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A reflective essay typically follows the familiar organisational pattern: Introduction – Body Paragraphs – Conclusion. In the body paragraphs, reflective writing involves a number of formats, and this guide will sugguest a DIEP approach, that is, to describe , interpret , evaluate and plan (Boud et al., 1985).

· Introduction

o Introduce the topic and the scope (What?)

o Justify the topic (Why?)

o Present the purpose of your essay (Thesis statement)

o Give an overview of what you will cover, i.e., description, interpretation, evaluation and plan (How?)

· Body Paragraphs (DIEP)

o Describe objectively what happened

v Give the details of what happened (Include the necessary who, what, when, where, how and why. You may not need to recall the whole experience, e.g., an incident/ lecture/ reading, but just a key aspect of the experience itself.)

v Answer: “What did you do, read, see, hear, etc.?”

o Interpret what happened

v Explain why things happened in the way they did

v Answer: “What might this experience mean?”

v Answer: “How did it make you feel?”

v Answer: “How does it relate to what you know/ have learned?”

v AbswerL “What new insights have you gained from it?”

v Answer: “What are your hypothesis/ conclusions?”

o Evaluate the effectiveness of the experience

v Make judgments on whether the experience is effective for you and how beneficial and useful the experience has been

v Answer: “What is your opinion about this experience?”

Answer: “Why do you have this opinion?”

Answer: “What is the value of this experience?”

o Plan how this experience might help you in the future

v Outline a plan for how the experience may impact your thinking or behaviour in your course, programme, future career and life in general

v Answer: “How will you transfer or apply your new knowledge and insights in the future?”

v Answer

· Conclusion

o Restate your thesis statement

o Summarise the main ideas of the body paragraphs

o State your overview of the experience regarding its usefulness and effectiveness for you and your future

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Reflective writing: Reflective writing for academic assessment

What is reflection? Why do it?
What does reflection involve?
Reflective questioning

Reflective writing for academic assessment

Types of reflective assignments
Differences between discursive and reflective writing
Sources of evidence for reflective writing assignments
Linking theory to experience
Reflective essays
Portfolios and learning journals, logs and diaries
Examples of reflective writing
Video summary
Bibliography

A normal requirement of assessment at university is the ability to write in an academic style. Based on the application of reason and argumentation, academic essays draw on other academic sources. The style of writing is impersonal and discursive. Reflective writing style is different in several respects.

The purpose of academic reflection

	The idea behind reflective writing is that what you learn at university builds on your prior knowledge, whether it is formal (e.g. education) or informal (e.g. gained through experience). Reflective writing helps you develop and clarify the connections between what you already know and what you are learning, between theory and practice and between what you are doing and how and why you do it.
	Reflective writing encourages you to consider and comment on your learning experiences – not only WHAT you learned, but also HOW you did it.
(Identifying outcomes)	Reflecting helps you to clarify what you have studied, integrate new knowledge with previous knowledge, and identify the questions you have and what you have yet to learn. .
	Reflecting on mistakes can help you avoid repeating them. At the same time, reflecting on your discoveries helps identify successful principles to use again.
	Many learners go through university with a passive approach to learning. Such learners engage with the learning process by accepting information that is presented to them. They often do not consider learning as a skill. Taking an active approach will help you develop your process of learning (making it easier and quicker). Such learners recognise the contestable nature of information that is presented to them. They often engage with activities, quizzes and further research to build their own understanding and viewpoint. That is a winning idea for any student.
	You can use your experiences to evaluate academic evidence/theories in practice. You can also use academic theories to interpret your reflections. .
	For lots of professions, reflective practice is an important part of the job. This is valuable in many, if not all professions and is valuable for helping you continue to identify and build your professional skills development.

The table above is adapted from The Learning Centre, University of New South Wales ( 2013 )

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Reflective writing is a process of identifying, questioning, and critically evaluating course-based learning opportunities, integrated with your own observations, experiences, impressions, beliefs, assumptions, or biases, and which describes how this process stimulated new or creative understanding about the content of the course.

A reflective paper describes and explains in an introspective, first person narrative, your reactions and feelings about either a specific element of the class [e.g., a required reading; a film shown in class] or more generally how you experienced learning throughout the course. Reflective writing assignments can be in the form of a single paper, essays, portfolios, journals, diaries, or blogs. In some cases, your professor may include a reflective writing assignment as a way to obtain student feedback that helps improve the course, either in the moment or for when the class is taught again.

How to Write a Reflection Paper . Academic Skills, Trent University; Writing a Reflection Paper . Writing Center, Lewis University; Critical Reflection . Writing and Communication Centre, University of Waterloo; Tsingos-Lucas et al. "Using Reflective Writing as a Predictor of Academic Success in Different Assessment Formats." American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education 81 (2017): Article 8.

Benefits of Reflective Writing Assignments

As the term implies, a reflective paper involves looking inward at oneself in contemplating and bringing meaning to the relationship between course content and the acquisition of new knowledge . Educational research [Bolton, 2010; Ryan, 2011; Tsingos-Lucas et al., 2017] demonstrates that assigning reflective writing tasks enhances learning because it challenges students to confront their own assumptions, biases, and belief systems around what is being taught in class and, in so doing, stimulate student’s decisions, actions, attitudes, and understanding about themselves as learners and in relation to having mastery over their learning. Reflection assignments are also an opportunity to write in a first person narrative about elements of the course, such as the required readings, separate from the exegetic and analytical prose of academic research papers.

Reflection writing often serves multiple purposes simultaneously. In no particular order, here are some of reasons why professors assign reflection papers:

Enhances learning from previous knowledge and experience in order to improve future decision-making and reasoning in practice . Reflective writing in the applied social sciences enhances decision-making skills and academic performance in ways that can inform professional practice. The act of reflective writing creates self-awareness and understanding of others. This is particularly important in clinical and service-oriented professional settings.
Allows students to make sense of classroom content and overall learning experiences in relation to oneself, others, and the conditions that shaped the content and classroom experiences . Reflective writing places you within the course content in ways that can deepen your understanding of the material. Because reflective thinking can help reveal hidden biases, it can help you critically interrogate moments when you do not like or agree with discussions, readings, or other aspects of the course.
Increases awareness of one’s cognitive abilities and the evidence for these attributes . Reflective writing can break down personal doubts about yourself as a learner and highlight specific abilities that may have been hidden or suppressed due to prior assumptions about the strength of your academic abilities [e.g., reading comprehension; problem-solving skills]. Reflective writing, therefore, can have a positive affective [i.e., emotional] impact on your sense of self-worth.
Applying theoretical knowledge and frameworks to real experiences . Reflective writing can help build a bridge of relevancy between theoretical knowledge and the real world. In so doing, this form of writing can lead to a better understanding of underlying theories and their analytical properties applied to professional practice.
Reveals shortcomings that the reader will identify . Evidence suggests that reflective writing can uncover your own shortcomings as a learner, thereby, creating opportunities to anticipate the responses of your professor may have about the quality of your coursework. This can be particularly productive if the reflective paper is written before final submission of an assignment.
Helps students identify their tacit [a.k.a., implicit] knowledge and possible gaps in that knowledge . Tacit knowledge refers to ways of knowing rooted in lived experience, insight, and intuition rather than formal, codified, categorical, or explicit knowledge. In so doing, reflective writing can stimulate students to question their beliefs about a research problem or an element of the course content beyond positivist modes of understanding and representation.
Encourages students to actively monitor their learning processes over a period of time . On-going reflective writing in journals or blogs, for example, can help you maintain or adapt learning strategies in other contexts. The regular, purposeful act of reflection can facilitate continuous deep thinking about the course content as it evolves and changes throughout the term. This, in turn, can increase your overall confidence as a learner.
Relates a student’s personal experience to a wider perspective . Reflection papers can help you see the big picture associated with the content of a course by forcing you to think about the connections between scholarly content and your lived experiences outside of school. It can provide a macro-level understanding of one’s own experiences in relation to the specifics of what is being taught.
If reflective writing is shared, students can exchange stories about their learning experiences, thereby, creating an opportunity to reevaluate their original assumptions or perspectives . In most cases, reflective writing is only viewed by your professor in order to ensure candid feedback from students. However, occasionally, reflective writing is shared and openly discussed in class. During these discussions, new or different perspectives and alternative approaches to solving problems can be generated that would otherwise be hidden. Sharing student's reflections can also reveal collective patterns of thought and emotions about a particular element of the course.

Bolton, Gillie. Reflective Practice: Writing and Professional Development . London: Sage, 2010; Chang, Bo. "Reflection in Learning." Online Learning 23 (2019), 95-110; Cavilla, Derek. "The Effects of Student Reflection on Academic Performance and Motivation." Sage Open 7 (July-September 2017): 1–13; Culbert, Patrick. “Better Teaching? You Can Write On It “ Liberal Education (February 2022); McCabe, Gavin and Tobias Thejll-Madsen. The Reflection Toolkit . University of Edinburgh; The Purpose of Reflection . Introductory Composition at Purdue University; Practice-based and Reflective Learning . Study Advice Study Guides, University of Reading; Ryan, Mary. "Improving Reflective Writing in Higher Education: A Social Semiotic Perspective." Teaching in Higher Education 16 (2011): 99-111; Tsingos-Lucas et al. "Using Reflective Writing as a Predictor of Academic Success in Different Assessment Formats." American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education 81 (2017): Article 8; What Benefits Might Reflective Writing Have for My Students? Writing Across the Curriculum Clearinghouse; Rykkje, Linda. "The Tacit Care Knowledge in Reflective Writing: A Practical Wisdom." International Practice Development Journal 7 (September 2017): Article 5; Using Reflective Writing to Deepen Student Learning . Center for Writing, University of Minnesota.

How to Approach Writing a Reflection Paper

Thinking About Reflective Thinking

Educational theorists have developed numerous models of reflective thinking that your professor may use to frame a reflective writing assignment. These models can help you systematically interpret your learning experiences, thereby ensuring that you ask the right questions and have a clear understanding of what should be covered. A model can also represent the overall structure of a reflective paper. Each model establishes a different approach to reflection and will require you to think about your writing differently. If you are unclear how to fit your writing within a particular reflective model, seek clarification from your professor. There are generally two types of reflective writing assignments, each approached in slightly different ways.

1. Reflective Thinking about Course Readings

This type of reflective writing focuses on thoughtfully thinking about the course readings that underpin how most students acquire new knowledge and understanding about the subject of a course. Reflecting on course readings is often assigned in freshmen-level, interdisciplinary courses where the required readings examine topics viewed from multiple perspectives and, as such, provide different ways of analyzing a topic, issue, event, or phenomenon. The purpose of reflective thinking about course readings in the social and behavioral sciences is to elicit your opinions, beliefs, and feelings about the research and its significance. This type of writing can provide an opportunity to break down key assumptions you may have and, in so doing, reveal potential biases in how you interpret the scholarship.

If you are assigned to reflect on course readings, consider the following methods of analysis as prompts that can help you get started :

Examine carefully the main introductory elements of the reading, including the purpose of the study, the theoretical framework being used to test assumptions, and the research questions being addressed. Think about what ideas stood out to you. Why did they? Were these ideas new to you or familiar in some way based on your own lived experiences or prior knowledge?
Develop your ideas around the readings by asking yourself, what do I know about this topic? Where does my existing knowledge about this topic come from? What are the observations or experiences in my life that influence my understanding of the topic? Do I agree or disagree with the main arguments, recommended course of actions, or conclusions made by the author(s)? Why do I feel this way and what is the basis of these feelings?
Make connections between the text and your own beliefs, opinions, or feelings by considering questions like, how do the readings reinforce my existing ideas or assumptions? How the readings challenge these ideas or assumptions? How does this text help me to better understand this topic or research in ways that motivate me to learn more about this area of study?

2. Reflective Thinking about Course Experiences

This type of reflective writing asks you to critically reflect on locating yourself at the conceptual intersection of theory and practice. The purpose of experiential reflection is to evaluate theories or disciplinary-based analytical models based on your introspective assessment of the relationship between hypothetical thinking and practical reality; it offers a way to consider how your own knowledge and skills fit within professional practice. This type of writing also provides an opportunity to evaluate your decisions and actions, as well as how you managed your subsequent successes and failures, within a specific theoretical framework. As a result, abstract concepts can crystallize and become more relevant to you when considered within your own experiences. This can help you formulate plans for self-improvement as you learn.

