying Tips
Understanding Plagiarism
Academic Writing Tips
Basics of Dissertation & Thesis Writing

Research Paper Guides
Formatting Guides
Basics of Research Process
Admission Guides
Dissertation & Thesis Guides

Table of contents

Use our free Readability checker

A reflective essay is a type of writing where you explore how an event, experience, or concept has influenced your development or perspective. It involves deep thinking, self-analysis, and personal reflection. In a reflective essay, you explai what you learned and how you changed as a result of that experience.

In this article, you will learn how to write a reflective essay, and how to highlight impactful experiences. A reflection essay seems easy as you don’t have to defend one’s point of view or convince the reader of something. But it has its challenges, so we recommend to keep on reading and find out everything you need to know about this type of essay. More complex examples are available down below.

What Is a Reflective Essay: Definition

A good question to start with is, “What is a reflective essay?” A reflective essay is a type of academic writing, in which the student has to test personal life experience/position towards a particular topic. Unlike in argumentative writing, the student does not have to defend the personal position. It does not require a complicated, professional language with some terminology. Do not define something - focus on sharing personal life experience, skills, development, and the most vivid examples to illustrate the topic.

Reflective Essay Format

A reflection essay student writes to meet the college writing standards has a different format from the one a magazine writer should present to reach the issue’s audience. However, each reflective paper has a similar outline. Reflective essay format depends on the general requirements your teacher provides. Some of them can ask for a specific format for your essay. APA writing style , MLA, and Chicago are the basic formats you can use. But if you don’t know exactly which formatting to use, you can use reflective essay apa format. This is the most common college essay format, so knowing its requirements is critical: Font: Times New Roman, 12 points Interval: Double interval Margins: 1 inch all round Page Numbers: Insert a title in the upper left corner of each page.

Reflective Essay Outline and Structure

Knowing how to write a reflective essay is essential. Even if you feel confident about your thoughts and knowledge, don’t start your writing without a clear and well-designed plan. Without logical essay structure , your essay will likely achieve lower marks. To avoid this situation, follow 10 easy steps we provided below. The first thing every student needs to understand how to write a good reflective essay is an effective, detailed outline. It has 3 typical sections: introduction, body paragraphs, and conclusion. Writing a reflective essay does not require any references – the only person to refer is the student who decides to share his thoughts & ideas. Let’s look at 4 main reasons to include an outline of reflective essays.

An outline assists in laying out the details the student wants to leave after narrowing down the draft before working on the final paper. It prevents them from concluding the essay by realizing something is missing.
An outline provides a clear, concise roadmap, which prevents the writer from taking curvy paths and facing dead ends. It shows the way like a compass in the woods.
An outline helps to save a lot of time.
An outline helps the potential readers, including teachers & classmates, to avoid falling off the main point when reading the essay partially.

Reflective essay outline is not much different from other types of essays. Use this reflective essay template in creating your perfect reflective essay:

How to Start a Reflective Essay: Creating an Introduction

Let’s figure out how to write a reflective essay introduction. Start with stating the primary focus of the personal reflection. Avoid being indirect and covering a range of topics; stay direct and concise by underlining the basic purpose of sharing a life experience. Professional Opinion:

“Giving a preview of the most exciting part of the story is a clue. The target reader may lack time to read the full piece from cover to cover. “There are many things I have learned from Marketing class. The most valuable lesson I have obtained is checking the effectiveness of 2 different approaches or services through utilizing so-called A/B testing.” It will make the reader think about what is special about this specific method. The reader will go on reading the body paragraphs to find out!” Professor Hemsworth, History & Anthropology teacher and academic writer at StudyCrumb

Another way to attract attention in the introductory paragraph is to come up with the intriguing hook for essay sentences like statistics, fact, quote, metaphor, rhetorical question, or joke. It depends on the mood of your reflective narrative.

Working on Reflective Essay Thesis

Some people may say that a reflective essay does not need a thesis. However, the example shared in the previous section talking about introduction is an example of the inspiring thesis statement. Include at least a reflective summary of the primary idea. The best idea would be to focus on previewing the peak of the plot development or highlighting the most valuable lesson learned. Let’s take a look at this little reflective essay thesis sample.

“Now I realize the value of sports in the life of every student. The swimming courses I have attended since I was 13 are a great example of the way to support positive thinking and a healthy body.”

If you find it challenging, rely on our professional essay writing service and have your reflective essay done with academic standards in mind.

Writing a Reflection Essay Body Paragraph

What is the purpose of a body paragraph ? The body paragraphs of the reflective analysis interpret the way the author evolved or what he/she has absorbed from a particular life lesson (mention 3 different lessons). When writing your reflective essay you should mention the circumstances that forced you to pass a certain way. If you study a subject like English Literature or Arts, the paper’s prompt may ask you to describe how you changed as a field professional during the course of study. It is important to choose a specific interval of time to list the improvements. Compare & contrast the initial skills to the knowledge you have today. It is a great idea to tell the audience the ways various tasks, challenges, and lessons made the author grow since the beginning of his education. There is no need to conduct research to collect the supporting evidence. The author alone is responsible for defending every stated claim with the help of vivid samples that describe the topic the best. Example: In case the student has become more professional in the field of writing, he should list the causes of those changes (new English teacher, more practice at home, part-time job related to the field of writing). Who knows – some of the ideas may be used by other students to succeed!

How to Write a Reflective Essay Conclusion

The question of how to end a reflection paper is not less important. The last challenge is to prepare an impressive, inspiring, and powerful conclusion, which will make the target readers want to develop the same positive way. Write a reflective summary regarding the way you have changed over a given period of time. Share some forecast by looking ahead: how the experiences listed in the essay would influence further personal development. By looking at the past events, decide which of them was the most important. The good idea is to compare & contrast past and future events to stress the gaps between the obtained skills and experience, possibly gained in the future. Don't want to bother with writing any conclusions? Use a summary maker to generate e reflective essay conlusion in seconds.

How to Write a Reflective Essay: 10 Easy Steps

Writing personal reflection helps students to stress their individuality by highlighting various skills, knowledge, behavior, feelings, and even mood. The purpose of writing a reflective essay is to show how the person changed over time and what factors played an important role in those metamorphoses. Keep on reading this section to learn steps that will make your reflective writing perfect. Step 1: Think of the questions that interest you the most. It may be your experience, feelings, or an event in life. Make sure you analyzed the question well. Check credible sources and collect relevant information. Step 2: Decide what you want to write about. Make sure you know how to title an essay . Identify the topic. Step 3: After you decided on a topic, create an appealing title that will entice readers. Make sure your title is clear and to the point. Step 4: Create an outline of your essay. Step 5: Create an attention-grabbing hook for reflective essay. It should be some intriguing sentence or phrase that will arouse the interest of your readers. Step 6: Create an introduction of your reflection paper. Step 7: Think what you will include in the main body of your text. Start writing your body paragraphs. Step 8: Diversify your text with all the necessary details to make your readers see a clear picture of the environment in your story. It can be some place, people, atmosphere, etc. Step 9: After the reader is already familiar with the setting and characters, you should tell about yourself. What were your feelings? How has the situation affected you? What did you learn from this situation? Step 10: Conclude your reflective essay. Briefly summarize all the points that were mentioned in your text and provide a short moral with recommendations. You can use these steps as a checklist for your writing process. In case you need another step-by-step guide on response essays or any other type of writing, we've got you covered.

>> Read more: How to Write Essays

Reflective Essays Sample From Successful College Students

No recommendations, tips & tricks help the students to understand the way a particular assignment should look like in the end as effectively as the examples. The article contains one of the up-to-date reflective essay examples from a college student.

Writing a Reflective Essay: Bottom Line

Congratulations, we have learned how to write a reflective essay. We really do hope that our guidelines, tips, and examples were useful to you. Now, you can definitely work on your reflection assignment with a clear understanding of its structure and main points. So start your writing, and the sky's the limit!

In case you need more writing tips, feel free to browse our Blog. Be it a diagnostic essay , a synthesis essay or a response paper , we have tutorials for any type of writing.

Consider buying essay papers in case you've got other plans for the evening. Submit your details to StudyCrumb and get an astounding paper written in line with your requirements. Your assigned writer will handle any assignment with a blink of an eye!

Frequently Asked Questions about Writing a Reflective Essay

1. what is a common mistake when writing a reflective essay.

A common mistake when writing a reflective essay is to drift away from the subject you're writing about. It usually happens when you don’t stick to your initial plan. So plan your writing well and if you feel that you go a bit off topic, be sure that you return to the same topic you originally discussed.

2. What is the purpose of writing a reflective essay?

The purpose of writing a reflective essay is to make a student write about their personal experience, explore it, reflect on it and find positive and negative aspects. The goal is to analyze how a student changed due to this experience and what made them change. What lesson a student learned is an essential point in persuasive writing.

3. How to write a reflective essay on a book?

If you are writing a reflective essay on a book, the main task is to show your teacher how you reflect on a chosen book, how you understand the problem presented by an author. To create a good essay, start with brief information about the author. Then, without spoilers, briefly summarize the main points of a book. After that explain the main conflicts, share your impressions. Ask questions like: “What are the peculiarities of the main characters?”, “What did an author want to say by indicating the main issues?”

Daniel Howard is an Essay Writing guru. He helps students create essays that will strike a chord with the readers.

Reflective Essay - Writing Steps with Examples, Tips, and Topics

Published on: Sep 21, 2020

Last updated on: Jul 23, 2024

What is a Reflective Essay?

A reflective essay is a type of essay where the writer describes a personal experience or event that they observed or examined. Reflective writing involves thinking or pondering about a specific topic and writing your thoughts.