If you are assigned to reflect on your experiences, consider the following questions as prompts to help you get started :

Contextualize your reflection in relation to the overarching purpose of the course by asking yourself, what did you hope to learn from this course? What were the learning objectives for the course and how did I fit within each of them? How did these goals relate to the main themes or concepts of the course?
Analyze how you experienced the course by asking yourself, what did I learn from this experience? What did I learn about myself? About working in this area of research and study? About how the course relates to my place in society? What assumptions about the course were supported or refuted?
Think introspectively about the ways you experienced learning during the course by asking yourself, did your learning experiences align with the goals or concepts of the course? Why or why do you not feel this way? What was successful and why do you believe this? What would you do differently and why is this important? How will you prepare for a future experience in this area of study?

NOTE: If you are assigned to write a journal or other type of on-going reflection exercise, a helpful approach is to reflect on your reflections by re-reading what you have already written. In other words, review your previous entries as a way to contextualize your feelings, opinions, or beliefs regarding your overall learning experiences. Over time, this can also help reveal hidden patterns or themes related to how you processed your learning experiences. Consider concluding your reflective journal with a summary of how you felt about your learning experiences at critical junctures throughout the course, then use these to write about how you grew as a student learner and how the act of reflecting helped you gain new understanding about the subject of the course and its content.

ANOTHER NOTE: Regardless of whether you write a reflection paper or a journal, do not focus your writing on the past. The act of reflection is intended to think introspectively about previous learning experiences. However, reflective thinking should document the ways in which you progressed in obtaining new insights and understandings about your growth as a learner that can be carried forward in subsequent coursework or in future professional practice. Your writing should reflect a furtherance of increasing personal autonomy and confidence gained from understanding more about yourself as a learner.

Structure and Writing Style

There are no strict academic rules for writing a reflective paper. Reflective writing may be assigned in any class taught in the social and behavioral sciences and, therefore, requirements for the assignment can vary depending on disciplinary-based models of inquiry and learning. The organization of content can also depend on what your professor wants you to write about or based on the type of reflective model used to frame the writing assignment. Despite these possible variations, below is a basic approach to organizing and writing a good reflective paper, followed by a list of problems to avoid.

Pre-flection

In most cases, it's helpful to begin by thinking about your learning experiences and outline what you want to focus on before you begin to write the paper. This can help you organize your thoughts around what was most important to you and what experiences [good or bad] had the most impact on your learning. As described by the University of Waterloo Writing and Communication Centre, preparing to write a reflective paper involves a process of self-analysis that can help organize your thoughts around significant moments of in-class knowledge discovery.

Using a thesis statement as a guide, note what experiences or course content stood out to you , then place these within the context of your observations, reactions, feelings, and opinions. This will help you develop a rough outline of key moments during the course that reflect your growth as a learner. To identify these moments, pose these questions to yourself: What happened? What was my reaction? What were my expectations and how were they different from what transpired? What did I learn?
Critically think about your learning experiences and the course content . This will help you develop a deeper, more nuanced understanding about why these moments were significant or relevant to you. Use the ideas you formulated during the first stage of reflecting to help you think through these moments from both an academic and personal perspective. From an academic perspective, contemplate how the experience enhanced your understanding of a concept, theory, or skill. Ask yourself, did the experience confirm my previous understanding or challenge it in some way. As a result, did this highlight strengths or gaps in your current knowledge? From a personal perspective, think introspectively about why these experiences mattered, if previous expectations or assumptions were confirmed or refuted, and if this surprised, confused, or unnerved you in some way.
Analyze how these experiences and your reactions to them will shape your future thinking and behavior . Reflection implies looking back, but the most important act of reflective writing is considering how beliefs, assumptions, opinions, and feelings were transformed in ways that better prepare you as a learner in the future. Note how this reflective analysis can lead to actions you will take as a result of your experiences, what you will do differently, and how you will apply what you learned in other courses or in professional practice.

Basic Structure and Writing Style

Reflective Background and Context

The first part of your reflection paper should briefly provide background and context in relation to the content or experiences that stood out to you. Highlight the settings, summarize the key readings, or narrate the experiences in relation to the course objectives. Provide background that sets the stage for your reflection. You do not need to go into great detail, but you should provide enough information for the reader to understand what sources of learning you are writing about [e.g., course readings, field experience, guest lecture, class discussions] and why they were important. This section should end with an explanatory thesis statement that expresses the central ideas of your paper and what you want the readers to know, believe, or understand after they finish reading your paper.

Reflective Interpretation

Drawing from your reflective analysis, this is where you can be personal, critical, and creative in expressing how you felt about the course content and learning experiences and how they influenced or altered your feelings, beliefs, assumptions, or biases about the subject of the course. This section is also where you explore the meaning of these experiences in the context of the course and how you gained an awareness of the connections between these moments and your own prior knowledge.

Guided by your thesis statement, a helpful approach is to interpret your learning throughout the course with a series of specific examples drawn from the course content and your learning experiences. These examples should be arranged in sequential order that illustrate your growth as a learner. Reflecting on each example can be done by: 1) introducing a theme or moment that was meaningful to you, 2) describing your previous position about the learning moment and what you thought about it, 3) explaining how your perspective was challenged and/or changed and why, and 4) introspectively stating your current or new feelings, opinions, or beliefs about that experience in class.

It is important to include specific examples drawn from the course and placed within the context of your assumptions, thoughts, opinions, and feelings. A reflective narrative without specific examples does not provide an effective way for the reader to understand the relationship between the course content and how you grew as a learner.

Reflective Conclusions

The conclusion of your reflective paper should provide a summary of your thoughts, feelings, or opinions regarding what you learned about yourself as a result of taking the course. Here are several ways you can frame your conclusions based on the examples you interpreted and reflected on what they meant to you. Each example would need to be tied to the basic theme [thesis statement] of your reflective background section.

Your reflective conclusions can be described in relation to any expectations you had before taking the class [e.g., “I expected the readings to not be relevant to my own experiences growing up in a rural community, but the research actually helped me see that the challenges of developing my identity as a child of immigrants was not that unusual...”].
Your reflective conclusions can explain how what you learned about yourself will change your actions in the future [e.g., “During a discussion in class about the challenges of helping homeless people, I realized that many of these people hate living on the street but lack the ability to see a way out. This made me realize that I wanted to take more classes in psychology...”].
Your reflective conclusions can describe major insights you experienced a critical junctures during the course and how these moments enhanced how you see yourself as a student learner [e.g., "The guest speaker from the Head Start program made me realize why I wanted to pursue a career in elementary education..."].
Your reflective conclusions can reconfigure or reframe how you will approach professional practice and your understanding of your future career aspirations [e.g.,, "The course changed my perceptions about seeking a career in business finance because it made me realize I want to be more engaged in customer service..."]
Your reflective conclusions can explore any learning you derived from the act of reflecting itself [e.g., “Reflecting on the course readings that described how minority students perceive campus activities helped me identify my own biases about the benefits of those activities in acclimating to campus life...”].

NOTE: The length of a reflective paper in the social sciences is usually less than a traditional research paper. However, don’t assume that writing a reflective paper is easier than writing a research paper. A well-conceived critical reflection paper often requires as much time and effort as a research paper because you must purposeful engage in thinking about your learning in ways that you may not be comfortable with or used to. This is particular true while preparing to write because reflective papers are not as structured as a traditional research paper and, therefore, you have to think deliberately about how you want to organize the paper and what elements of the course you want to reflect upon.

ANOTHER NOTE: Do not limit yourself to using only text in reflecting on your learning. If you believe it would be helpful, consider using creative modes of thought or expression such as, illustrations, photographs, or material objects that reflects an experience related to the subject of the course that was important to you [e.g., like a ticket stub to a renowned speaker on campus]. Whatever non-textual element you include, be sure to describe the object's relevance to your personal relationship to the course content.

Problems to Avoid

A reflective paper is not a “mind dump” . Reflective papers document your personal and emotional experiences and, therefore, they do not conform to rigid structures, or schema, to organize information. However, the paper should not be a disjointed, stream-of-consciousness narrative. Reflective papers are still academic pieces of writing that require organized thought, that use academic language and tone , and that apply intellectually-driven critical thinking to the course content and your learning experiences and their significance.

A reflective paper is not a research paper . If you are asked to reflect on a course reading, the reflection will obviously include some description of the research. However, the goal of reflective writing is not to present extraneous ideas to the reader or to "educate" them about the course. The goal is to share a story about your relationship with the learning objectives of the course. Therefore, unlike research papers, you are expected to write from a first person point of view which includes an introspective examination of your own opinions, feelings, and personal assumptions.

A reflection paper is not a book review . Descriptions of the course readings using your own words is not a reflective paper. Reflective writing should focus on how you understood the implications of and were challenged by the course in relation to your own lived experiences or personal assumptions, combined with explanations of how you grew as a student learner based on this internal dialogue. Remember that you are the central object of the paper, not the research materials.

A reflective paper is not an all-inclusive meditation. Do not try to cover everything. The scope of your paper should be well-defined and limited to your specific opinions, feelings, and beliefs about what you determine to be the most significant content of the course and in relation to the learning that took place. Reflections should be detailed enough to covey what you think is important, but your thoughts should be expressed concisely and coherently [as is true for any academic writing assignment].

Critical Reflection . Writing and Communication Centre, University of Waterloo; Critical Reflection: Journals, Opinions, & Reactions . University Writing Center, Texas A&M University; Connor-Greene, Patricia A. “Making Connections: Evaluating the Effectiveness of Journal Writing in Enhancing Student Learning.” Teaching of Psychology 27 (2000): 44-46; Good vs. Bad Reflection Papers , Franklin University; Dyment, Janet E. and Timothy S. O’Connell. "The Quality of Reflection in Student Journals: A Review of Limiting and Enabling Factors." Innovative Higher Education 35 (2010): 233-244: How to Write a Reflection Paper . Academic Skills, Trent University; Amelia TaraJane House. Reflection Paper . Cordia Harrington Center for Excellence, University of Arkansas; Ramlal, Alana, and Désirée S. Augustin. “Engaging Students in Reflective Writing: An Action Research Project.” Educational Action Research 28 (2020): 518-533; Writing a Reflection Paper . Writing Center, Lewis University; McGuire, Lisa, Kathy Lay, and Jon Peters. “Pedagogy of Reflective Writing in Professional Education.” Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (2009): 93-107; Critical Reflection . Writing and Communication Centre, University of Waterloo; How Do I Write Reflectively? Academic Skills Toolkit, University of New South Wales Sydney; Reflective Writing . Skills@Library. University of Leeds; Walling, Anne, Johanna Shapiro, and Terry Ast. “What Makes a Good Reflective Paper?” Family Medicine 45 (2013): 7-12; Williams, Kate, Mary Woolliams, and Jane Spiro. Reflective Writing . 2nd edition. London: Red Globe Press, 2020; Yeh, Hui-Chin, Shih-hsien Yang, Jo Shan Fu, and Yen-Chen Shih. “Developing College Students’ Critical Thinking through Reflective Writing.” Higher Education Research and Development (2022): 1-16.

Writing Tip

Focus on Reflecting, Not on Describing

Minimal time and effort should be spent describing the course content you are asked to reflect upon. The purpose of a reflection assignment is to introspectively contemplate your reactions to and feeling about an element of the course. D eflecting the focus away from your own feelings by concentrating on describing the course content can happen particularly if "talking about yourself" [i.e., reflecting] makes you uncomfortable or it is intimidating. However, the intent of reflective writing is to overcome these inhibitions so as to maximize the benefits of introspectively assessing your learning experiences. Keep in mind that, if it is relevant, your feelings of discomfort could be a part of how you critically reflect on any challenges you had during the course [e.g., you realize this discomfort inhibited your willingness to ask questions during class, it fed into your propensity to procrastinate, or it made it difficult participating in groups].

Writing a Reflection Paper . Writing Center, Lewis University; Reflection Paper . Cordia Harrington Center for Excellence, University of Arkansas.

Another Writing Tip

Helpful Videos about Reflective Writing

These two short videos succinctly describe how to approach a reflective writing assignment. They are produced by the Academic Skills department at the University of Melbourne and the Skills Team of the University of Hull, respectively.

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Study Skills

Reflective practice toolkit, introduction.

What is reflective practice?
Everyday reflection
Models of reflection
Barriers to reflection
Free writing
Reflective writing exercise
Bibliography

Many people worry that they will be unable to write reflectively but chances are that you do it more than you think! It's a common task during both work and study from appraisal and planning documents to recording observations at the end of a module. The following pages will guide you through some simple techniques for reflective writing as well as how to avoid some of the most common pitfalls.

What is reflective writing?

Writing reflectively involves critically analysing an experience, recording how it has impacted you and what you plan to do with your new knowledge. It can help you to reflect on a deeper level as the act of getting something down on paper often helps people to think an experience through.

The key to reflective writing is to be analytical rather than descriptive. Always ask why rather than just describing what happened during an experience.

Remember...

Reflective writing is...

Written in the first person
Free flowing
A tool to challenge assumptions
A time investment

Reflective writing isn't...

Written in the third person
Descriptive
What you think you should write
A tool to ignore assumptions
A waste of time

Adapted from The Reflective Practice Guide: an Interdisciplinary Approach / Barbara Bassot.

You can learn more about reflective writing in this handy video from Hull University:

Created by SkillsTeamHullUni

Hull reflective writing video transcript (Word)
Hull reflective writing video transcript (PDF)

Where might you use reflective writing?

You can use reflective writing in many aspects of your work, study and even everyday life. The activities below all contain some aspect of reflective writing and are common to many people:

1. Job applications

Both preparing for and writing job applications contain elements of reflective writing. You need to think about the experience that makes you suitable for a role and this means reflection on the skills you have developed and how they might relate to the specification. When writing your application you need to expand on what you have done and explain what you have learnt and why this matters - key elements of reflective writing.

2. Appraisals

In a similar way, undertaking an appraisal is a good time to reflect back on a certain period of time in post. You might be asked to record what went well and why as well as identifying areas for improvement.

3. Written feedback

If you have made a purchase recently you are likely to have received a request for feedback. When you leave a review of a product or service online then you need to think about the pros and cons. You may also have gone into detail about why the product was so good or the service was so bad so other people know how to judge it in the future.

4. Blogging

Blogs are a place to offer your own opinion and can be a really good place to do some reflective writing. Blogger often take a view on something and use their site as a way to share it with the world. They will often talk about the reasons why they like/dislike something - classic reflective writing.

5. During the research process

When researchers are working on a project they will often think about they way they are working and how it could be improved as well as considering different approaches to achieve their research goal. They will often record this in some way such as in a lab book and this questioning approach is a form of reflective writing.

6. In academic writing

Many students will be asked to include some form of reflection in an academic assignment, for example when relating a topic to their real life circumstances. They are also often asked to think about their opinion on or reactions to texts and other research and write about this in their own work.

Think about ... When you reflect

Think about all of the activities you do on a daily basis. Do any of these contain elements of reflective writing? Make a list of all the times you have written something reflective over the last month - it will be longer than you think!

Reflective terminology

A common mistake people make when writing reflectively is to focus too much on describing their experience. Think about some of the phrases below and try to use them when writing reflectively to help you avoid this problem:

The most important thing was...
At the time I felt...
This was likely due to...
After thinking about it...
I learned that...
I need to know more about...
Later I realised...
This was because...
This was like...
I wonder what would happen if...
I'm still unsure about...
My next steps are...

Always try and write in the first person when writing reflectively. This will help you to focus on your thoughts/feelings/experiences rather than just a description of the experience.

Using reflective writing in your academic work

Man writing in a notebook at a desk with laptop

Many courses will also expect you to reflect on your own learning as you progress through a particular programme. You may be asked to keep some type of reflective journal or diary. Depending on the needs of your course this may or may not be assessed but if you are using one it's important to write reflectively. This can help you to look back and see how your thinking has evolved over time - something useful for job applications in the future. Students at all levels may also be asked to reflect on the work of others, either as part of a group project or through peer review of their work. This requires a slightly different approach to reflection as you are not focused on your own work but again this is a useful skill to develop for the workplace.

You can see some useful examples of reflective writing in academia from Monash University , UNSW (the University of New South Wales) and Sage . Several of these examples also include feedback from tutors which you can use to inform your own work.

Laptop/computer/broswer/research by StockSnap via Pixabay licenced under CC0.

Now that you have a better idea of what reflective writing is and how it can be used it's time to practice some techniques.

This page has given you an understanding of what reflective writing is and where it can be used in both work and study. Now that you have a better idea of how reflective writing works the next two pages will guide you through some activities you can use to get started.

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Last Updated: Jun 21, 2023 3:24 PM
URL: https://libguides.cam.ac.uk/reflectivepracticetoolkit

Directories

Reflective essays

Reflective essays are academic essays; what makes an essay "good" will work for a reflective essay. What is different about a reflective essay is that the essay is about you and your thinking. However, you will need evidence from your course to back up your reflections.

You should structure a reflective essay as an essay, that is write to persuade your reader of your key reflections (or argument). The diagram above, details how to stucture your reflections through the essay. To find out more see the section on essay writing .

Business example

The following example comes from business. Thanks to Dr Colleen Hayes for the three samples.

Students were asked to write a reflective essay on their learning in the course by responding to the following question:

What key thing have you learned about corporate social responsibility in the course?

Example 1: Retelling

This writing is (1) descriptive/listing of content, not reflective and (2) not properly referenced (the definition of stakeholders is directly copied from Freeman in the lecture slides.

Example 2: Relating

One of the most important things I have learned so far is the stakeholder view of the firm. I was very interested to learn that Australia is more of a shareholder-oriented country (similar to UK/US). I come from country X, and I believe that it is also very shareholder-oriented. For example the company I used to work for did not seem to have much concern for its stakeholders. As staff, we were worked extremely hard in poor conditions without overtime pay or paid leave (employees are a stakeholder group), and the company did not care at all about its impact on the environment. The company was just so concerned with cutting costs and making more profit for shareholders - usually at the expense of other stakeholders.

This writing involves relating to personal experience and has some integration of course concepts (stakeholders).

Example 3: Reflecting

The notion of the stakeholder challenged many of the assumptions I have about the role of corporations in society. I hope to run my own business one day, and the distinction between stakeholders and shareholders really makes me think about what responsible leadership might look like. What I appreciate about Friedman's view is its simplicity - the idea that companies pursuing their own profits creates the best outcomes for society (ref included). Adopting a stakeholder orientation (consistent with Freidman), and managing multifarious accountabilities and balancing trade-offs between them, would seem to be much more complex and a far greater challenge for leaders to navigate. However, today's internet age allows stakeholders to have global reach and a powerful voice, so I'm not sure that it would be so easy to silence or ignore them in pursuit of profit.

More reflective (forward-looking), better citation and integration of multiple course concepts, and reflection that links with personal experience.

An anthropology marking rubric

For this assessment, students were required to write a 1500-1800 word essay building on the themes of the course to address the question "We are all pirates". Attached under reference documents is the rubric used to mark the essay (thanks to Dr Caroline Schuster). Notice that it requires both the reflection (reflect, relate and retell) as well as the poor traditional requirements of an essay (Writing and organisation, Supporting claims with scholarly sources).

Reflective writing

Learning journals

Reference Documents

Sample rubric from Anthropology (PDF, 243.24 KB)

Use contact details to request an alternative file format.

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Ultimate Guide to Writing a Reflective Essay

Carla johnson.

June 14, 2023
How to Guides

Writing about yourself is a powerful way to learn and grow as a person. It is a type of writing that makes you think about your thoughts, feelings, and experiences and how they have affected your personal and professional growth. A reflective essay is a type of writing that lets you talk about your own experiences, thoughts, and insights. In this article , we’ll tell you everything you need to know about writing a reflective essay, from how to define it and figure out what it’s for to how to do it well.

What You'll Learn

Definition of a Reflective Essay

A reflective essay is a type of writing in which you write about your own thoughts, feelings, and experiences. It is a type of personal writing that lets you talk about your own thoughts and experiences and share them with other people. Students are often asked to write reflective essays for school, but they can also be used for personal or professional growth.

Purpose of a Reflective Essay

The goal of a reflective essay is to get you to think about your life and how it has affected your personal and professional growth. Reflective essays can help you learn more about yourself and your experiences, as well as find places where you can grow and improve. They can also help you get better at writing and better at getting your ideas across.

Importance of Reflective Writing

Writing about yourself and your work is an important way to grow personally and professionally. It can help you learn more about yourself, figure out where you need to grow and change, and learn more about how you think and feel. Writing about yourself can also help you get better at critical thinking and analysis , and it can help you get your ideas across better. It is a useful tool for anyone who wants to grow personally and professionally, and it can be used in many different situations, from academic writing to keeping a personal journal.

Writing about yourself and your work is a powerful way to grow personally and professionally. Reflective essays give you a chance to think about your own life and how it has affected your personal and professional growth. By writing about your thoughts and feelings, you can learn more about them, find ways to grow and improve, and improve your writing and communication skills . In the next parts of this article, we’ll show you how to write a good reflective essay step by step, from choosing a topic and organizing your thoughts to writing and revising your essay.

Elements of a Reflective Essay

A reflective essay is a type of writing that allows you to reflect on your personal experiences, thoughts, and feelings. There are several essential elements that should be included in a reflective essay to ensure that it is effective in conveying your personal reflections and experiences.

Personal Reflection

The first essential element of a reflective essay is personal reflection. This involves exploring your own thoughts and feelings about the experience you are reflecting on. It is important to be honest and open about your thoughts and feelings, as this will make your essay more authentic and meaningful.

Description of the Experience

The second element of a reflective essay is a description of the experience that you are reflecting on. This includes providing details about the experience, such as where it took place, who was involved, and what happened. The description should be clear and concise, and should provide enough detail for the reader to understand the context of your reflection.

Analysis of the Experience

The third element of a reflective essay is analysis of the experience. This involves exploring the experience in more depth, and examining your thoughts and feelings about it. You should consider what you learned from the experience, and how it impacted your personal and professional growth .

Evaluation of the Experience

The fourth element of a reflective essay is evaluation of the experience. This involves examining the experience from different perspectives, and considering its strengths and weaknesses. You should reflect on what you would do differently if you were in the same situation again, and how you could improve your response or approach.

Identification of Key Learning

The fifth element of a reflective essay is identifying the key learning that you gained from the experience. This involves reflecting on the insights and lessons that you learned from the experience, and how these have impacted your personal and professional growth. This can include new skills, knowledge, or perspectives that you gained from the experience.

Planning for Future Action

The final element of a reflective essay is planning for future action. This involves considering how you can apply the lessons and insights gained from the experience to improve your future actions. You should reflect on how you can use what you learned to approach similar situations differently in the future.

How to Write a Reflective Essay

Writing a reflective essay can be a challenging task, but by following a few simple steps, you can write an effective and meaningful essay .

Steps for Writing a Reflective Essay:

1. Brainstorming and Selecting a Topic

Begin by brainstorming and selecting a topic for your reflective essay. Think about a personal experience or event that had a significant impact on your personal or professional growth.

2. Creating an Outline

Create an outline for your essay . This should include an introduction, body, and conclusion, as well as sections for each of the essential elements described above.

3. Writing the Introduction

Write the introduction for your essay . This should include a brief overview of the experience that you will be reflecting on, as well as the purpose and focus of your essay.

4. Writing the Body

Write the body of your essay, which should include the personal reflection, description of the experience, analysis of the experience, evaluation of the experience, identification of key learning, and planning for future action . Make sure to use specific examples and details to support your reflection.

5. Writing the Conclusion

Write the conclusion for your essay , which should summarize the key points of your reflection and provide closure for the reader. You can also include a final reflection on the experience and what it means to you.

6. Revising and Editing

Pay close attention to grammar, spelling, and sentence structure as you reread and edit your essay . Make sure your essay is easy to read and flows well. You might also want someone else to look over your essay and give you feedback and ideas.

If you follow these steps, you should be able to write a good reflective essay. Remember to be honest and open about your thoughts and feelings, and to support your reflection with specific examples and details. You can become a good reflective writer with practice , and you can use this skill to help your personal and professional growth.