The content of a reflective essay is subjective. This means, the writer discusses the topic from their own personal point of view.

The writer presents their thoughts and reflections in a structured and coherent manner. It combines elements of storytelling, analysis, and introspection to create a narrative that engages the reader and offers valuable insights.

What is the Purpose of Reflective Writing?

Self-reflective essays are often used as an opportunity to explore your thoughts and feelings more deeply. The main goals of reflective writing are to;

Make a connection between yourself and the text
Analyze what you have heard, read, or seen
Write subjectively and help identify your interests
Think about what you have learned.
Develop your critical and narrative skills

Here is a video that reflective writing in simple terms:

How to Write a Reflective Essay?

Reflective essays can be very difficult to write. However, following the steps below can make your writing process easier and more effective.

Select a Meaningful Topic

The first step in writing a great reflective essay is to choose a good topic. You need to do a lot of brainstorming, mind mapping , and a bit of research to come up with a good topic.

Choose a topic that holds personal significance for you. It could be a specific event, a challenging situation, a memorable encounter, or a period of personal growth. Select a topic that allows for deep introspection and provides ample material for reflection.

Reflect and Introspect

Ponder on your chosen topic and explore your thoughts, feelings, and reactions associated with it.

Ask yourself probing questions, such as " How did this experience impact me? " or " What did I learn from this situation? " This introspective phase forms the foundation of your essay, allowing you to dig deep and extract valuable insights.

Develop a Clear Thesis Statement

Craft a concise and focused thesis statement that encapsulates the main point or lesson learned from your reflection.

This statement will serve as a guiding principle for your essay, ensuring that your writing remains coherent and purposeful.

Chart an Outline

Create an outline that organizes your thoughts and provides a logical structure for your essay.

Divide your essay into sections including the introduction, body paragraphs, and conclusion. Outline the main ideas, experiences, and reflections you plan to include in each section.

Want to learn more about how to create an outline? Here is our comprehensive reflective essay outline guide for you.

Write a Catchy Introduction

Start your essay with an attention-grabbing opening that sets the tone and introduces the topic to the reader.

Engage your audience by sharing a captivating anecdote, posing a thought-provoking question, or presenting a compelling quote. Clearly state your thesis to provide a roadmap for your reflective journey.

Write Main Body Paragraphs

In the body paragraphs, vividly describe the experiences or events that shaped your reflection. Use sensory details and specific examples to paint a clear picture for your readers.

After describing the experience, delve into the reflection and analysis phase. Explore the significance of the experience and its impact on your personal growth, beliefs, or worldview.

Analyze the reasons behind your thoughts, emotions, and reactions.

Provide a Thoughtful Conclusion

Wrap up your essay by summarizing your main points and reinforcing the significance of your reflection. Share the insights and lessons you gained from the reflection process.

For instance, what did you learn about yourself? How did this experience contribute to your personal development?

Be honest and authentic in your reflections, demonstrating vulnerability and self-awareness. Don't present new information here, but summarize everything that happened in the essay.

Revise and Edit

Once you have completed your first draft, revise and edit your essay for clarity, coherence, and grammar. Pay attention to the flow of your ideas, sentence structure, and word choice.

Seek feedback from peers or mentors to gain different perspectives and refine your essay further. This way, your final draft will turn out to be an interesting and valuable piece of work.

Paper due? Why Suffer? That's our job.

Reflective Essay Structure

The structure of the reflective essay is the same as other types of essays. It contains an introduction, several body paragraphs, and a conclusion.

Here is the basic reflective essay format that you can use:

Paragraph 1

Paragraph 2

Paragraph 3

(Follow the same structure for as many body paragraphs as needed)

Let's learn about the components of a reflective essay in depth:

Reflective Essay Introduction

A reflective essay also starts with an introduction, like all other essays. An essay introduction should be brief but relevant to the topic. In this part, you can give a general overview of the topic to the reader.

Start your essay with a strong hook statement . The hook statement is the first thing that the reader reads in the introduction part.

In the introduction part, state the thesis statement but don't give too much information in this statement.

Remember that in this part, only give a brief overview and don't write in-depth information.

Reflective Essay Body Paragraphs

Writing the body paragraphs is the hardest part of the reflective essay. Some writers spend a lot of time writing body paragraphs. If the outline is not created well, then writing the body paragraphs is a time-consuming process.

It is the most important part of the essay and follows the proper chronological order. Describe the main issues in order related to the described event.

The body paragraphs are well-focused, and it is not a summary of your experience. Each body paragraph end with a concluding sentence.

Reflective Essay Conclusion

The conclusion is the last part of the essay. In this part, you should provide a summary of the entire essay. Moreover, do not repeat the same point again and again.

Make sure the conclusion of the essay is powerful and encourages the readers to do further research. In this concluding part, restate the thesis statement, and no need to add new ideas.

Tips for Writing a Reflective Essay

Here are some writing tips that can make your reflective essay even better, so try following these in your essay:

Choose the right topic for the essay, make sure that you have enough information
Use an engaging and narrative tone throughout the essay with an overall emotion or theme in mind.
Try to make the essay credible and informative
Reflect critically on the significance of the experiences and analyze the reasons behind your thoughts, emotions, and reactions.
Incorporate relevant theories, concepts, or academic frameworks to deepen your analysis.
Be authentic and honest in sharing your insights and lessons learned from the reflection process.
Connect your personal experiences to broader contexts or universal themes to create a relatable and impactful essay.
Support your thesis statement with strong examples and arguments.

Ref lective Essay For mat

Two commonly used formatting styles for academic writing are the APA and the MLA styles. Each style has its unique guidelines for formatting, including structure, citations, and references.

APA Style Reflective Essay Format

Formatting your essay in APA requires the following:

Times New Roman
Double line-spacing
1" margins
Page number on the top-right
Include the Title Page, Main Body, and References.

MLA Style Reflective Essay Format

The MLA style recommends the following formatting guidelines:

Last name and page number in the top-right
"Works Cited" section on the last page

Reflective Essay Examples

Check out some reflective essay samples that can give you a better understanding of the reflective essay.

Reflective Essay Example for High School

Personal Reflective Essay Example

Reflective Essay Outline

Example of Reflective Essay on Learning Experience

Reflective Essay Example About Life Experience

Reflective Essay Topics

In a reflective essay, you write about your personal experience, thoughts, and significant moments of your life. Choosing the right topic for the essay sometimes becomes a challenging task, but here are some ideas that can help you out.

A surprise that you prepared for someone
The first thing you think of in the morning
When someone's words made you cry
When you laughed uncontrollably with someone
Swimming in a mountain lake
The experience of an earthquake or natural disasters
A vacation place that you liked in particular
Crossing a bridge and looking out over the water.
Your favorite persuasive essay topic
Place where you feel safe

Need more topics to get your thoughts running? Here are more reflective essay topics to help you out!

Writing a reflective essay can be a transformative experience as you discover your own thoughts and feelings along the way. By following the writing steps and tips, you can enhance this experience by writing an essay that is interesting, informative, and engaging.

So don't hesitate to start writing a reflective paper today! You've got everything you need.

Still, if you are in a race against time or can't write your essay for other reasons, don't despair. The auto essay writer at CollegeEssay.org is here to help you out!

We also have a team of expert writers ready to assist you 24/7. Whether you need help with refining your ideas, structuring your essay, or polishing the final draft, we can lend our expertise.

So hire our custom writing service to receive customized and professional reflective essays within the deadline!

Frequently Asked Questions

How many paragraphs are in a reflective essay.

In a reflective essay, you should follow a 5-paragraph format. However, you can add more paragraphs, and it depends on your chosen topic.

What is the goal of a reflective essay?

Writing a reflective essay aims to explore how they have changed and learned from their experiences.

Barbara P (Literature, Marketing)

Barbara is a highly educated and qualified author with a Ph.D. in public health from an Ivy League university. She has spent a significant amount of time working in the medical field, conducting a thorough study on a variety of health issues. Her work has been published in several major publications.

Paper Due? Why Suffer? That’s our Job!

Keep reading

Legal & Policies

Privacy Policy
Cookies Policy
Terms of Use
Refunds & Cancellations
Our Writers
Success Stories
Our Guarantees
Affiliate Program
Referral Program
AI Essay Writer

Disclaimer: All client orders are completed by our team of highly qualified human writers. The essays and papers provided by us are not to be used for submission but rather as learning models only.

TemplateLab

Reflective Essay Examples

50 best reflective essay examples (+topic samples).

If you have ever read reflective essay examples, you would know that these types of written works examine the writer’s life experiences . When you write a reflective paper example, you write about your own experiences and explore how you’ve changed, grown or developed because of those experiences. There’s no standard format for this essay as it may vary depending on the target audience.

Table of Contents

1 Reflective Essay Examples
2 What is a reflective essay?
3 Reflective Paper Examples
4 Format of reflective essay
5 Creating the outline of reflective essay examples
6 Reflective Paper Samples
7 Tips for writing reflective essay
8 Reflective Essay Samples

What is a reflective essay?

A reflective essay is a type of written work which reflects your own self. Since it’s about yourself, you already have a topic to write about. For reflective essay examples, readers expect you to evaluate a specific part of your life. To do this, you may reflect on emotions, memories, and feelings you’ve experienced at that time.

Since you’re writing reflection essay samples about yourself, make sure that they’re interesting and exciting. This is very important so that your readers don’t get bored with what you’ve written. Reflective essays are very personal thus, they’re a special type of essay. As you write one, you need to reflect, think, and explain.

In the essay, you should demonstrate and describe different feelings or emotions which you’ve felt in the past. These statements breathe life into your essay as your readers start picturing what you’ve written in their minds. Reflective essays are very honest, personal, and emotional, especially those which describe painful experiences.

Reflective Paper Examples

Format of reflective essay

As aforementioned, reflective essay examples don’t have a standard format. They seem easy enough to write but once you’ve sat down to start writing, you may suddenly find the task very challenging! Besides the format, you must think about the life experience you want to write about and remember everything about it.

A reflective paper example is a lot like a personal journal or diary. Of course, the difference is that other people will read your essay. Therefore, you must write it with good structure and coherence. In this regard, reflective essays are a lot like the other types of essays too.

When writing a reflective essay, you will have to examine your own life experiences. The purpose of writing such an essay is to provide yourself with a platform to share your most meaningful life experiences with other people. You can also use it as a way to explore how your experiences have changed you as a person.

You can present reflective writing in different formats. Most of the time though, people use a learning log or a diary entry format. You can use these formats and others. Just make sure that your essay has a good flow and that it’s easy for other readers to understand.

The format to use for your reflection essay samples would depend on your target audience. You can make an academic reflective essay or you can make it as a general and informal piece of writing. If you need to write the essay for a class assignment, follow the format given to you by your teacher.

No matter what format you choose, you may write an essay which:

Focuses on your personal growth Such an essay helps you learn how to evaluate and analyze the experiences you have had in your personal life. This helps promote emotional development and growth. It also helps you understand yourself and your behaviors better.
Focuses on literature For this type of essay, you may have to include references to literature and apply these to your own life experiences. Such essays are commonly given as assignments to students in school.

Creating the outline of reflective essay examples

Before you write your reflective essay examples, you must create an outline for them. Although you’d write about your own life, creating an outline gives structure to your essay to serve as a guide for what you want to write about.

Whether you need to write an essay for school, for a magazine or for any other reason, creating an outline is the very first step. With a good outline, you have a better idea of how your essay will flow from one paragraph to the next all the way to the conclusion.

When creating the outline of your reflective paper example, keep it organized. Develop the outline gradually and put a lot of thought into it. In doing this, you make the writing process much easier. Here is a rundown of the steps involved in the essay-writing process:

Choose a topic (a significant life experience you want to write about)
Gather information
Create an outline
Write a draft
Finalize your essay

Reflective Paper Samples

Tips for writing reflective essay

As you think about the content of your reflection essay samples, remember that the important thing is that such an essay must be highly personal but also engaging to readers. There’s so much more to reflective essays than just writing your story. You must also reflect on your experiences to engage your audiences.

For your starting point, think about the most significant experiences you had in your life. Those which had either a negative or a positive impact on you as a person. If the reflective essay is a school assignment, your professor would probably specify what you must write about. Here are some tips for you for writing your reflective paper example:

Reflection The most important part of writing your reflective essay is the reflective process. Think about the personal experience you want to write about. Focus on what happened, how this experience made you feel, and how it affected your life. Explore your memories and emotions for this part of the process. As you’re recalling and reflecting on your life experience, take a lot of notes . Write down all the details you remember and try to be as clear and as detailed as you possibly can. Take as much time as you need for reflection. You can even close your eyes as you try to remember those experiences vividly. When you’re confident that you have recalled all of the details of your life experience, it’s time to write your essay. To make it more meaningful, try to answer some important questions about your life experience including: Did you learn anything new about yourself because of this experience? Have you grown or developed because of this experience? If so, in what way? Did this experience impact your life positively or negatively? If you had the chance to experience this all over again, would you do anything differently? Why did you behave in such a way at the time of this experience? Did you make the right choices? What are your general thoughts and feelings about this experience? Can you say that you learned from this experience? Did you gain any new perspectives or skills because of this experience? These are “signpost questions” which can help you write a more meaningful essay. These are just some examples, you can also think of your own questions to ask yourself. The point of these questions is to make sure that you think critically and deeply about the experience you’re writing about.
Planning After you’ve reflected on your life experience, it’s time to start planning your essay. When it’s time to start, you might feel as if you’re not adequately prepared even though you’ve done a lot of reflection. This is a normal feeling, especially if you want to create a written piece which people will love reading. To ease your anxiety and doubt, come up with a well-rounded and comprehensive plan. The best way to do this is through an outline. With an outline to guide your writing process, you can come up with an essay that’s more coherent and which has a clear structure. An outline or plan is important for reflective essays. Since you’re writing about an emotionally-charged topic, you might find yourself getting “lost” along the way. This is especially true if you’re writing about a painful experience which still affects you until now. The outline serves as a map for you to keep your thoughts organized. In your outline, make sure to establish all of the fundamental details you wish to include in your essay. This helps you pick out and remove any superfluous information to make it easier to read and understand. Planning the points you want to write about makes it easier for you to stay on point. As such, your writing becomes a lot clearer and your readers can follow your line of thought. An outline also prevents you from missing out any relevant information. It’s very difficult and frustrating to go back after you’ve written the whole essay just to fit in this information! Planning your essay also saves you a lot of time. Coming up with the structure makes you more familiar with your essay even before you start writing it. Thus, you can spend more time writing, revising, and proofreading your essay to make it the best version possible.

Reflective Essay Samples

More Templates

Binder Cover Templates

Graph Paper Templates

Cover Page Templates

Essay Outline Templates

Statement Of Purpose

Persuasive Essay Examples

Frequently asked questions

What kind of self-reflection should i do for my college essay.

First, spend time reflecting on your core values and character . You can start with these questions:

What are three words your friends or family would use to describe you, and why would they choose them?
Whom do you admire most and why?
What are you most proud of? Ashamed of?

However, you should do a comprehensive brainstorming session to fully understand your values. Also consider how your values and goals match your prospective university’s program and culture. Then, brainstorm stories that illustrate the fit between the two.

Frequently asked questions: College admissions essays

When writing your Common App essay , choose a prompt that sparks your interest and that you can connect to a unique personal story.

No matter which prompt you choose, admissions officers are more interested in your ability to demonstrate personal development , insight, or motivation for a certain area of study.

The Common App essay is your primary writing sample within the Common Application, a college application portal accepted by more than 900 schools. All your prospective schools that accept the Common App will read this essay to understand your character, background, and value as a potential student.

Since this essay is read by many colleges, avoid mentioning any college names or programs; instead, save tailored answers for the supplementary school-specific essays within the Common App.

Most importantly, your essay should be about you , not another person or thing. An insightful college admissions essay requires deep self-reflection, authenticity, and a balance between confidence and vulnerability.

Your essay shouldn’t be a résumé of your experiences but instead should tell a story that demonstrates your most important values and qualities.

When revising your college essay , first check for big-picture issues regarding your message and content. Then, check for flow, tone, style , and clarity. Finally, focus on eliminating grammar and punctuation errors .

If your college essay goes over the word count limit , cut any sentences with tangents or irrelevant details. Delete unnecessary words that clutter your essay.

If you’re struggling to reach the word count for your college essay, add vivid personal stories or share your feelings and insight to give your essay more depth and authenticity.

If you’ve got to write your college essay fast , don’t panic. First, set yourself deadlines: you should spend about 10% of your remaining time on brainstorming, 10% on outlining, 40% writing, 30% revising, and 10% taking breaks in between stages.

Second, brainstorm stories and values based on your essay prompt.

Third, outline your essay based on the montage or narrative essay structure .

Fourth, write specific, personal, and unique stories that would be hard for other students to replicate.

Fifth, revise your essay and make sure it’s clearly written.

Last, if possible, get feedback from an essay coach . Scribbr essay editors can help you revise your essay in 12 hours or less.

Avoid swearing in a college essay , since admissions officers’ opinions of profanity will vary. In some cases, it might be okay to use a vulgar word, such as in dialogue or quotes that make an important point in your essay. However, it’s safest to try to make the same point without swearing.

If you have bad grades on your transcript, you may want to use your college admissions essay to explain the challenging circumstances that led to them. Make sure to avoid dwelling on the negative aspects and highlight how you overcame the situation or learned an important lesson.

However, some college applications offer an additional information section where you can explain your bad grades, allowing you to choose another meaningful topic for your college essay.

Here’s a brief list of college essay topics that may be considered cliché:

Extracurriculars, especially sports
Role models
Dealing with a personal tragedy or death in the family
Struggling with new life situations (immigrant stories, moving homes, parents’ divorce)
Becoming a better person after community service, traveling, or summer camp
Overcoming a difficult class
Using a common object as an extended metaphor

It’s easier to write a standout essay with a unique topic. However, it’s possible to make a common topic compelling with interesting story arcs, uncommon connections, and an advanced writing style.

Yes. The college application essay is less formal than other academic writing —though of course it’s not mandatory to use contractions in your essay.

In a college essay , you can be creative with your language . When writing about the past, you can use the present tense to make the reader feel as if they were there in the moment with you. But make sure to maintain consistency and when in doubt, default to the correct verb tense according to the time you’re writing about.

The college admissions essay gives admissions officers a different perspective on you beyond your academic achievements, test scores, and extracurriculars. It’s your chance to stand out from other applicants with similar academic profiles by telling a unique, personal, and specific story.

Use a standard font such as Times New Roman or Arial to avoid distracting the reader from your college essay’s content.

A college application essay is less formal than most academic writing . Instead of citing sources formally with in-text citations and a reference list, you can cite them informally in your text.

For example, “In her research paper on genetics, Quinn Roberts explores …”

There is no set number of paragraphs in a college admissions essay . College admissions essays can diverge from the traditional five-paragraph essay structure that you learned in English class. Just make sure to stay under the specified word count .