Reflective Essay Topics

Reflective essays can be written on a wide range of topics, as they are based on personal experiences and reflections. Here are some common categories of reflective essay topics:

Personal Experiences

– A time when you overcame a personal challenge

– A difficult decision you had to make

– A significant event in your life that changed you

– A moment when you learned an important lesson

– A relationship that had a significant impact on you

Professional Experiences

– A challenging project or assignment at work

– A significant accomplishment or success in your career

– A time when you had to deal with a difficult colleague or boss

– A failure or setback in your career and what you learned from it

– A career change or transition that had a significant impact on you

Academic Experiences

– A challenging course or assignment in school

– A significant accomplishment or success in your academic career

– A time when you struggled with a particular subject or topic and how you overcame it

– A research project or paper that had a significant impact on you

– A teacher or mentor who had a significant impact on your academic career

Cultural Experiences

– A significant trip or travel experience

– A significant cultural event or celebration you participated in

– A time when you experienced culture shock

– A significant interaction with someone from a different culture

– A time when you learned something new about a different culture and how it impacted you

Social Issues

– A personal experience with discrimination or prejudice

– A time when you volunteered or worked for a social cause or organization

– A significant event or moment related to a social issue (e.g. protest, rally, community event)

– A time when you had to confront your own biases or privilege

– A social issue that you are passionate about and how it has impacted you personally

Reflective Essay Examples

Example 1: Reflecting on a Personal Challenge

In this reflective essay, the writer reflects on a personal challenge they faced and how they overcame it. They explore their thoughts, feelings, and actions during this time, and reflect on the lessons they learned from the experience.

Example 2: Reflecting on a Professional Experience

In this reflective essay, the writer reflects on a challenging project they worked on at work and how they overcame obstacles to successfully complete it. They explore their thoughts and feelings about the experience and reflect on the skills and knowledge they gained from it.

Example 3: Reflecting on an Academic Assignment

In this reflective essay, the writer reflects on a challenging academic assignment they completed and how they overcame difficulties to successfully complete it. They explore their thoughts and feelings about the experience and reflect on the skills and knowledge they gained from it.

Example 4: Reflecting on a Cultural Experience

In this reflective essay, the writer reflects on a significant cultural experience they had, such as traveling to a new country or participating in a cultural event. Theyexplore their thoughts and feelings about the experience, reflect on what they learned about the culture, and how it impacted them personally.

Example 5: Reflecting on a Social Issue

In this reflective essay, the writer reflects on their personal experiences with discrimination or prejudice and how it impacted them. They explore their thoughts and feelings about the experience, reflect on what they learned about themselves and the issue, and how they can take action to address it.

These examples demonstrate how reflective essays can be used to explore a wide range of personal experiences and reflections. By exploring your own thoughts and feelings about an experience, you can gain insights into your personal and professional growth and identify areas for further development . Reflective writing is a powerful tool for self-reflection and personal growth, and it can be used in many different contexts to help you gain a deeper understanding of yourself and the world around you.

Reflective Essay Outline

A reflective essay should follow a basic outline that includes an introduction, body, and conclusion. Here is a breakdown of each section:

Introduction: The introduction should provide an overview of the experience you will be reflecting on and a preview of the key points you will be discussing in your essay .

Body: The body of the essay should include several paragraphs that explore your personal reflection, description of the experience, analysis of the experience, evaluation of the experience, identification of key learning, and planning for future action.

Conclusion: The conclusion should summarize the key points of your reflection and provide closure for the reader.

Reflective Essay Thesis

A reflective essay thesis is a statement that summarizes the main points of your essay and provides a clear focus for your writing. A strong thesis statement is essential for a successful reflective essay, as it helps to guide your writing and ensure that your essay is focused and coherent.

Importance of a Strong Thesis Statement

A strong thesis statement is important for several reasons. First, it provides a clear focus for your writing, which helps to ensure that your essay is coherent and well-organized. Second, it helps to guide your writing and ensure that you stay on topic throughout your essay . Finally, it helps to engage your reader and provide them with a clear understanding of what your essay is about.

Tips for Writing a Thesis Statement

To write a strong thesis statement for your reflective essay, follow these tips:

– Be clear and concise: Yourthesis statement should clearly state the main focus and purpose of your essay in a concise manner.

– Use specific language: Use specific language to describe the experience you will be reflecting on and the key points you will be discussing in your essay .

– Make it arguable: A strong thesis statement should be arguable and provide some insight or perspective on the experience you are reflecting on.

– Reflect on the significance: Reflect on the significance of the experience you are reflecting on and why it is important to you.

Reflective Essay Structure

The structure of a reflective essay is important for ensuring that your essay is well-organized and easy to read. A clear structure helps to guide the reader through your thoughts and reflections, and it makes it easier for them to understand your main points.

The Importance of a Clear Structure

A clear structure is important for several reasons. First, it helps to ensure that your essay is well-organized and easy to read. Second, it helps to guide your writing and ensure that you stay on topic throughout your essay. Finally, it helps to engage your reader and provide them with a clear understanding of the key points you are making.

Tips for Structuring a Reflective Essay

To structure your reflective essay effectively, follow these tips:

– Start with an introduction that provides an overview of the experience you are reflecting on and a preview of the key points you will be discussing in your essay .

– Use body paragraphs to explore your personal reflection, description of the experience, analysisof the experience, evaluation of the experience, identification of key learning, and planning for future action. Ensure that each paragraph has a clear focus and supports your thesis statement .

– Use transition words and phrases to connect your paragraphs and make your essay flow smoothly.

– End your essay with a conclusion that summarizes the key points of your reflection and provides closure for the reader.

– Consider using subheadings to organize your essay and make it more structured and easy to read.

By following these tips, you can create a clear and well-structured reflective essay that effectively communicates your personal experiences and reflections. Remember to use specific examples and details to support your reflection, and to keep your focus on the main topic and thesis statement of your essay .

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

1. what is a reflective essay.

A reflective essay is a type of writing that allows you to reflect on your personal experiences, thoughts, and feelings. It involves exploring your own thoughts and feelings about an experience, and reflecting on what you learned from it.

2. What are the elements of a reflective essay?

The essential elements of a reflective essay include personal reflection, description of the experience, analysis of the experience, evaluation of the experience, identification of key learning, and planning for future action.

3. How do I choose a topic for a reflective essay?

To choose a topic for a reflective essay, think about a personal experience or event that had a significant impact on your personal or professional growth. You may also consider professional experiences, academic experiences, cultural experiences, or social issues that have impacted you personally.

Reflective writing is a powerful tool for personal and professional development. By exploring your own thoughts and feelings about an experience, you can gain insights into your personal and professional growth and identify areas for further development. To write an effective reflective essay, it is important to follow a clear structure, use specific examples and details to support your reflection, and stay focused on the main topic and thesis statement of your essay . By following these tips and guidelines, you can become a skilled reflective writer and use this tool to improve your personal and professional growth.

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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:

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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!

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A Guide to Reflective Essay Writing

Reflective essays are very similar to other types of writing assignments. The big difference is that they require students to reflect upon their learning experiences and integrate them into their thinking.

In addition, these papers require students to show evidence of critical thinking, synthesis, analysis, evaluation and application.

When writing a reflection paper, it helps to begin with a clear thesis statement. This means that students should begin by identifying a central idea, or theme, that is supported throughout the paper.

Then, students should organize the body of their paper around this central idea. Finally, the conclusion section should summarize both the topic and the central idea. This guide will discuss how to write an excellent reflective essay.

Table of Contents

What Is Reflective Essay Writing?

The term “reflective” refers to the process of reflecting on one’s thoughts and actions. It also implies that students can analyze their own beliefs and attitudes to make changes.

This type of writing assignment requires students to think critically about their ideas and opinions.

This can be difficult for many people because we often have strong feelings about things. However, when writing a reflective essay, students must try to remain objective. They need to keep an open mind and avoid getting caught up in their emotions.

Students who struggle with this task may benefit from using some self-reflection techniques. For example, they could ask themselves questions such as: What am I feeling right now? Why does this matter to me?

Writing a good reflective essay involves more than just stating your opinion on a particular issue. Students should consider all sides of the argument in their reflective essay.

They should also take time to identify what they learned during the semester. By doing so, students can use their reflections to improve their understanding of the subject matter.

Once you understand the purpose of a reflective essay, you can start brainstorming topics for your paper.

There are several different ways to approach a reflective essay. You might want to choose a specific topic that interests you, or you could simply pick something at random.

Regardless of which method you decide to use, remember that you don’t have to stick to one specific format.

Models Of Reflection That Could Be Used

There are different models that you could use to structure your reflective essay. Here are a few of them:

Brookfield’s Model of Reflection

This model was developed by Brookfield (1962). In his book, he suggests that there are four steps involved in the process of reflection.

First, students must define the problem. Then, they should describe their initial reactions to the situation. Next, they should explain why they feel the way they do. Finally, they should provide suggestions for future action.

In other words, students should first identify the problem, then explain their reasons for having those feelings, and finally suggest solutions to the problem.

Atkins & Murphy Model Of Reflection

Atkins and Murphy (1991) developed a model that is based on the work of Brookfield. Their model includes five stages:

1. Identify The Problem

Students must first recognize that they have a problem before they can begin to reflect.

2. Describe The Problem

Students must describe the problem in detail. This step helps them clarify their thoughts and feelings.

3. Analyze The Problem

Students must examine the causes of the problem.

4. Evaluate The Solution

Students must evaluate possible solutions to the problem. These include both positive and negative aspects of each idea.

5. Make A Decision

Students must choose among various options.

Gibbs Reflective Cycle

The Gibbs cycle (Gibbs, 1965) is another model that can help students organize their ideas for a reflective essay. It consists of three phases:

Phase 1 – Define The Problem

The first phase of this model requires students to define the problem clearly. They should be able to state exactly what it is that they need to learn about a certain topic.

Phase 2 – Explain The Problem

After defining the problem, students should explain how they feel about it. They should write down any emotions that they experience while thinking about the problem.

Phase 3 – Suggest Solutions

Once they’ve explained their feelings, students should come up with potential solutions to the problem. They may even find additional problems that they didn’t think of originally.

Johns’ Model Of Reflection

Johns (1993) has developed a model that emphasizes the importance of self-reflection. His model involves six steps:

Step 1: Determine The Goal

Students must determine their goals for writing a reflective essay. For example, they may want to improve their academic performance or develop better study habits.

Step 2: Establish The Context

Students must establish the setting in which they will conduct their reflections. This means that they must consider factors such as time constraints, the type of assignment, and the purpose of the assignment.

Step 3: Select An Issue

Students must select one specific issue to focus on during their reflections.

Step 4: Develop A Plan

Students must create a plan for conducting their research. They should determine who they will interview, what questions they will ask, where they will look for information, and so forth.

Step 5: Conduct Interviews

Students must conduct interviews with people who are knowledgeable about the selected issue.

Step 6: Write Your Reflection

Students must coherently write their reflections.

Kolb’s Reflective Learning Cycle

The Kolb learning cycle (Kolb, 1984) is similar to Johns’ model because it also focuses on the importance of planning and organizing activities.

However, it differs from Johns’ model in that it emphasizes the importance of identifying the learner’s current level of knowledge before beginning a new activity. In other words, students begin by observing themselves and then move on to more abstract concepts.

Students start by becoming aware of their knowledge and skills. Then, they observe themselves using these skills.

Next, they reflect upon their observations and attempt to identify the underlying reasons why they behaved in the way they did. Finally, they use this understanding to change their behavior.

These models will help you develop an outline for your reflective essay. If you’re struggling to figure out where to start, try using one of these models as a starting point.

The Structure Of A Reflective Essay

Reflective essays have three main parts: introduction, body, and conclusion. Each part has its structure. Here is a brief description of each section.

Introduction

This is usually written at the very beginning of the paper. It provides background information about the topic and explains how the student became interested in it.

This is the most important part of the essay. The writer describes his/her thoughts and experiences related to the topic. You can include any number of examples and details here.

This is the final paragraph of the essay. It summarizes the key points discussed in the body of the paper.

Writing Tips & Strategies

There are many different ways to approach a reflective essay. These tips will help you get started.

1. Start With An Idea

Before you even think about writing your reflective essay, you need to know what you want to say.

2. Think About Your Purpose

Your purpose for writing the essay should be clear. What do you hope to accomplish? Why are you doing this project?

3. Plan Ahead

You should have a general idea of what you want to cover in your essay. Make sure that you have enough time to complete it.

4. Be Specific

Be specific when describing events or situations. Don’t just tell readers what happened. Instead, describe the event in detail.

5. Use Examples

Use concrete examples whenever possible. This helps make your ideas easier to understand.

6. Focus On One Issue At A Time

Don’t try to address too many topics at once. Choose one issue and focus on it throughout the entire paper.

7. Write Clearly

Make sure that your writing is easy to read. Avoid long sentences and complex vocabulary.