Most topics are acceptable for college essays if you can use them to demonstrate personal growth or a lesson learned. However, there are a few difficult topics for college essays that should be avoided. Avoid topics that are:

Overly personal (e.g. graphic details of illness or injury, romantic or sexual relationships)
Not personal enough (e.g. broad solutions to world problems, inspiring people or things)
Too negative (e.g. an in-depth look at your flaws, put-downs of others, criticizing the need for a college essay)
Too boring (e.g. a resume of your academic achievements and extracurriculars)
Inappropriate for a college essay (e.g. illegal activities, offensive humor, false accounts of yourself, bragging about privilege)

To write an effective diversity essay , include vulnerable, authentic stories about your unique identity, background, or perspective. Provide insight into how your lived experience has influenced your outlook, activities, and goals. If relevant, you should also mention how your background has led you to apply for this university and why you’re a good fit.

Many universities believe a student body composed of different perspectives, beliefs, identities, and backgrounds will enhance the campus learning and community experience.

Admissions officers are interested in hearing about how your unique background, identity, beliefs, culture, or characteristics will enrich the campus community, which is why they assign a diversity essay .

In addition to your main college essay , some schools and scholarships may ask for a supplementary essay focused on an aspect of your identity or background. This is sometimes called a diversity essay .

You can use humor in a college essay , but carefully consider its purpose and use it wisely. An effective use of humor involves unexpected, keen observations of the everyday, or speaks to a deeper theme. Humor shouldn’t be the main focus of the essay, but rather a tool to improve your storytelling.

Get a second opinion from a teacher, counselor, or essay coach on whether your essay’s humor is appropriate.

Though admissions officers are interested in hearing your story, they’re also interested in how you tell it. An exceptionally written essay will differentiate you from other applicants, meaning that admissions officers will spend more time reading it.

You can use literary devices to catch your reader’s attention and enrich your storytelling; however, focus on using just a few devices well, rather than trying to use as many as possible.

To decide on a good college essay topic , spend time thoughtfully answering brainstorming questions. If you still have trouble identifying topics, try the following two strategies:

Identify your qualities → Brainstorm stories that demonstrate these qualities
Identify memorable stories → Connect your qualities to these stories

You can also ask family, friends, or mentors to help you brainstorm topics, give feedback on your potential essay topics, or recall key stories that showcase your qualities.

Yes—admissions officers don’t expect everyone to have a totally unique college essay topic . But you must differentiate your essay from others by having a surprising story arc, an interesting insight, and/or an advanced writing style .

There are no foolproof college essay topics —whatever your topic, the key is to write about it effectively. However, a good topic

Is meaningful, specific, and personal to you
Focuses on you and your experiences
Reveals something beyond your test scores, grades, and extracurriculars
Is creative and original

Unlike a five-paragraph essay, your admissions essay should not end by summarizing the points you’ve already made. It’s better to be creative and aim for a strong final impression.

You should also avoid stating the obvious (for example, saying that you hope to be accepted).

There are a few strategies you can use for a memorable ending to your college essay :

Return to the beginning with a “full circle” structure
Reveal the main point or insight in your story
Look to the future
End on an action

The best technique will depend on your topic choice, essay outline, and writing style. You can write several endings using different techniques to see which works best.

College deadlines vary depending on the schools you’re applying to and your application plan:

For early action applications and the first round of early decision applications, the deadline is on November 1 or 15. Decisions are released by mid-December.
For the second round of early decision applications, the deadline is January 1 or 15. Decisions are released in January or February.
Regular decision deadlines usually fall between late November and mid-March, and decisions are released in March or April.
Rolling admission deadlines run from July to April, and decisions are released around four to eight weeks after submission.

Depending on your prospective schools’ requirements, you may need to submit scores for the SAT or ACT as part of your college application .

Some schools now no longer require students to submit test scores; however, you should still take the SAT or ACT and aim to get a high score to strengthen your application package.

Aim to take the SAT or ACT in the spring of your junior year to give yourself enough time to retake it in the fall of your senior year if necessary.

Apply early for federal student aid and application fee waivers. You can also look for scholarships from schools, corporations, and charitable foundations.

To maximize your options, you should aim to apply to about eight schools:

Two reach schools that might be difficult to get into
Four match schools that you have a good chance of getting into
Two safety schools that you feel confident you’ll get into

The college admissions essay accounts for roughly 25% of the weight of your application .

At highly selective schools, there are four qualified candidates for every spot. While your academic achievements are important, your college admissions essay can help you stand out from other applicants with similar profiles.

In general, for your college application you will need to submit all of the following:

Your personal information
List of extracurriculars and awards
College application essays
Transcripts
Standardized test scores
Recommendation letters.

Different colleges may have specific requirements, so make sure you check exactly what’s expected in the application guidance.

You should start thinking about your college applications the summer before your junior year to give you sufficient time for college visits, taking standardized tests, applying for financial aid , writing essays, and collecting application material.

Yes, but make sure your essay directly addresses the prompt, respects the word count , and demonstrates the organization’s values.

If you plan ahead, you can save time by writing one scholarship essay for multiple prompts with similar questions. In a scholarship tracker spreadsheet, you can group or color-code overlapping essay prompts; then, write a single essay for multiple scholarships. Sometimes, you can even reuse or adapt your main college essay .

You can start applying for scholarships as early as your junior year. Continue applying throughout your senior year.

Invest time in applying for various scholarships , especially local ones with small dollar amounts, which are likely easier to win and more reflective of your background and interests. It will be easier for you to write an authentic and compelling essay if the scholarship topic is meaningful to you.

You can find scholarships through your school counselor, community network, or an internet search.

A scholarship essay requires you to demonstrate your values and qualities while answering the prompt’s specific question.

After researching the scholarship organization, identify a personal experience that embodies its values and exemplifies how you will be a successful student.

A standout college essay has several key ingredients:

A unique, personally meaningful topic
A memorable introduction with vivid imagery or an intriguing hook
Specific stories and language that show instead of telling
Vulnerability that’s authentic but not aimed at soliciting sympathy
Clear writing in an appropriate style and tone
A conclusion that offers deep insight or a creative ending

While timelines will differ depending on the student, plan on spending at least 1–3 weeks brainstorming and writing the first draft of your college admissions essay , and at least 2–4 weeks revising across multiple drafts. Don’t forget to save enough time for breaks between each writing and editing stage.

You should already begin thinking about your essay the summer before your senior year so that you have plenty of time to try out different topics and get feedback on what works.

Your college essay accounts for about 25% of your application’s weight. It may be the deciding factor in whether you’re accepted, especially for competitive schools where most applicants have exceptional grades, test scores, and extracurricular track records.

In most cases, quoting other people isn’t a good way to start your college essay . Admissions officers want to hear your thoughts about yourself, and quotes often don’t achieve that. Unless a quote truly adds something important to your essay that it otherwise wouldn’t have, you probably shouldn’t include it.

Cliché openers in a college essay introduction are usually general and applicable to many students and situations. Most successful introductions are specific: they only work for the unique essay that follows.

The key to a strong college essay introduction is not to give too much away. Try to start with a surprising statement or image that raises questions and compels the reader to find out more.

The introduction of your college essay is the first thing admissions officers will read and therefore your most important opportunity to stand out. An excellent introduction will keep admissions officers reading, allowing you to tell them what you want them to know.

You can speed up this process by shortening and smoothing your writing with a paraphrasing tool . After that, you can use the summarizer to shorten it even more.

If you’re struggling to reach the word count for your college essay, add vivid personal stories or share your feelings and insight to give your essay more depth and authenticity.

Most college application portals specify a word count range for your essay, and you should stay within 10% of the upper limit to write a developed and thoughtful essay.

You should aim to stay under the specified word count limit to show you can follow directions and write concisely. However, don’t write too little, as it may seem like you are unwilling or unable to write a detailed and insightful narrative about yourself.

If no word count is specified, we advise keeping your essay between 400 and 600 words.

In your application essay , admissions officers are looking for particular features : they want to see context on your background, positive traits that you could bring to campus, and examples of you demonstrating those qualities.

Colleges want to be able to differentiate students who seem similar on paper. In the college application essay , they’re looking for a way to understand each applicant’s unique personality and experiences.

You don’t need a title for your college admissions essay , but you can include one if you think it adds something important.

Your college essay’s format should be as simple as possible:

Use a standard, readable font
Use 1.5 or double spacing
If attaching a file, save it as a PDF
Stick to the word count
Avoid unusual formatting and unnecessary decorative touches

There are no set rules for how to structure a college application essay , but these are two common structures that work:

A montage structure, a series of vignettes with a common theme.
A narrative structure, a single story that shows your personal growth or how you overcame a challenge.

Avoid the five-paragraph essay structure that you learned in high school.

Campus visits are always helpful, but if you can’t make it in person, the college website will have plenty of information for you to explore. You should look through the course catalog and even reach out to current faculty with any questions about the school.

Colleges set a “Why this college?” essay because they want to see that you’ve done your research. You must prove that you know what makes the school unique and can connect that to your own personal goals and academic interests.

Depending on your writing, you may go through several rounds of revision . Make sure to put aside your essay for a little while after each editing stage to return with a fresh perspective.

Teachers and guidance counselors can help you check your language, tone, and content . Ask for their help at least one to two months before the submission deadline, as many other students will also want their help.

Friends and family are a good resource to check for authenticity. It’s best to seek help from family members with a strong writing or English educational background, or from older siblings and cousins who have been through the college admissions process.

If possible, get help from an essay coach or editor ; they’ll have specialized knowledge of college admissions essays and be able to give objective expert feedback.