8. Proofread Before Submission

Read over your work carefully before submitting it. Look for spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, and other problems.

9. Use Appropriate Formatting

Always follow the formatting guidelines provided with your course materials. For example, if you’re writing a research paper, always cite sources within the text.

10. Include References

Include all relevant sources (books, articles, websites) in your bibliography. Remember to provide full citations.

11. Keep It Organized

Keep track of all your sources by using a separate document. Try to keep your notes organized so that you don’t forget anything.

12. Read Other Student Papers

Reading other students’ papers can give you valuable insight into effective writing techniques.

13. Ask Questions

If you have questions about the assignment, ask them! Many professors are willing to help their students learn more about academic writing.

14. Get Feedback

Ask your professor for feedback after completing the assignment. He/she may offer suggestions on how to improve your writing.

15. Revise As Needed

Revising your paper will ensure that you meet all requirements. If you find yourself stuck, take some time off from the task until you feel ready to continue working on it.

How To Write A Reflective Essay

The main goal of a reflective essay is to allow the student to examine his/her own beliefs, attitudes, values, and behaviors.

The following steps outline the process for writing a reflective essay:

Step 1: Define The Topic

The first step is to define the topic. You must identify the question you wish to answer.

Step 2: Select An Approach

Selecting an approach involves deciding whether you will use a personal narrative, a case study, or a comparison-contrast essay.

Step 3: Develop An Outline

An outline is a plan of action that shows where you intend to go with your essay. The outline includes information such as the thesis statement, supporting details, and conclusion.

Step 4: Research The Topic

Researching the topic means gathering information about the subject matter. You may need to conduct interviews, review books, and visit websites.

Step 5: Organize Your Notes

Organizing your notes is important because it allows you to easily locate the information you need.

Step 6: Draft The Introduction

Drafting the introduction requires you to write a summary paragraph that introduces your topic. This introductory paragraph should include the title of the essay, a brief overview of the topic, and any background information.

Step 7: Draft The Body Paragraphs

Drafting the body paragraphs is similar to drafting the introduction. In this section, you develop each point by providing evidence to support your argument.

Step 8: Proofread And Edit

Proofreading and editing are necessary steps to ensure that your essay meets all the criteria required by your instructor.

Writing Tips For Students

We’ve outlined some tips to help you write a high-quality reflective essay below:

1. Know What You Are Trying to Achieve

Before beginning your reflective essay, think carefully about what you want to achieve. Is there a specific purpose? Do you want to make a particular point? Do you want to convince someone else of something?

2. Be Specific

Be sure to be very clear about the topic you choose. Make sure you know exactly what you are trying to say.

3. Use Evidence

Use facts and examples to prove your points. When possible, provide quotations from sources.

4. Avoid Plagiarism

Plagiarism is when you copy another person’s work without giving credit to the original author. It is illegal and unethical.

5. Read Your Paper Carefully

Read your paper over several times before submitting it. Check spelling, grammar, and punctuation.

6. Don’t Rush

Don’t rush through the writing process. Take enough time to do a good job.

Reflective essays are a great way to improve your critical thinking skills and learn how to express yourself more effectively. They also help you analyze your thoughts and feelings.

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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

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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

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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.”

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Critical Reflection

A Critical Reflection (also called a reflective essay) is a process of identifying, questioning, and assessing our deeply-held assumptions – about our knowledge, the way we perceive events and issues, our beliefs, feelings, and actions. When you reflect critically, you use course material (lectures, readings, discussions, etc.) to examine our biases, compare theories with current actions, search for causes and triggers, and identify problems at their core. Critical reflection is not a reading assignment, a summary of an activity, or an emotional outlet. Rather, the goal is to change your thinking about a subject, and thus change your behaviour.

Tip: Critical reflections are common in coursework across all disciplines, but they can take very different forms. Your instructor may ask you to develop a formal essay, produce weekly blog entries, or provide short paragraph answers to a set of questions. Read the assignment guidelines before you begin.

How to Critically Reflect

Writing a critical reflection happens in two phases.

Analyze: In the first phase, analyze the issue and your role by asking critical questions. Use free writing as a way to develop good ideas. Don’t worry about organized paragraphs or good grammar at this stage.
Articulate: In the second phase, use your analysis to develop a clear argument about what you learned. Organize your ideas so they are clear for your reader.

First phase: Analyze

A popular method for analyzing is the three stage model: What? So What? Now what?

In the What? stage, describe the issue, including your role, observations, and reactions. The what? stage helps you make initial observations about what you feel and think. At this point, there’s no need to look at your course notes or readings.

Use the questions below to guide your writing during this stage.

What happened?
What did you do?
What did you expect?
What was different?
What was your reaction?
What did you learn?

In the second So What? stage, try to understand on a deeper level why the issue is significant or relevant. Use information from your first stage, your course materials (readings, lectures, discussions) -- as well as previous experience and knowledge to help you think through the issue from a variety of perspectives.

Tip: Since you’ll be using more course resources in this step, review your readings and course notes before you begin writing.

Below are three perspectives you can consider:

Academic perspective: How did the experience enhance your understanding of a concept/theory/skill? Did the experience confirm your understanding or challenge it? Did you identify strengths or gaps in your knowledge?
Personal perspective: Why does the experience matter? What are the consequences? Were your previous expectations/assumptions confirmed or refuted? What surprised you and why?
Systems perspective: What were the sources of power and who benefited/who was harmed? What changes would you suggest? How does this experience help you understand the organization or system?

In the third Now what? stage, explore how the experience will shape your future thinking and behaviour.

Use the following questions to guide your thinking and writing:

What are you going to do as a result of your experiences?
What will you do differently?
How will you apply what you learned?

Second phase: Articulate

After completing the analysis stage, you probably have a lot of writing, but it is not yet organized into a coherent story. You need to build an organized and clear argument about what you learned and how you changed. To do so, develop a thesis statement , make an outline , write , and revise.

Develop a thesis statement

Develop a clear argument to help your reader understand what you learned. This argument should pull together different themes from your analysis into a main idea. You can see an example of a thesis statement in the sample reflection essay at the end of this resource.

Tip: For more help on developing thesis statements, see our Thesis statements resource

Make an outline

Once you have a clear thesis statement for your essay, build an outline. Below is a straightforward method to organize your essay.

Background/Context of reflection
Thesis statement
Introduce theme A
Writer's past position/thinking
Moment of learning/change
Writer's current/new position
Introduce theme B
Introduce theme C
Summarize learning
Discuss significance of learning for self and others
Discuss future actions/behaviour

Write and revise

Time to get writing! Work from your outline and give yourself enough time for a first draft and revisions.

Even though you are writing about your personal experience and learning, your audience may still be an academic one. Consult the assignment guidelines or ask your instructor to find out whether your writing should be formal or informal.

Sample Critical Reflection

Below are sample annotated paragraphs from one student’s critical reflection for a course on society and privilege.

Introduction

Background/context of reflection : I became aware of privileged positions in society only in recent years. I was lucky enough, privileged enough, to be ignorant of such phenomena, but for some, privilege is a daily lesson of how they do not fit into mainstream culture. In the past, I defined oppression as only that which is obvious and intentional. I never realized the part I played. However, during a class field study to investigate privileged positions in everyday environments, I learned otherwise. Thesis: Without meaning to, I caused harm by participating in a system where I gained from others’ subtle oppression. In one of these spaces, the local mall, everything from advertisements to food to products, to the locations of doorways, bathrooms and other public necessities, made clear my privilege as a white, heterosexual male.

Body paragraph

Topic sentence : Peggy McIntosh describes privilege as an invisible knapsack of tools and advantages. This description crystalized for me when I shopped for a greeting card at the stationary store. There, as a white, heterosexual male, I felt comfortable and empowered to roam about the store as I pleased. I freely asked the clerk about a mother’s day card. Writer’s past position: Previously, I never considered that a store did anything but sell products. However, when I asked the sales clerk for same sex greeting cards, she paused for a few seconds and gave me a look that made me feel instantly uncomfortable. Some customers stopped to look at me. I felt a heat move over my face. I felt, for a moment, wrong for being in that store. I quickly clarified that I was only doing a report for school, implying that I was not in fact homosexual. Writer’s current position: The clerk’s demeanor changed. I was free to check, she said. It was the only time during the field study that I had felt the need to explain what I was doing to anyone. I could get out of the situation with a simple clarification. But what if I really was a member of the homosexual community? The looks and the silence taught me that I should be feared. I realized that, along with its products, the store was selling an image of normal. But my “normality” was another person’s “abnormality.” After I walked out of the store I felt guilty for having denied being homosexual.

Summary of learning: At the mall I realized how much we indirectly shame nonprivileged groups, even in seemingly welcoming spaces. That shame is supported every time I or any other privileged individual fails to question our advantage. And it leads to a different kind of shame carried by privileged individuals, too. Value for self and others: All of this, as Brown (2003) documents, is exacerbated by silence. Thus, the next step for me is to not only question privilege internally, but to publicly question covert bias and oppression. If I do, I may very well be shamed for speaking out. But my actions might just encourage other people to speak up as well.

Sample paragraphs adapted from James C. Olsen's Teaching Portfolio from Georgetown University .

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Critical Reflection

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Writing Critical Reflection

Reflective writing is a common genre in classrooms across disciplines. Reflections often take the form of narrative essays that summarize an experience or express changes in thinking over time. Initially, reflective writing may seem pretty straightforward; but since reflective writing summarizes personal experience, reflections can easily lose their structure and resemble stream-of-consciousness journals capturing disjointed musings focused on only the self or the past.

Critical reflection still requires a writer to consider the self and the past but adopts an argumentative structure supported by readings, theories, discussions, demonstrated changes in material conditions, and resources like post-collaboration assessments, testimonial evidence, or other data recorded during the collaboration . Common arguments in critical reflections present evidence to demonstrate learning, contextualize an experience, and evaluate impact. While critical reflections still require authors to reflect inwardly, critical reflection go es beyond the self and examine s any relevant contexts that informed the experience. Then, writers should determine how effectively their project addressed these contexts. In other words, critical reflection considers the “impact” of their project: How did it impact the writer? How did it impact others? Why is the project meaningful on a local, historical, global, and/or societal level? H ow can that impact be assessed?

In short: reflection and critical reflection both identify the facts of an experience and consider how it impacts the self. Critical reflection goes beyond this to conceive of the project’s impact at numerous levels and establish an argument for the project’s efficacy. In addition, critical reflection encourages self-assessment—we critically reflect to change our actions, strategies, and approaches and potentially consider these alternative methods.

Collecting Your Data: Double-Entry Journaling

Double-entry journaling is a helpful strategy for you to document data, observations, and analysis throughout the entire course of a community-based project. It is a useful practice for projects involving primary research, secondary research, or a combination of both. In its most basic form, a double-entry journal is a form of notetaking where a writer can keep track of any useful sources, notes on those sources, observations, thoughts, and feelings—all in one place.

For community-based projects, this might involve:

Recording your observations during or after a community partner meeting in one column of the journal.
Recording any of your thoughts or reactions about those observations in a second column.
Writing any connections you make between your observations, thoughts, and relevant readings from class in a third column.

This allows you to document both your data and your analysis of that data throughout the life of the project. This activity can act as a blueprint for your critical reflection by providing you with a thorough account of how your thinking developed throughout the life of a project.

The format of a double-entry journal is meant to be flexible, tailored to both your unique notetaking practice and your specific project. It can be used to analyze readings from class, observations from research, or even quantitative data relevant to your project.

Just the Facts, Please: What, So What, Now What

Getting started is often the hardest part in writing. To get your critical reflection started, you can identify the What , So What , and Now What? of your project. The table below presents questions that can guide your inquiry . If you’re currently drafting, we have a freewriting activity below to help you develop content.

Freewrite your answers to these questions; that is, respond to these questions without worrying about grammar, sentence structure, or even the quality of your ideas. At this stage, your primary concern is getting something on the page. Once you’re ready to begin drafting your critical reflection, you can return to these ideas and refine them.

Below are some additional prompts you can use to begin your freewriting. These reflection stems can organize the ideas that you developed while freewriting and place them in a more formal context.