When revising your college essay , first check for big-picture issues regarding message, flow, tone, style , and clarity. Then, focus on eliminating grammar and punctuation errors.

Include specific, personal details and use your authentic voice to shed a new perspective on a common human experience.

Through specific stories, you can weave your achievements and qualities into your essay so that it doesn’t seem like you’re bragging from a resume.

When writing about yourself , including difficult experiences or failures can be a great way to show vulnerability and authenticity, but be careful not to overshare, and focus on showing how you matured from the experience.

In a college application essay , you can occasionally bend grammatical rules if doing so adds value to the storytelling process and the essay maintains clarity.

However, use standard language rules if your stylistic choices would otherwise distract the reader from your overall narrative or could be easily interpreted as unintentional errors.

Write concisely and use the active voice to maintain a quick pace throughout your essay and make sure it’s the right length . Avoid adding definitions unless they provide necessary explanation.

Use first-person “I” statements to speak from your perspective . Use appropriate word choices that show off your vocabulary but don’t sound like you used a thesaurus. Avoid using idioms or cliché expressions by rewriting them in a creative, original way.

If you’re an international student applying to a US college and you’re comfortable using American idioms or cultural references , you can. But instead of potentially using them incorrectly, don’t be afraid to write in detail about yourself within your own culture.

Provide context for any words, customs, or places that an American admissions officer might be unfamiliar with.

College application essays are less formal than other kinds of academic writing . Use a conversational yet respectful tone , as if speaking with a teacher or mentor. Be vulnerable about your feelings, thoughts, and experiences to connect with the reader.

Aim to write in your authentic voice , with a style that sounds natural and genuine. You can be creative with your word choice, but don’t use elaborate vocabulary to impress admissions officers.

Admissions officers use college admissions essays to evaluate your character, writing skills , and ability to self-reflect . The essay is your chance to show what you will add to the academic community.

The college essay may be the deciding factor in your application , especially for competitive schools where most applicants have exceptional grades, test scores, and extracurriculars.

Some colleges also require supplemental essays about specific topics, such as why you chose that specific college . Scholarship essays are often required to obtain financial aid .

Ask our team

Want to contact us directly? No problem. We are always here for you.

Email [email protected]
Start live chat
Call +1 (510) 822-8066
WhatsApp +31 20 261 6040

Our team helps students graduate by offering:

A world-class citation generator
Plagiarism Checker software powered by Turnitin
Innovative Citation Checker software
Professional proofreading services
Over 300 helpful articles about academic writing, citing sources, plagiarism, and more

Scribbr specializes in editing study-related documents . We proofread:

PhD dissertations
Research proposals
Personal statements
Admission essays
Motivation letters
Reflection papers
Journal articles
Capstone projects

Scribbr’s Plagiarism Checker is powered by elements of Turnitin’s Similarity Checker , namely the plagiarism detection software and the Internet Archive and Premium Scholarly Publications content databases .

The add-on AI detector is powered by Scribbr’s proprietary software.

The Scribbr Citation Generator is developed using the open-source Citation Style Language (CSL) project and Frank Bennett’s citeproc-js . It’s the same technology used by dozens of other popular citation tools, including Mendeley and Zotero.

You can find all the citation styles and locales used in the Scribbr Citation Generator in our publicly accessible repository on Github .

The Reflective Essay

The reflective essay serves two key purposes in your portfolio:

First, it gives your reviewers some insight into your development as a writer and the role writing has played in your Carleton education.
Second, it allows you to tell your readers about each individual essay in the portfolio–where and how you came to write it, why you included it, what it reveals about you as a writer, etc.
Third, and perhaps most importantly, writing the reflective essay allows you, the writer, to stop and consider what you have gained from your varied writing experiences at Carleton and how you intend to develop your skills going forward.

These three purposes mean that the reflective essay is perhaps the most important single component of your portfolio. Since it’s the only item you will write exclusively for the portfolio, it’s the only opportunity you will have to connect directly with your reviewers and draw their attention to the most important qualities of your writing. Furthermore, the reflective essay provides you an opportunity to take stock of your own writing and draw your own conclusions about its strengths and weaknesses, rather than relying on the assessments of your professors. Thus, the amount of time and effort you put into your reflective essay will often determine whether you find the portfolio process to be a valuable experience or just another hurdle on the way to graduation.

The questions below should serve as a guide for your reflective essay. You do not have to address the questions in any particular order, nor do you have to give them all equal time and attention (though you should try to address them all in some way). Furthermore, if any of the questions simply do not apply to your experience, feel free to skip them or reframe them. In the end, your reflective essay as a whole should read as just that—a single essay with a clear flow of ideas throughout, not a series of short responses to each of the questions below. The primary goal here is to provide your readers with useful context for your writing, not to answer these particular questions in this particular order.

Note: these need not be specifically writing skills, just skills that helped you as a writer . For instance, you may have found that your time management skills were a significant asset as you began to tackle college-level writing assignments.
What challenges (if any) did you face in meeting the expectations for writing in your Carleton classes? How did you meet these challenges?
How have you grown or developed as a writer over the past two years? How has the writing you’ve completed fit into your overall progress as a student, scholar, or thinker at Carleton?
How do you expect writing to fit into your academic work in the future? What aspects of your writing do you plan to develop further?

Your reflective essay should also explain how each of the essays you selected from your Carleton classes fits into the overall narrative of your development as a writer. You can address this over the course of the essay, as part of the overall narrative or argument, or you can include a series of paragraphs at the end of the essay that addresses each piece in turn. Either way, some questions you might address here are:

How does each essay demonstrate major skills you’ve acquired or improved? (These do not necessarily need to line up with the portfolio requirements — analysis, interpretation, observation, etc. — you can also just state in your own words what you feel you gained from writing each essay.)
Do one or more of them represent significant “turning points” or moments in your development as a writer?
Do one or more of them illustrate something about your individual style or approach to writing?

You should write at least a sentence or two about each essay in the portfolio, but you can certainly write more if you have more to say about a given piece. Regardless of how much you write about each essay, though, it is extremely important that you address what each piece brings to the portfolio, because this allows your readers understand what you want them to see when they review your work.

Length and Format

There is no minimum or maximum length for the reflective essay, but as a general guideline, it should be roughly 500-1200 words (~2-3 standard, double-spaced pages). Anything less than 500 words and you are unlikely to address the key ideas in enough depth to engage your readers. Anything more than 1200 words and readers are likely to begin “skimming” fairly heavily as they read.

Regardless of length, your reflective essay should be double-spaced and written in an easily readable 12-point font.

Titles are encouraged, but not required, though you should at the very least clearly label the document “Reflective Essay” at the top.

Additional Guidelines

Your reflective essay should:.

Make an overall argument about how you have developed as a writer since your first term at Carleton.
Use details from your personal experience to support your conclusions.
Address how each of your essays in some way illustrates your development.
Be roughly 500-1000 words long (roughly 2-3 double-spaced pages).
Maintain a generally academic tone. It’s okay to be light or even humorous in your essay, but you should avoid being glib or dismissive of the portfolio process.
Stay focused on your experience — i.e. it should not read as an evaluation of your individual classes or Carleton as a whole (though you’re free to express positive or negative opinions about the college that are relevant to your experience).

Your Reflective essay should NOT:

For example, you might mention that an essay came from your A&I course in order to explain how it illustrates some of the writing abilities you brought with you from high school, but also illustrates some weaknesses in your writing that you improved upon in later essays–ideally essays that are also included in the portfolio.
Simply restate basic ethos of the college (e.g. “I believe that writing is essential in a liberal arts education…”) without explaining how these ideas apply to your experience. Your goal is not to prove that you have internalized the “Carleton philosophy” of liberal arts education and the importance of writing. Rather, your readers want to see how you have experienced and grown from your time here.

Your Reflective Essay CAN:

Point out areas where your writing has improved over time. You might, for example, acknowledge that a more recent essay in your portfolio has a better argument or more refined language than an essay from several terms back.
Discuss your experiences as a writer before Carleton, particularly if you transferred to Carleton from another college or university.
Recognize particular challenges you’ve faced in developing your writing skills, such as learning English as a second language or not having significant experience with academic writing before Carleton.
Express criticisms or disappointments with your experiences at Carleton. While you should keep your audience (Carleton faculty and staff) and the context (an assessment of your academic writing skills) in mind, you do not have to be a “cheerleader” for Carleton. If you feel that there are gaps or shortcomings in the education you’ve received over the past few years that have made it more challenging for you to develop your writing skills in the way you wished to, you are welcome to say so.

How to write a reflective essay

Published September 27, 2020. Updated May 19, 2022.

Reflective Essay Definition

A reflective essay is a type of writing that examines an experience from the past by looking through the lens of the present.

Overview of reflective Essay

The purpose of a reflective essay is to explore an impression you had, looking into the reasons for that impression. A reflective essay is not writing about an experience. It is writing about your reaction to that experience. A reflective essay is not learning from doing. It is about learning from thinking about what you did. A reflective essay is not about trying to influence anyone of anything. It is about drawing the meaning from your own experience. A reflective essay is not about being correct. It is about being honest. A reflective essay is actually designed to help you improve how you think and learn.

Key takeaways

A reflective essay examines an experience from the past looking through the lens of the present.
The purpose of a reflective essay is to explore an impression you had, looking into reasons for that impression.
A reflective essay is very personal: the topic isn’t so much the experience but how YOU felt ABOUT the experience.

What is a reflective essay?

Sometimes it’s easier to explain what something is NOT.

A reflective essay is not writing about an experience. It’s writing about your reaction to that experience.
A reflective essay is not learning from doing. It’s about learning from thinking about what you did.
A reflective essay is not about trying to convince anyone of anything. It’s about drawing meaning from your own experience.
A reflective essay is not about being correct. It’s about being honest.