I observed that...
My understanding of the problem changed when...
I became aware of (x) when....
I struggled to...
The project's biggest weakness was…
The project's greatest strength was… I learned the most when...
I couldn't understand...
I looked for assistance from...
I accounted for (x) by...
I connected (concept/theory) to...
(Specific skill gained) will be useful in a professional setting through…

Analyzing Your Experience: A Reflective Spectrum

Y our critical reflection is a space to make an argument about the impact of your project . This means your primary objective is to determine what kind of impact your project had on you and the world around you. Impact can be defined as the material changes, either positive or negative, that result from an intervention , program , or initiative . Impact can be considered at three different reflective levels: inward, outward, and exploratory.

Image portraying types of reflection (inward, outward, exploratory)

Inward reflection requires the writer to examine how the project affected the self. Outward reflection explores the impact the project had on others. Additionally, you can conceptualize your project’s impact in relation to a specific organization or society overall, depending on the project’s scope. Finally, exploratory reflection asks writers to consider how impact is measured and assessed in the context of their project to ultimately determine: What does impact look like for the work that I’m doing? How do I evaluate this? How do we store, archive, or catalog this work for institutional memory? And what are the next steps?

This process is cyclical in nature; in other words, it’s unlikely you will start with inward reflection, move to outward reflection, and finish with exploratory reflection. As you conceptualize impact and consider it at each level, you will find areas of overlap between each reflective level.

Finally, if you’re having trouble conceptualizing impact or determining how your project impacted you and the world around you, ask yourself:

What metrics did I use to assess the "impact" of this project? Qualitative? Quantitative? Mixed-methods? How do those metrics illustrate meaningful impact?
How did the intended purpose of this project affect the types of impact that were feasible, possible, or recognized?
At what scope (personal, individual, organizational, local, societal) did my outcomes have the most "impact"?

These questions can guide additional freewriting about your project. Once you’ve finished freewriting responses to these questions, spend some time away from the document and return to it later. Then, analyze your freewriting for useful pieces of information that could be incorporated into a draft.

Drafting Your Critical Reflection

Now that you have determined the “What, So What, Now What” of your project and explored its impact at different reflective levels, you are ready to begin drafting your critical reflection.

If you’re stuck or find yourself struggling to structure your critical reflection, the OWL’s “ Writing Process ” [embe ded link ] resource may offer additional places to start. That said, another drafting strategy is centering the argument you intend to make.

Your critical reflection is an argument for the impact your project has made at multiple levels; as such, much of your critical reflections will include pieces of evidence to support this argument. To begin identifying these pieces of evidence, return to your “reflection stem” responses . Your evidence might include :

H ow a particular reading or theory informed the actions during your partnership ;
How the skills, experiences, or actions taken during this partnerhsip will transfer to new contexts and situations;
Findings from y our evaluation of the project;
Demonstrated changes in thoughts, beliefs, and values, both internally and externally;
And, of course, specific ways your project impacted you, other individuals, your local community, or any other community relevant to the scope of your work.

As you compile this evidence, you will ulti mately be compiling ways to support an argument about your project’s efficacy and impact .

Sharing Your Critical Reflection

Reflective writing and critical reflections are academic genres that offer value to the discourse of any field. Oftentimes, these reflective texts are composed for the classroom, but there are other venues for your critical reflections, too.

For example, Purdue University is home to the Purdue Journal of Service-Learning and International Engagement ( PJSL ) which publishes student reflective texts and reflections with research components. Although PJSL only accepts submissions from Purdue students, other journals like this one may exist at your campus. Other venues like the Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Impact publish reflective essays from scholars across institutions, and journals in your chosen discipline may also have interest in reflective writing.

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Gibbs' Reflective Cycle

One of the most famous cyclical models of reflection leading you through six stages exploring an experience: description, feelings, evaluation, analysis, conclusion and action plan.

Gibbs' Reflective Cycle was developed by Graham Gibbs in 1988 to give structure to learning from experiences. It offers a framework for examining experiences, and given its cyclic nature lends itself particularly well to repeated experiences, allowing you to learn and plan from things that either went well or didn’t go well. It covers 6 stages:

Description of the experience
Feelings and thoughts about the experience
Evaluation of the experience, both good and bad
Analysis to make sense of the situation
Conclusion about what you learned and what you could have done differently
Action plan for how you would deal with similar situations in the future, or general changes you might find appropriate.

Below is further information on:

The model – each stage is given a fuller description, guiding questions to ask yourself and an example of how this might look in a reflection
Different depths of reflection – an example of reflecting more briefly using this model

This is just one model of reflection. Test it out and see how it works for you. If you find that only a few of the questions are helpful for you, focus on those. However, by thinking about each stage you are more likely to engage critically with your learning experience.

A circular diagram showing the 6 stages of Gibbs' Reflective cycle

This model is a good way to work through an experience. This can be either a stand-alone experience or a situation you go through frequently, for example meetings with a team you have to collaborate with. Gibbs originally advocated its use in repeated situations, but the stages and principles apply equally well for single experiences too. If done with a stand-alone experience, the action plan may become more general and look at how you can apply your conclusions in the future.

For each of the stages of the model a number of helpful questions are outlined below. You don’t have to answer all of them but they can guide you about what sort of things make sense to include in that stage. You might have other prompts that work better for you.

Description

Here you have a chance to describe the situation in detail. The main points to include here concern what happened. Your feelings and conclusions will come later.

Helpful questions:

What happened?
When and where did it happen?
Who was present?
What did you and the other people do?
What was the outcome of the situation?
Why were you there?
What did you want to happen?

Example of 'Description'

For an assessed written group-work assignment, my group (3 others from my course) and I decided to divide the different sections between us so that we only had to research one element each. We expected we could just piece the assignment together in the afternoon the day before the deadline, meaning that we didn’t have to schedule time to sit and write it together. However, when we sat down it was clear the sections weren’t written in the same writing style. We therefore had to rewrite most of the assignment to make it a coherent piece of work. We had given ourselves enough time before the deadline to individually write our own sections, however we did not plan a great deal of time to rewrite if something were to go wrong. Therefore, two members of the group had to drop their plans that evening so the assignment would be finished in time for the deadline.

Here you can explore any feelings or thoughts that you had during the experience and how they may have impacted the experience.

What were you feeling during the situation?
What were you feeling before and after the situation?
What do you think other people were feeling about the situation?
What do you think other people feel about the situation now?
What were you thinking during the situation?
What do you think about the situation now?

Example of 'Feelings'

Before we came together and realised we still had a lot of work to do, I was quite happy and thought we had been smart when we divided the work between us. When we realised we couldn’t hand in the assignment like it was, I got quite frustrated. I was certain it was going to work, and therefore I had little motivation to actually do the rewriting. Given that a couple of people from the group had to cancel their plans I ended up feeling quite guilty, which actually helped me to work harder in the evening and get the work done faster. Looking back, I’m feeling satisfied that we decided to put in the work.

Here you have a chance to evaluate what worked and what didn’t work in the situation. Try to be as objective and honest as possible. To get the most out of your reflection focus on both the positive and the negative aspects of the situation, even if it was primarily one or the other.

What was good and bad about the experience?
What went well?
What didn’t go so well?
What did you and other people contribute to the situation (positively or negatively)?

Example of 'Evaluation'

The things that were good and worked well was the fact that each group member produced good quality work for the agreed deadline. Moreover, the fact that two people from the group cancelled plans motivated us to work harder in the evening. That contributed positively to the group’s work ethic. The things that clearly didn’t work was that we assumed we wrote in the same way, and therefore the overall time plan of the group failed.

The analysis step is where you have a chance to make sense of what happened. Up until now you have focused on details around what happened in the situation. Now you have a chance to extract meaning from it. You want to target the different aspects that went well or poorly and ask yourself why. If you are looking to include academic literature, this is the natural place to include it.

Why did things go well?
Why didn’t it go well?
What sense can I make of the situation?
What knowledge – my own or others (for example academic literature) can help me understand the situation?

Example of 'Analysis'

I think the reason that our initial division of work went well was because each person had a say in what part of the assignment they wanted to work on, and we divided according to people’s self-identified strengths. I have experienced working this way before and discovered when I’m working by myself I enjoy working in areas that match my strengths. It seems natural to me that this is also the case in groups.

I think we thought that this approach would save us time when piecing together the sections in the end, and therefore we didn’t think it through. In reality, it ended up costing us far more time than expected and we also had to stress and rush through the rewrite. I think the fact we hadn’t planned how we were writing and structuring the sections led us to this situation.

I searched through some literature on group work and found two things that help me understand the situation. Belbin’s (e.g. 2010) team roles suggests that each person has certain strengths and weaknesses they bring to a group. While we didn’t think about our team members in the same way Belbin does, effective team work and work delegation seems to come from using people’s different strengths, which we did.

Another theory that might help explain why we didn’t predict the plan wouldn’t work is ‘Groupthink’ (e.g. Janis, 1991). Groupthink is where people in a group won’t raise different opinions to a dominant opinion or decision, because they don’t want to seem like an outsider. I think if we had challenged our assumptions about our plan - by actually being critical, we would probably have foreseen that it wouldn’t work. Some characteristics of groupthink that were in our group were: ‘collective rationalisation’ – we kept telling each other that it would work; and probably ‘illusion of invulnerability’ – we are all good students, so of course we couldn’t do anything wrong.

I think being aware of groupthink in the future will be helpful in group work, when trying to make decisions.

Conclusions

In this section you can make conclusions about what happened. This is where you summarise your learning and highlight what changes to your actions could improve the outcome in the future. It should be a natural response to the previous sections.

What did I learn from this situation?
How could this have been a more positive situation for everyone involved?
What skills do I need to develop for me to handle a situation like this better?
What else could I have done?

Example of a 'Conclusion'

I learned that when a group wants to divide work, we must plan how we want each section to look and feel – having done this would likely have made it possible to put the sections together and submit without much or any rewriting. Moreover, I will continue to have people self-identify their strengths and possibly even suggest using the ‘Belbin team roles’-framework with longer projects. Lastly, I learned that we sometimes have to challenge the decisions we seem to agree on in the group to ensure that we are not agreeing just because of groupthink.

Action plan

At this step you plan for what you would do differently in a similar or related situation in the future. It can also be extremely helpful to think about how you will help yourself to act differently – such that you don’t only plan what you will do differently, but also how you will make sure it happens. Sometimes just the realisation is enough, but other times reminders might be helpful.

If I had to do the same thing again, what would I do differently?
How will I develop the required skills I need?
How can I make sure that I can act differently next time?

Example of 'Action Plan'

When I’m working with a group next time, I will talk to them about what strengths they have. This is easy to do and remember in a first meeting, and also potentially works as an ice-breaker if we don’t know each other well. Next, if we decide to divide work, I will insist that we plan out what we expect from it beforehand. Potentially I would suggest writing the introduction or first section together first, so that we have a reference for when we are writing our own parts. I’m confident this current experience will be enough to remind me to suggest this if anyone says we should divide up the work in the future. Lastly, I will ask if we can challenge our initial decisions so that we are confident we are making informed decisions to avoid groupthink. If I have any concerns, I will tell the group. I think by remembering I want the best result possible will make me be able to disagree even when it feels uncomfortable.

Different depths of reflection

Depending on the context you are doing the reflection in, you might want use different levels of details. Here is the same scenario, which was used in the example above, however it is presented much more briefly.

In a group work assignment, we divided sections according to people’s strengths. When we tried to piece the assignment together it was written in different styles and therefore we had to spend time rewriting it.

I thought our plan would work and felt good about it. When we had to rewrite it, I felt frustrated.

The process of dividing sections went well. However, it didn’t work not having foreseen/planned rewriting the sections for coherence and writing styles.

Dividing work according to individual strengths is useful. Belbin’s team roles (2010) would suggest something similar. I have done it before and it seems to work well.

The reason piecing work together didn’t work was we had no plan for what it needed to look like. We were so focused on finishing quickly that no one would raise a concern. The last part can be explained by ‘groupthink’ (e.g. Jarvis, 1991), where members of a group make a suboptimal decision because individuals are afraid of challenging the consensus.

I learned that using people’s strengths is efficient. Moreover, planning how we want the work to look, before we go off on our own is helpful. Lastly, I will remember the dangers of groupthink, and what the theory suggests to look out for.

I will use Belbin’s team roles to divide group work in the future. Moreover, I will suggest writing one section together before we do our own work, so we can mirror that in our own writing. Finally, I will speak my mind when I have concerns, by remembering it can benefit the outcome.

Adapted from

Gibbs G (1988). Learning by Doing: A guide to teaching and learning methods. Further Education Unit. Oxford Polytechnic: Oxford.

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A great example of a reflective essay

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Fieldwork experiences can often be a daunting way of conducting research but they can also be fulfilling. I have had first-hand experience conducting fieldwork for my master’s degree, and while it was a generally enjoyable experience, I did make a number of mistakes during the process. However, I learned some valuable lessons as a result of this too. During my fieldwork in Rwanda, I increasingly realised that it was important to incorporate primary research data into my study, but because of a lack of data on my topic, I made use of other sources of qualitative data to validate my findings. This strategy, according to Denzin (1970), is known as methodological triangulation and it allows researchers to make use of various data gathering methods to ensure internal validity. Based on the use of methodological triangulation, I specifically designed interviews targeted at both elite groups and slum dwellers in Rwanda to investigate the thinking behind the urban policies designed by political elites, and how it impacts marginalised slum dwellers.

The first group of interviewees that I targeted comprised of government officials and the second comprised of a group people living in slums. The elite interviews were generally semi-structured in nature and were based on open- and closed-ended questions. Scholars such as Harvey (2011) have noted that this is the best approach for elite interviews because it allows flexibility and hence, maximises response rates. Notably, scholars such as Aberbach and Rockman (2002), Hoffmann-Lange (1987) as well as Zuckerman (1972) have also shown that elites prefer to engage with open-ended questions so that they can articulate their views coherently. During my interviews with elite groups, I did not always draft formal questions, but I made sure that I was familiar with the topic so that I could comfortably develop a natural rapport with the respondents. Interview times ranged from thirty minutes to up to two hours, and respondents commonly offered me some data sets to consult, which followed with some discussion. I was often required to submit a formal application to access these files, and although I formally submitted a request letter to the Ministry of Urban Development, my efforts proved futile, and it became increasingly frustrating for me to access the data sets I needed.

In some of the interviews, I found that political elites provided evasive answers because of the politically sensitive nature of some of the questions posed. The general etiquette according to Peabody et al. (1990) suggests that political elites should ideally not be interviewed using recording devices as it can cause elusiveness and anxiety – although I did not use a recorder, I continued to receive elusive responses which sometimes left me frustrated and disillusioned with my project. I felt particularly irritated because the absence of a recording device meant I was unable to get hold of a verbatim record of my interviews. Because I had to write down observational notes while engaging with the respondent, it was difficult to record all the information and I lost out on some important points. I tried to strike a balance between note taking and the interview process, but I found this to be a difficult endeavour. I was able to access more political elites than initially anticipated, however it often felt futile because I couldn’t source as much information as I had wanted from this sample group. I tried to counteract these limitations by shifting my focus to the second sample in my study, the slum dwellers, although this was also fraught with some complications. Comparatively and overall, the second sample group proved to be more cooperative and I quickly learned that I had wasted a significant amount of time focusing on political elites, when a lot of the responses I desired could have easily been sourced from policy documents and government reports.

As mentioned, I discovered that slum dwellers, after gaining their trust, provided a great deal of nuanced insight into my understanding of urban regeneration in Rwanda, which was very beneficial for my project. Harvey (2011) has highlighted how field researchers must endeavour to earn the trust of their respondents to gain access to high quality data and looking at the results I garnered, I believe I was able to do this successfully. The data acquisition from the sample group was however, not without complications. The first complication pertained to my status as a foreigner, which I realised made several people wary of my presence. After visiting the research site continuously over a period of time, they became more familiar with me and thus opened up to the idea of participating in my study. I also ensured that I hired a local research assistant, and I realised that my association with a local gave me a greater deal of legitimacy in the eyes of my potential research respondents.

While oftentimes the data collection process was extremely stressful, and sometimes precarious, I learned to be resilient in, and how to maintain focus on meeting my set objectives. Concurrently, I also learned when to change approaches in the field – especially when a particular research method had proven to be unsuccessful. In hindsight, I should have changed my approach much earlier to save a lot of the time I wasted. Looking back, I would have placed less emphasis on the elite sample group as primary data was not necessary for addressing my research questions concerning government policy. I could have saved time and effort in sourcing this information from secondary sources such as government reports and books. I also would have employed a local researcher much earlier in the process as it paved the way for gaining the trust of respondents. At the same time, I realised that I should have provided a lot more training for the research assistant who also served as a translator, due to the events that ensued in the field.

According to scholars such as Temple and Edwards (2002, p.2) “the interpreter is a conduit linking the interviewer with the interviewee and ideally is a neutral party who should not add or subtract from what the primary parties communicate to each other” but in my research, I quickly realised that this was not the case. Generally, the research assistant was highly opinionated and in some instances tried to impose his political views on my respondents. Looking back, I think I could have done a better job in training him and getting him to understand why the responses of interviewees should not be pre-empted. There were several instances where I also noticed that the translation process was not as effective as it should be during the fieldwork process. Due to my increasing familiarity with local dialects, I was able to discern when the translator was not providing the full picture with respect to the responses of the respondents. In my opinion, this was indicative of the lack of training which the translator received and I learned to not just assume that job roles were obvious, especially in this context. In instances where omissions were obvious, I questioned the translator to gain further details. During the early stages of the fieldwork, he was also far too independent and in some instances, did not stick to the script, in terms of the interview questions I had drafted. In hindsight, I should have done a trial run or pilot study, so that he was better acquainted with the standard of research I was expecting.

Overall, the process was a challenging one that introduced me to the iterative nature of fieldwork. It became increasingly obvious to me that in the field, nothing ever goes as neatly as planned on paper. I realised how imperative both resilience and flexibility was in the field. In hindsight, I would have prepared back-up alternatives for each aspect of my study, since in some cases I was completely thrown off guard and had to take a few days off to re-strategise. I lost a few valuable days by doing this and if I had managed my expectations with more caution, I believe I would have been better prepared for the unexpected occurrences in the field. On reflection, I would also have taken my positionality far more seriously, as I never imagined that the way I was perceived by others could affect my study. During my interviews with elite groups, they were often bemused and yet intrigued at the same time about my role as a foreign female researcher. Scholars such as Kobayashi (1994) have highlighted how gender identities play out during fieldwork, meaning women are often discriminated against on the basis of their sex. I did not experience discrimination, but I feel my being a woman helped me gain access to certain respondents that I never anticipated to access, because I was somewhat perceived as a damsel in distress who needed help. While the pity I received worked in my favour, it had no bearing within the interviews themselves as I was not able to acquire the data that I hoped to. Having a better understanding of the cultural nuances would have helped me to manage my expectations better. Indeed, researchers such as Denzin and Lincoln (2011) have highlighted how a researcher’s ability to gain access is shaped by personal characteristics, including gender. Looking back, I believe my fieldwork project was fairly successful, mostly because of its ability to gain nuanced insight from the second sample involving slum dwellers. The major pitfalls of the project mostly pertained to the logistics of the project – specifically the lack of training for the research assistant, and the general lack of a research focus.

References Aberbach, J. & Rockman, B., 2002. Conducting and Coding Elite Interviews. PS: Political Science and Politics, 35(4), pp.673–676. Available at: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1554807?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents [Accessed November 20, 2015].

Denzin, N., 1970. The Research Act in Sociology, Chicago: Aldine. Denzin, N.K. and Lincoln, Y.S., 2011. The Sage handbook of qualitative research. Sage.

Harvey, W.S., 2011. Strategies for conducting elite interviews. Qualitative Research, 11(4), pp.431– 441. Available at: http://qrj.sagepub.com/content/11/4/431.abstract [Accessed May 6, 2015].

Herod, A., 1999. Reflections on interviewing foreign elites: praxis, positionality, validity, and the cult of the insider. Geoforum, 30(4), pp.313-327.

Highley, J., Deacon, D. & Smart, D., 1979. Elites in Australia, London: Routledge.

Hoffmann-Lange, U., 1987. Surveying national elites in the Federal Republic of Germany. In G. Moyser & M. Wagstaffe, eds. Research Methods for Elite Studies. London: Allen & Unwin, pp. 27– 47.

Johl, S.K. and Renganathan, S., 2010. Strategies for gaining access in doing fieldwork: Reflection of two researchers. The Electronic Journal of Business Research Methods, 8(1), pp.42-50.

Kobayashi, A., 1994. Coloring the field: Gender,“race,” and the politics of fieldwork. The Professional Geographer, 46(1), pp.73-80.

Mullings, B., 1999. Insider or outsider, both or neither: some dilemmas of interviewing in a cross-cultural setting. Geoforum, 30(4), pp.337-350.

Nolinske, T., 1995. Multiple mentoring relationships facilitate learning during fieldwork. American Journal of Occupational Therapy, 49(1), pp.39-43.

Rose, G., 1997. Situating knowledges: positionality, reflexivities and other tactics. Progress in human geography, 21(3), pp.305-320.

Overing, J., 1987. Translation as a creative process: The power of the name. Comparative anthropology, 70, p.71.

Peabody, R., Hammond, S., Torcom, J., Brown, L., Thompson, C. & Kolodny, R., 1990. Interviewing Political Elites. PS: Political Science and Politics, 23(3), pp.451–455.

Temple, B. and Edwards, R., 2002. Interpreters/translators and cross-language research: Reflexivity and border crossings. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 1(2), pp.1-12.

Zuckerman, H., 1972. Interviewing an Ultra-Elite. Public Opinion Quarterly, 36(2), p.159. Available at: http://poq.oxfordjournals.org/content/36/2/159.abstract [Accessed November 20, 2015].

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20.7 Evaluation: Evaluating Self-Reflection

Learning outcomes.

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

Articulate how genre conventions for structure, tone, and mechanics vary.
Evaluate a written work for critical language awareness, clarity and coherence, and rhetorical choices.

As you know, one of the most important aspects of improving as a writer is the ability to evaluate yourself and your writing. Certainly, writing assignments help you, but it is important to learn this kind of evaluation for yourself and work to improve. Moreover, as you deconstruct your writing, you will recognize some aspects that carry over to other courses and disciplines, thus demonstrating the universality of writing. Use this rubric to help you plan, write, or review your reflective essay.


The text always adheres to the “Editing Focus” of this chapter: clear use of pronouns, as discussed in Section 20.6. The text shows ample evidence of the writer’s intent to consciously meet or challenge conventional expectations in rhetorically effective ways.	The writer consistently explains their progress, clearly demonstrating purpose and a combination of thought and narrative in an expert way. Well-chosen transitions and consistently clear connective ideas link the parts of the reflection.	The writer consistently provides meaningful analysis, examples, explanations, observations, speculation, and honest criticism that lead to a thoughtful and purposeful self-evaluation.
The text usually adheres to the “Editing Focus” of this chapter: clear use of pronouns, as discussed in Section 20.6. The text shows some evidence of the writer’s intent to consciously meet or challenge conventional expectations in rhetorically effective ways.	The writer explains their progress, clearly demonstrating purpose and a combination of thought and narrative. Transitions, if not always enough, and generally clear connective ideas link the parts of the reflection.	The writer usually provides meaningful analysis, examples, explanations, observations, speculation, and honest criticism that lead to purposeful and thoughtful self-evaluation. However, some areas may be somewhat less developed than others.
The text generally adheres to the “Editing Focus” of this chapter: clear use of pronouns, as discussed in Section 20.6. The text shows limited evidence of the writer’s intent to consciously meet or challenge conventional expectations in rhetorically effective ways.	The writer explains their progress, if not always clearly demonstrating purpose and a combination of thought and narrative. Some transitions help achieve coherence, but there are not quite enough, nor are ideas consistently connected.	The writer provides some meaningful analysis, examples, explanations, observations, speculation, and honest, if sometimes superficial, criticism that lead to purposeful and occasionally thoughtful self-evaluation. Some or even most areas may be less developed than others.
The text occasionally adheres to the “Editing Focus” of this chapter: clear use of pronouns, as discussed in Section 20.6. The text shows emerging evidence of the writer’s intent to consciously meet or challenge conventional expectations in rhetorically effective ways.	The writer attempts to explain their progress but does not clearly demonstrate purpose or a combination of thought and narrative. There may be too much of one or too little of both. Transitions are either missing or ineffective, as are connecting ideas. The essay may be difficult to follow throughout or in places.	The writer provides a minimum of meaningful details, analysis, examples, explanations, observations, speculation, and honest criticism that lead to purposeful and thoughtful self-evaluation. Some or even most areas may be far less developed than others, or all areas may need considerable elaboration.
The text does not adhere to the “Editing Focus” of this chapter: clear use of pronouns, as discussed in Section 20.6. The text shows little to no evidence of the writer’s intent to consciously meet or challenge conventional expectations in rhetorically effective ways.	The paper shows little or no progression through the writer’s growth and demonstrates minimal attention to purpose or a combination of thought and narrative in a useful way. There may be too much of one or too little of both. Transitions are either missing or ineffective, and the essay may be difficult to follow throughout or in places.	The writer provides few meaningful details, analysis, examples, explanations, observations, speculation, or honest criticism that leads to purposeful and thoughtful self-evaluation. Most areas are seriously undeveloped.