Think about the word “reflection.” What you see in the mirror is not you; it is a reflection of you.

Do you realize that you can never really see yourself? You can only see a reflection of yourself.

Every life experience is like that. You never really see the experience as it’s happening. You only see it and learn from it when you see it through reflection.

Also, you cannot see your reflection if you are too close to the mirror. You need to step back in order to see yourself clearly.

Reflective writing is like that.

A reflective essay is a way of writing where you, as the writer, take a step back from your experience and write about it with some distance.

It is a way of writing about the past from the perspective of the present.

You are no longer going through an experience. Rather, you are reflecting on it to see it more clearly.

Worried about your writing? Submit your paper for a Chegg Writing essay check , or for an Expert Check proofreading . Both can help you find and fix potential writing issues.

Purpose of a reflective essay

Regardless of how you feel about writing essays, most essays are designed to help you improve how you write. A reflective essay is actually designed to help you improve how you think and learn.

The reflective essay can be very helpful because writing it helps you process whatever you are writing about. That act of processing leads to deeper understanding.

John Dewey, an American scholar, said: “We do not learn from experience. We learn from reflecting on experience.”

Difference between a personal essay and a reflective essay

More than other essays, a reflection is about YOU. Unlike a personal essay, however, a reflective essay requires you to take a step back from an experience and write about it from a distance.

Where a personal essay might say, “Here is something I did,” a reflective essay would try to answer, “Why did I do what I did?”

A reflective essay is a good place to explore questions like, “How did I feel before and after I did that?”, “If I encountered a similar experience, would I do the same thing again?”, and “What did I learn from this experience?”

As you can see, all of the questions are personal: they are not asking about the experience itself, they are asking how YOU felt ABOUT the experience.

Don’t worry about finding the “right” answer. There is no such thing. Every person’s experience and interpretation is unique, and you are writing about your own. You don’t need to compare it to anyone else’s.

Make sure you write the essay in the first person.

Possible topics for a reflective essay

When choosing your topic for a reflective essay, think about whether it caused an impression on you. Remember that the topic you write about isn’t the focus – the focus is your interpretation of it.

A teacher who believed in you
A friend who betrayed you
A family member
A place in nature where you feel most comfortable
The house you grew up in
A place you visited for the first time, that felt “familiar”
Going somewhere very foreign
A new experience
Failing or succeeding at something
Learning something new
Something you’ve done before, but this time something was different

Questions to ask about your topic

Since you want to go deeper with your understanding of the topic, the questions that you ask yourself as you write are important.

How did I feel, and why did I feel this way?
How did I react, and why did I react like this?
Did this change me? Why or why not?
Would I do something differently next time?
Was this experience positive or negative for me?
What does this mean in my life?
What did I learn from this experience?

Parts of an essay

Every essay you write, including reflective essays, should have three parts: an introduction, a body, and a conclusion. The reflective essay should have those parts as well.

However, the way a reflective essay is organized might be a little different.

Let’s go through each of those parts for a reflective essay. Each part will include a sample.

Introduction

You want to begin your essay with a hook. A hook is an interesting opening that “catches” your readers and makes them want to read more. Your hook is usually the first sentence.

After you’ve hooked the readers, you want to give some context, or background information. In a reflective essay, use the introduction to mention the experience that you will be writing about. Think of each sentence in your intro as a stepping point. Each sentence brings you closer to your thesis statement.

Once you’ve given some context, write a thesis statement, which tells the readers exactly what they’re going to read about. For a reflective essay, the thesis statement should give the readers an idea of the impression the experience made on you. Think of it like a map to the rest of your essay.

Sample introduction

Can you identify the hook, background information, and thesis statement in this sample?

I had seen pictures of the Mona Lisa my whole life. Last summer, I went to Paris and got to see the original painting in the Louvre Museum. As I stood looking at the Mona Lisa, I really was seeing her for the first time. What I found surprising is that I felt the woman in the painting was seeing me as well. I actually felt a connection to the painting.

A typical essay will have from one to three body paragraphs, though you can write as many as you need (or as many as your teacher assigns you). Regardless of how many body paragraphs you have, they will all be organized in a similar manner.

Start with a topic sentence to show your reader what is coming up. This is a general sentence that gives an overview of that paragraph. Since your thesis statement should be about the impression your experience made on you, each topic sentence should be a reason for that impression.

The body paragraph should explain the reason for your impression in depth.

End a body paragraph with a sentence that summarizes what you wrote or that leads into the next paragraph.

Sample body paragraphs

Can you identify the topic sentences? Do the body paragraphs discuss the reasons in depth

I first felt a connection because of the Mona Lisa’s expression. Her face looks calm and seems to give nothing away. Every time I had seen the picture before, I felt like her expression was empty, with nothing behind it. As if the subject was a rich, carefree woman who was just sitting to have her portrait painted. When I stood in front of the original masterpiece, though, her expression opened up. At the time, all I knew was that I was seeing something I hadn’t seen before. Now I know that I saw a woman trying to get through life while feeling like she didn’t know what she was doing. I have often felt the same way. I may look calm to the outside world, but I am trying to hide anxiety. Now I recognize that the Mona Lisa was doing the same thing.

The second reason I felt a connection was because of the Mona Lisa’s posture. The subject looks like she’s sitting in a chair. Her body is facing to the left, but her face is looking at the viewer. It seems as if she wants to go in one direction but is forced to face another. I have felt that way. Like when my parents suggest which future would be better for me. Like when my friends want to do something I’m not comfortable doing. Like when I want to stay home and read but my boyfriend wants us to go to a party. Which way should I go?

Lastly, I felt a connection to the background in the painting. Behind the Mona Lisa is a natural vista with a road and mountains and a lake. The landscape itself seems improbable. Why is there a road when there is no other sign of life? There are no buildings or people in the background. Having the Mona Lisa placed in such a strange background adds to the feeling of anxiety and uncertainty. Again, it seems like the Mona Lisa is talking to me: “Do you ever feel like you don’t know where you are? Or where you belong?” Yes, I feel that way a lot.

Before you turn in that paper, don’t forget to cite your sources in APA format , MLA format , or a style of your choice.

This is how your essay ends and includes the last impression your reader takes away.

In a reflective essay, you may use your conclusion to give closure to the experience you’re writing about.

Add any insights to explain your reasons for your impression.

Finally, remember that a reflection is a way to write about the past from the perspective of the present. Make a clear connection from the past to the present.

Sample conclusion

Does this conclusion give a sense of closure? Does it add any insights? Does it make a connection between past and present?

That summer in Paris was supposed to be an exciting trip for me, but it was actually a difficult time in my life. I was trying to decide what university to go to, what major I should choose, and whether my boyfriend and I should break up or try a long-distance relationship. I had questions brewing in my head and it was difficult to appreciate the beauty of Paris. Seeing the Mona Lisa at that time in my life made me feel at peace. Now I understand what I saw in her that made me feel connected: I saw someone else with doubt and uncertainty, but I knew she would be okay in the end, and so will I.

Example reflective essay on the Mona Lisa

Example reflective essay on environmental troubles.

By Halina Stolar. Halina has a master’s degree in teaching and taught English as a second language and writing for almost 15 years overseas. She now works as a freelance writer, and geeks out over grammar for fun.

Common Writing Assignments, Apps & Tests

Analytical Essay
AP synthesis Essay
Argumentative Essay
Book Report
Compare and Contrast Essay
Cause and Effect Essay
College Admissions Essay
Critical Analysis Essay
Definition Essay
Descriptive Essay
Dissertation
Explanatory Essay
Expository Essay
Informative Essay
Narrative Essay
Opinion Essay
Personal Essay
Persuasive Essay
Reflective Essay
Research Paper
Rhetorical Analysis
Scholarship Essay
Short Essay
Thesis Paper

What’s included with a Chegg Writing subscription

Unlimited number of paper scans
Plagiarism detection: Check against billions of sources
Expert proofreading for papers on any subject
Grammar scans for 200+ types of common errors
Automatically create & save citations in 7,000+ styles
Cancel subscription anytime, no obligation

My Portfolio

Andrew duffy.

Literacy Narrative
Image Analysis Essay
Argument Research Essay
Other Works About My Writing

Final Reflective Essay

At the beginning of the course, I was new to college writing. My writing skills were not bad, but they needed some fine tuning. A lot of the skills I have translated over easily from high school, but some did not. I was always good at getting information and laying down a foundation. Alongside that, I’ve always found writing easy once I have that base. Filling out the main ideas were simple. However, once I arrived in college it was apparent to myself that I needed more detail, and that it was something I lacked. It needed improving, but it was not a hard fix. Sometimes it is hard for me to understand why some writing needs more detail but others do not. This class has helped me fix that issue a bit, while also strengthening my proficiency in other areas. Throughout the semester, I have completed assignments that have increased my skills, and broadened my sense as a writer in different areas. By taking this class, I have been able to develop rhetorical knowledge, develop critical thinking, reading, and information literacy, develop effective strategies for drafting texts, and develop knowledge of conventions.

This class has helped me develop rhetorical knowledge by analyzing and composing multiple forms of writing to understand how genre conventions shape readers’ and writers’ practices and purposes. This means that I have been able to analyze different types of writing in order to understand how a genre affects how an author writes, and how the reader reads. One assignment that comes to mind that helped me achieve this outcome was our advertisement analysis assignments. In class, we spent time looking at different advertisements, and how they appealed to certain audiences. We all had to bring an advertisement to class, and analyze it ourselves, pointing out what techniques the ads were using, if they were effective or not, and who were they targeting. This assignment helps develop rhetoric as it allowed me to understand how the category of advertisement writing can differ from not only other genres, but other ads as well.

Rhetoric knowledge was also developed by practicing purposeful shifts in structure, content, diction, tone, formality, design, and/or medium in accordance with the rhetorical situation, which means to be able to change your writing to reflect the rhetorical situation at hand. This was not the result of one assignment, but many. During the course we were asked to write different essays that reflected different styles of writing. From storytelling and analyzation, to infographics and research assignments, I have been able to change how I write in order to meet the requirements. For example, in the literacy narrative, I had to write to convey a story. This means using traditional elements of a story, such as a beginning, middle, climax, and resolution, along with elements such as foreshadowing. This style of writing is different from an image analysis essay, where the purpose is mostly informative rather than anecdotal. In this case, elements such as facts, context, and comparison are common, and story like elements would not be appropriate here. I display that I have met this outcome by understanding how to write in those genres and how to keep it appropriate.

Another outcome this class has helped me meet is developing critical thinking, reading, and information literacy by composing and reading for inquiry, learning, critical thinking, and communicating. One such way I have met this outcome is by writing journals almost every class about different things. Every so often we had to write a journal about our thoughts about either our writing skills, how we defined different terms, and our reflections on our assignments. By completing these journals, I was able to look back on certain assignments, and learn how I was able to accomplish what I did. This style of writing is helpful because of its creative nature, and allows myself to become better as a writer.

Two more ways I was able to develop my critical thinking, reading, and information literacy skills was by using outside materials in their own writing through techniques such as interpretation, synthesis, response, critique, and design/redesign, and incorporating outside materials through quotations, paraphrase, and summary. By completing the image analysis essay, I was able to meet the outcome about using outside materials in your own writing. I used two advertisements in the essay, and analyzed how they were done, and who they targeted, in order to compare and contrast them at the end. I appropriately commented on their effectiveness, and how they could have improved. Speaking of using outside materials, my research essay demonstrated the outcome related to using paraphrase due to the nature of the assignment. By using outside sources, I was able to make my argument stronger, and I was able to improve as a writer because my skill to read and take information away improved.

The third outcome this class helped me to achieve was to develop effective strategies for drafting texts by working through multiple drafts of a project and recognizing the role of reflecting, revising, and editing in the process, engaging in the collaborative and social aspects of writing processes, such as learning to give and to act on productive feedback to works in progress, both by and with peers and in one-on-one instructor conferences, and critically reflecting on how they may further develop and apply writing skills in the future. The first outcome was reached simply through the rough drafts of each project. I usually had to brainstorm first, but afterwards, I was able to just write in order to get the information down. It had quite a few flaws to begin with, but during editing, most of them were ironed out easily. The second outcome was achieved through peer review. This was something I had always struggled with because I did not know how to do it. After learning, I saw how important it was. It allowed me to see mistakes my brain would have never saw, and let me see what my most common mistake were, which then allowed me to know what to avoid when writing. By reviewing other’s works, I was able to see common writing errors in general, and thus gave me information about what to avoid. The last outcome was achieved through peer review reflection. This is self-explanatory, but being able to reflect on the advice given is helpful. Mostly because it allows you to take a step back, and go over everything. You can see what you did well, and what you need to avoid in the future. This way, in future endeavors, the same mistakes will hopefully not be made.

The last outcome this class helped me to achieve was to develop knowledge of conventions by demonstrating competence in grammar, punctuation, and spelling, practicing genre conventions for structure, paragraphing, tone and mechanics, and understanding the concepts of intellectual property that motivate documentation conventions through application of recognized citation styles. The first two outcomes are rather similar, in the regard that most of the assignments help reach this outcome. Grammar will never change in writing, so it is important to get it write initially. The only assignment that really tested this was peer review. Being able to recognize sentences that do not make sense is helpful, and will help a writer catch confusing or contradicting statements. As for practicing genre conventions, almost every project helped display that. Writing paragraphs and formatting them correctly is easy, so there is not reason to drag on about this point. Lastly, the assignment that helped reach the outcome about citing intellectual property was the research assignment. It is important to cite your sources so that you do not plagiarize someone’s work, and jeopardize your own academic career. The research assignment helped because you had to find sources for you argument, and as a result, citations would follow.

During the course, I was faced with a few assignments where I had to write day by day, and not just in one day. Writing is not something to do, but rather a process that you have to follow in order to succeed. Many of the different assignments helped improve my skills in rhetoric, critical thinking, drafting, and conventions. While some did not improve much, others did exponentially. The work is not perfect, but for a beginner in college, it shows that I am willing to put in the time and effort to become more than just a beginner. As I progress through school, I hope to not only maintain these skills, but improve them also. Writing is not something that you leave behind after leaving school, so it is important that I take these skills not only with me for the next four years, but for the rest of my life. If I succeed in doing that, then I will always be prepared for any assignment that my field of interest throws at me.

Search form

What’s the Common App? Everything to Know for Senior Year

The Common Application, or Common App , is an online platform used by students to apply to multiple colleges and universities with one application. Over 900 institutions worldwide participate, saving students time applying to colleges during a hectic senior year . The application usually opens on August 1 each year. But be sure to verify the exact date.

Why Use the Common App?

1. simplifies applications: .

During your senior year, balancing academics, extracurricular activities, and college applications can be challenging. The Common App allows you to enter your personal details, academic history, and extracurricular activities just once, and then send this information to any participating colleges you wish to apply to.

2. Manages College Essays Efficiently:

One of the key components of the Common App is that it eliminates the need for multiple college essays . With the Common App, you write a single personal essay that’s sent to all the colleges on your list. This saves you time and effort. It allows you to focus on crafting a strong essay that highlights your unique experiences and strengths. Some colleges may require supplemental essays, which can also be managed through the Common App.

3. Streamlines Recommendation Process:

The Common App makes it simpler to submit letters of recommendation . You can invite your teachers and counselors to upload their letters directly to the platform. It’s easy to track the status and be assured that all required documents are submitted.

4. Includes a Fee Waiver Option:

Applications come with fees, but if that’s a concern, the Common App offers a fee waiver request option. If you’re eligible for SAT fee waivers , you can have your application fees waived at many colleges. This makes it less burdensome for students from various financial backgrounds to apply .

5. Provides Deadline Management:

The Common App lets you keep track of all your application deadlines in one place, which is especially useful during your busy senior year. This feature helps you stay organized so you won’t miss any deadlines.

All Headlines

A person with a beard smiling in front of a glass wall

Our Best Advice for Completing the Round 1 MBA Application

Assistant Dean for Admissions Bruce DelMonico shares his best advice and dispels a few myths about the MBA application process.

With just a couple of weeks until the MBA program’s Round 1 application deadline, I want to check in with a few general thoughts and some specific resources from the admissions team to help you through the process. Our aim is to make the process as transparent and accessible as possible. From our Application Guide to our previously recorded webinars and upcoming live events with members of the Admissions Committee, we’ve developed content aimed to support you at every step of your application process.

Before sharing those resources, I want to highlight a couple of the biggest pieces of advice about the process more generally. If you’ve attended a recent event, you’ve likely heard this guidance already, but I believe it bears repeating. First, don’t overthink things. You want to be thoughtful in your application, but don’t tie yourself into knots trying to analyze the implications of each question and prompt. We try to be clear, simple, and straightforward in the questions we ask, so we hope you will approach them in that same spirit.

On a related note, don’t try to predict what you think the Admissions Committee is looking for and don’t try to fit a mold you think will help your application “stand out.” There’s no mold—we are intentionally looking to bring in a diverse class, and we therefore seek broad perspectives across a range of professional experiences, fields of study, extracurricular activities, and other dimensions that represent your unique story. Anything important to you is important to us!

In addition to this general guidance, we have resources to help you as you work on specific portions of the application. Be sure to:

Check out our Application Guide , which is designed to break down every aspect of our application, explain why we ask specific questions, and provide insight into what the Admissions Committee is looking for. In addition to our written advice, we recently updated the Application Guide with brief videos from Assistant Dean Laurel Grodman and me. Whether you prefer to consume the Application Guide via video or text, we’ve got you covered. Below are a few select videos; you can find many more in the full Application Guide.

Essay: Sharing what matters to you

Test Scores: One piece of a larger picture

Work experience: Showcasing your achievements

Explore two of our recently recorded events. Some of you may already have seen two large webinars we recently hosted in advance of the Round 1 deadline: Inside the Application, Literally and Our Best Application Advice . These webinars are meant to complement each other and assist in slightly different ways with your application process. You can watch the videos in their entirety or use the chapter descriptions to jump to specific application components.

Inside the Application, Literally : Assistant Dean Laurel Grodman walks you through the 2024-2025 application (in fact, she literally opens the application and explains each element), sheds light on our reasons for asking for certain pieces of information, and offers advice on how best to answer the questions.
Our Best Application Advice : As the title suggests (we don’t like to bury the lede), Laurel and I share our best advice about approaching the application process generally. We also discuss specific application areas about which we tend to receive the most questions.

Attend upcoming events with the Admissions Committee. Prefer to ask your question live? We understand that desire, and that’s why we’ll be hosting a number of informal virtual sessions with members of the Admissions Committee over the next few weeks. Join a general Admissions Q&A for broader questions on the school or admissions process, attend my final Office Hours event before the Round 1 deadline, or join a Round 1 Application Q&A to get your last-minute questions answered before you hit “submit.”