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Evaluation Essay

Evaluation essay generator.

Creating an essay is a part of every student’s academic journey. There are different kinds of essays that can be a part of a student writing task. One of these essays is the evaluation essay. What can set apart an evaluation essay from various kinds of academic essays is that it can also be used in different undertakings within the corporate and professional environment. Evaluation essays are not limited to be used for educational purposes as it can also be beneficial in the fields of business, research and community development.

An evaluation essay contains an objective assessment that is written by an individual who should be fully-knowledgeable of what he or she is writing about. More so, this essay relays the sound judgement about a specific subject matter or topic of discussion. Each evaluation essay are based on evaluative writing that are commonly created in accordance to a set of criteria or value measurements. We have curated ten evaluation essays that you can refer to if you want to write your own evaluation essay.

Self-Evaluation Essay Sample

Size: 31 KB

Student Self-Evaluation Essay

Size: 121 KB

Things to Remember When Writing an Evaluation Essay

An evaluation essay should always be direct to the point and specific as it contains factual information that is essential to be known by the readers. To avoid common essay mistakes , some of the things that you should always remind yourself when writing an evaluation essay are listed below.

When writing an evaluation essay, a writer must always be backed up by evidences so that he or she can support the evaluation being made. If you are writing an evaluation essay, you should always be objective with the content that you are presenting. Your opinion matters but you should make sure that it is based on reality. Evaluation essays work best if the readers can identify the sources that you have used to come up with the assessment that they are currently reading. If you will ensure that there is enough evidences to support you, then your evaluation essay can be more credible and relevant.
Be specific with the kind of evaluation essay that you are creating. An evaluation essay can only be effective if you are aware of the purpose on why you are writing the document. Being able to present details, comments, and information that is directly related to the kind of evaluation essay that you are writing can help you create a highly-usable output. There are different kinds of evaluation essays and you should be aware that each of them have differences depending on the purpose of their creation. Come up with a highly-usable and effective evaluation essay by directly providing the needs of your readers.
Always be clear when presenting your evaluation. Since the main purpose of an evaluation essay is to relay your viewpoint about a specific subject, you have to make sure that you will be precise and concise when delivering the message that you want your readers to be knowledgeable of. You have to explain how you were able to create the evaluation which includes the specification of the factors that you have considered within the entirety of the evaluation and writing process.

Humanities Project Evaluation Essay

Size: 331 KB

Printable Self-Evaluation Essay Example

Size: 128 KB

Purposes of an Evaluation Essay

There is a wide variety of evaluation essay examples that are specifically created for particular purposes. Evaluation essays can cover a lot of topics which is why it is used in a range of industries and processes. The different kinds of evaluation essays can be used for the following instances and activities:

To create a book report or a review of a book’s content and how it has affected the reader
To identify critical points of a written work may it be a poem, another essay or a research paper
To create a literature or literary review to fully identify the content of a literary piece
To give critique about an initial analysis or a full process
To support the processes of employment regularization or employee promotion
To assess and analyze the results of a reading activity
To add value to a recommendation letter
To analyze a research topic that can fully affect the entire research activity
To evaluate the work performance of either a student or an employee
To identify the strengths and weaknesses of an individual through a self-evaluation

With the different ways on how you can use an evaluation essay, it is safe to say that there are a lot of fields of expertise that can benefit from this document. When creating your own evaluation essay, you should always keep in mind that the content of your essay must be relevant to the message that you would like to disseminate or share to your target readers.

Thesis Paper Evaluation Essay Example

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Evaluation Essay Sample in PDF

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Qualitative Evaluation Essay Example

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Steps in Writing an Evaluation Essay

If you want to create an evaluation essay, you should be strategic when it comes to the presentation of information that can be helpful in the writing activity. Your evaluation essay can only be fully-maximized if there is an organized discussion of your evaluation as well as the facts that can support your thesis statement.

Here is an essay writing basic guide that you may follow when writing an evaluation essay:

Be aware of your topic. The first thing that you need to do when writing an evaluation essay is to be knowledgeable about the topic that you will write about. As much as possible, research about the subject of discussion so you can easily identify the characteristics that you can evaluate and the criteria that you will use for evaluation.
Make sure to have a set of criteria that can help you determine your evaluation. Once you are already aware of your topic, you can already set criteria that will serve as the basis for your evaluation. If you will properly identify the criteria that will best fit your needs for the specific evaluation, then you can make your evaluation essay stronger and more effective.
Refer to samples and templates of evaluation essays. It will be helpful if you will look at different kinds of evaluation essay samples and templates. These documents can help you be more familiar with what an evaluation essay is and how the details present in this kind of essay should be arranged and presented.
Create an evaluation essay draft. It will depend on you if you will use a template as your guide when writing an evaluation essay. You can also just browse through samples and start your evaluation essay from scratch. One thing that we highly suggest you should do is to make a draft or an outline of the discussion that you would like to have. This can help you ensure that all the necessary information will be placed in your final evaluation essay.
Start writing the content of your evaluation essay. Through the help of the draft that you have created, write a thesis in the first paragraph of your essay. This is the part where you can discuss the topic that you will use for evaluation and the statement on whether you think positively or negatively of the subject. The way that you create a thesis statement will be based on the nature of operations or functions where the essay will be used.
Incorporate evidences in your discussion so you can support your claims and/or opinions. After your thesis statement and discussion of important details, your next paragraphs should contain your opinions as well as the evidence that you have used as references. You can end your evaluation essay by having a firm statement of your conclusion.

Printable Self-Evaluation Essay Sample

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Self-Assessment Essay Example

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Simple Self-Evaluation Essay Example

Size: 51 KB

Evaluation Essay as an Important Written Document

An evaluation essay should be taken seriously especially in matters where its content can affect other people or even an entire community. Since an evaluation essay is not only a part of college essay examples as it can also be used in business and corporate processes, you have to understand the weight of its effectiveness. May it be a self-evaluation essay or a project evaluation essay, always keep in mind that you should put together all the evident facts and your statements in a professional and objective manner.

Whether it is a last minute essay writing or a thoughtfully planned evaluation essay composition, being aware of the items that we have discussed in this post can help you further improve the content and structure of an evaluation essay. It will also be easier for you to come up with an evaluation that can be trusted by your readers. Present all the details that you need to discuss in an organized and informative manner so you can come up with an evaluation essay that will truly work.

Text prompt

Instructive
Professional

Write an Evaluation Essay on the effectiveness of online learning platforms.

Discuss the quality of a school cafeteria's lunch options in an Evaluation Essay.

COMMENTS

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.
How do we write reflective essays?
A reflective essay typically follows the familiar organisational pattern: Introduction - Body Paragraphs - Conclusion. In the body paragraphs, reflective writing involves a number of formats, and this guide will sugguest a DIEP approach, that is, to describe, interpret, evaluate and plan (Boud et al., 1985). · Introduction.
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.
Reflective writing for academic assessment
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A reflective paper describes and explains in an introspective, first person narrative, your reactions and feelings about either a specific element of the class [e.g., a required reading; a film shown in class] or more generally how you experienced learning throughout the course. Reflective writing assignments can be in the form of a single paper, essays, portfolios, journals, diaries, or blogs ...
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Reflective essays are academic essays; what makes an essay "good" will work for a reflective essay. What is different about a reflective essay is that the essay is about you and your thinking. However, you will need evidence from your course to back up your reflections.
Ultimate Guide to Writing a Reflective Essay
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How to Write a Reflective Essay With Sample Essays
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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.
3.8: Process of Reflective Writing
Reflective writing is a balancing act with many factors at play: description, analysis, interpretation, evaluation, and future application. Reflective writers must weave their personal perspectives with evidence of deep, critical thought as they make connections between theory, practice, and learning.
A Guide to Reflective Essay Writing
A Guide to Reflective Essay Writing Reflective essays are very similar to other types of writing assignments. The big difference is that they require students to reflect upon their learning experiences and integrate them into their thinking. Advertisement
1.18: Reflective Writing
Reflective Writing Reflective writing includes several different components: description, analysis, interpretation, evaluation, and future application. Reflective writers must weave their personal perspectives with evidence of deep, critical thought as they make connections between theory, practice, and learning. The steps below should help you find the appropriate balance among all these factors.
Structure of academic reflections
Reflective journals/diaries/blogs and other pieces of assessed reflection The example structure above works particularly well for formal assignments such as reflective essays and reports.
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 ...
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.
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.
Critical Reflection
Critical Reflection. A Critical Reflection (also called a reflective essay) is a process of identifying, questioning, and assessing our deeply-held assumptions - about our knowledge, the way we perceive events and issues, our beliefs, feelings, and actions. When you reflect critically, you use course material (lectures, readings, discussions ...
Critical Reflection
Writing Critical Reflection Reflective writing is a common genre in classrooms across disciplines. Reflections often take the form of narrative essays that summarize an experience or express changes in thinking over time. Initially, reflective writing may seem pretty straightforward; but since reflective writing summarizes personal experience, reflections can easily lose their structure and ...
Gibbs' Reflective Cycle
Gibbs' Reflective Cycle One of the most famous cyclical models of reflection leading you through six stages exploring an experience: description, feelings, evaluation, analysis, conclusion and action plan.
A great example of a reflective essay
Written by one of our qualified academics, this reflective essay example should help you get a clearer idea on how to correctly structure your submission.
20.7 Evaluation: Evaluating Self-Reflection
As you know, one of the most important aspects of improving as a writer is the ability to evaluate yourself and your writing. Certainly, writing assignm...
Descriptive, Analytical, Critical/Evaluative, Reflective Writing Compared
Descriptive, Analytical, Critical/Evaluative, Reflective Writing Compared Assignment instructions outline how to address an assignment topic and may indicate the writing style expected.
Evaluation Essay
Evaluation essays work best if the readers can identify the sources that you have used to come up with the assessment that they are currently reading. If you will ensure that there is enough evidences to support you, then your evaluation essay can be more credible and relevant. Be specific with the kind of evaluation essay that you are creating.

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Reflective writing: Reflective writing for academic assessment

Reflective writing for academic assessment

On this page:

The purpose of academic reflection

Organizing Your Social Sciences Research Assignments

Benefits of Reflective Writing Assignments

How to Approach Writing a Reflection Paper

Structure and Writing Style

Writing Tip

Another Writing Tip

Study Skills

What is reflective writing?

Reflective writing is...

Reflective writing isn't...

Where might you use reflective writing?

1. Job applications

2. Appraisals

3. Written feedback

4. Blogging

5. During the research process

6. In academic writing

Think about ... When you reflect

Reflective terminology

Using reflective writing in your academic work

Business example

An anthropology marking rubric

Reflective writing

Reference Documents

Ultimate Guide to Writing a Reflective Essay

Definition of a Reflective Essay

Purpose of a Reflective Essay

Importance of Reflective Writing

Elements of a Reflective Essay

Personal Reflection

Description of the Experience

Analysis of the Experience

Evaluation of the Experience

Identification of Key Learning

Planning for Future Action

How to Write a Reflective Essay

Steps for Writing a Reflective Essay:

Reflective Essay Topics

Reflective Essay Examples

Reflective Essay Outline

Reflective Essay Thesis

Importance of a Strong Thesis Statement

Tips for Writing a Thesis Statement

Reflective Essay Structure

The Importance of a Clear Structure

Tips for Structuring a Reflective Essay

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

2. What are the elements of a reflective essay?

3. How do I choose a topic for a reflective essay?

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How to Write a Reflective Essay

What Is Reflective Writing?

The Reflective Cycle

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Structuring a Reflective Essay

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A Guide to Reflective Essay Writing

What Is Reflective Essay Writing?

Models Of Reflection That Could Be Used

Brookfield’s Model of Reflection

Atkins & Murphy Model Of Reflection

1. Identify The Problem

2. Describe The Problem

3. Analyze The Problem

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