We hope you find these resources helpful. As a final thought, I would note that the MBA process is a highly reflective journey. We hope that when you complete the process, you will have a better understanding of yourself and your motivations for this next step in your career than you did previously. Along the way, know that the admissions team is here to assist you. We look forward to receiving your application and learning more about you. Should you have any questions, don’t hesitate to reach out. Best of luck with your application!

IMAGES

How To Write Reflective Essay In College
50 Best Reflective Essay Examples (+Topic Samples) ᐅ TemplateLab
Reflective Essay
How to Write a Reflective Essay
50 Best Reflective Essay Examples (+Topic Samples) ᐅ TemplateLab
How to Write a Reflective Essay

COMMENTS

Reflective My Learning Experience: [Essay Example], 595 words
As a college student, I have had the privilege of engaging in a multitude of learning experiences, both inside and outside the classroom. In this reflective essay, I will delve into the transformative moments and the valuable lessons I have learned, highlighting the impact they have had on my personal and intellectual development.
How to Write a Reflective Essay
Use this guide to learn all about reflective essays, including how to write and format a reflective essay and brainstorm ideas.
My First Experience: a Reflection on The Impact of College Life
My life has been transformed in countless ways by my first experience in higher education. Going beyond mere academic pursuits, my college experience has fundamentally changed how I see myself, the world around me, and the future that awaits.
Reflective Essay: Introduction, Structure, Topics, Examples For University
Reflective essays are a unique form of academic writing that encourages introspection and self-analysis. They provide an opportunity for individuals to reflect upon their experiences, thoughts, and emotions, and effectively communicate their insights. In this article, we will explore the essential components of a reflective essay, discuss popular topics, provide guidance on how to start and ...
The Writing Center
A reflection is an essay, so provide full, thoughtful responses to the questions in your instructor's prompt. The style and tone of your reflective essay should match the purpose of the overall assignment. This is a personal essay meant to showcase what you learned from the text, event, or experience that you are writing about.
A complete guide to writing a reflective essay
In this guide, we explore in detail how to write a great reflective essay, including what makes a good structure and some advice on the writing process. We've even thrown in an example reflective essay to inspire you too, making this the ultimate guide for anyone needing reflective essay help.
How to Write a Reflective Essay
Do you need to write a reflective essay as part of your training or as a college exercise? Then check out our tips on writing a reflective essay.
How to Write a Reflection Essay
Reflective Essays take a look at a piece of writing or an experience in your life and write down how you feel about it. This strategy not only reveals fascinating insights about your perspective and personality, but it also makes for entertaining reading. Examining some model papers is a great way to hone your skills in outlining introspective essays.
How to Write a Reflective Essay With Sample Essays
This is a step-by-step explanation of how to write a reflection paper with topic ideas and a sample essay.
How to Write A Reflective Essay
In a reflective essay, the writer examines and writes about his personal experiences. Follow this easy guide and know how to write it like a pro.
Reflection Of My College Experience
Reflection Of My College Experience. Decent Essays. 1150 Words. 5 Pages. Open Document. This course like my entire first semester of university have provided me with both many challenges as well as taught me many lessons not only for my university career, but for the rest of my life. As I reflect back on the semester, I recall telling myself at ...
How to Write a Reflective Essay: A Quick Guide + Examples
A reflective essay is a type of writing where you explore how an event, experience, or concept has influenced your development or perspective. It involves deep thinking, self-analysis, and personal reflection. In a reflective essay, you explai what you learned and how you changed as a result of that experience.
Reflective Essay- Definition, Writing Steps, Examples & More
A reflective essay is a type of essay where the writer describes a personal experience or event that they observed or examined. Reflective writing involves thinking or pondering about a specific topic and writing your thoughts. The content of a reflective essay is subjective. This means, the writer discusses the topic from their own personal ...
50 Best Reflective Essay Examples (+Topic Samples)
A reflective essay is a type of written work which reflects your own self. Since it's about yourself, you already have a topic to write about. For reflective essay examples, readers expect you to evaluate a specific part of your life. To do this, you may reflect on emotions, memories, and feelings you've experienced at that time.
Reflective Essay Examples
Seeing reflective essay examples can help you understand how to accomplish a reflective essay writing assignment. View examples of reflective essays.
What kind of self-reflection should I do for my college essay?
What kind of self-reflection should I do for my college essay? First, spend time reflecting on your core values and character. You can start with these questions: What are three words your friends or family would use to describe you, and why would they choose them? Whom do you admire most and why?
Reflective Essay
Learn how to write a reflective essay that explores your personal experiences and insights. Find out the definition, format and examples of reflective essays.
The Reflective Essay
The reflective essay serves two key purposes in your portfolio: First, it gives your reviewers some insight into your development as a writer and the role writing has played in your Carleton education. Third, and perhaps most importantly, writing the reflective essay allows you, the writer, to stop and consider what you have gained from your ...
How to write a reflective essay
A reflective essay examines an experience from the past and the insights gained from it. Build a reflective essay to be proud of! Includes a sample essay!
Final Reflective Essay
Final Reflective Essay. At the beginning of the course, I was new to college writing. My writing skills were not bad, but they needed some fine tuning. A lot of the skills I have translated over easily from high school, but some did not. I was always good at getting information and laying down a foundation.
Reflective Essay On College Experience
Reflective Essay On College Experience. Many people come into college feeling unprepared, nervous, and unconfident, and while being convinced that I was indeed prepared, I couldn't help but feel some of these stressful emotions. Over the past month and a half, I have adapted to my new environment that is Pacific Lutheran University (PLU), and ...
Reflective Essay On College Experience
Reflective Essay On College Experience. After finishing my position as an orientation advisor, I didn't realize the significance and impact I would have on the many students encounter. I knew that I made a difference sharing the importance of social diversity, teaching campus safety, and fostering an understanding that the University of Texas ...
Reflections on My First Year in College
College makes you a stronger, more complete person. Living on your own for the first time is difficult, and facing all the challenges that a new environment brings is terrifying—I think that if I knew all the challenges I would have to face before the year was out, I would have had a lot more fear in August.
Guide to Writing a Reflection Assignment
Steps to Writing a Reflection Paper. Understand What a Reflection Paper Is A reflection paper is an academic essay that expresses your thoughts, feelings, and reactions to a particular subject or experience. It's not just about what you learned, but also how you learned it and how it affected your understanding or views.
What's the Common App? Everything to Know for Senior Year
With the Common App, you write a single personal essay that's sent to all the colleges on your list. This saves you time and effort. It allows you to focus on crafting a strong essay that highlights your unique experiences and strengths. Some colleges may require supplemental essays, which can also be managed through the Common App. 3.
Our Best Advice for Completing the Round 1 MBA Application
Explore two of our recently recorded events. Some of you may already have seen two large webinars we recently hosted in advance of the Round 1 deadline: Inside the Application, Literally and Our Best Application Advice.These webinars are meant to complement each other and assist in slightly different ways with your application process.

My First Experience: a Reflection on The Impact of College Life

Table of contents

Cite this Essay

Related Essays

Still can’t find what you need?

Related Essays on College Life

Related Topics

Get Your Personalized Essay in 3 Hours or Less!

Reflective Essay: Introduction, Structure, Topics, Examples For University

Reflective Essay

Focusing on personal growth:

Taking a closer look at the literature:

What am I supposed to write about?

Considerations

Introduction

Reflection Essay Structure

MLA Format for Reflective Essay

Reflective Essay in APA Style

Reflective Essay Outline

Here’s How You Can Submit a Well-Written Reflective Essay for University

Choosing a Topic for Reflection

Organize your thoughts in a mind map

Start Freewriting

Structure the Essay

Proofread, Proofread and Proofread

Reflective Essay Topics

Topics for Reflective Essays for Middle School Students

Topics for Reflective Essays in Grade 7

Topics for Reflective Essays in Grade 8

Topics for Reflective Essays in Grade 9

Topics for Reflective Essays in Grade 10

Topics for Reflective Essays for College Students

Topics for Reflective Essays for High School Students

Topics for Reflective Essays about Places

Topics for Reflective Essays about Events

Topics for Reflective Essays on Nature

Topics for reflection on relationships

Examples of Reflective Essay

An Example of a Reflective Essay on “My Little Brother”

Reflective Essay Example for “ Reading My Favorite Book”

Related Post

Recent Posts

How Long Should a Thesis Statement Be?

A complete guide to writing a reflective essay

Since 2006, Oxbridge Essays has been the UK’s leading paid essay-writing and dissertation service

Types of Reflection Papers

Reflective Essay Format

A focus on personal growth:

A focus on the literature:

Pre-Writing Tips: How to Start Writing the Reflection Essay?

What Do You Mean By Reflection Essay?

How to Strategically Plan Out the Reflective Essay Structure?

Introduction

Step-by-Step Guide to Writing Your Reflective Essay

Bonus Tip - Using Wider Sources

Reflective Essay Example

Some Final Notes to Remember

Essay exams: how to answer ‘To what extent…’

How to write a master’s essay

Writing Services

Editing Services

Additional Services

Our Company

Terms & Policies

Payment Methods

How to Write a Reflective Essay

What Is Reflective Writing?

The Reflective Cycle

Find this useful?

Structuring a Reflective Essay

Share this article:

Got content that needs a quick turnaround? Let us polish your work. Explore our editorial business services.

Free Email Newsletter Template (2024)

How to Write a Nonprofit Grant Proposal

How to Use Infographics to Boost Your Presentation

Why Interactive PDFs Are Better for Engagement

Seven Key Strategies for Voice Search Optimization

Five Creative Ways to Showcase Your Digital Portfolio

Make sure your writing is the best it can be with our expert English proofreading and editing.

How to Write a Reflection Essay | Outlines and Examples