Reflective Writing - The Layout

Introduction

Introduction – the Eye Catching “Grab” to entice the reader to continue reading.
As is the case with all essays, your reflective essay must begin within a strong introduction that will “grab” the reader’s attention and encourage them to read on.  

Don’t spend too much time on how to start your first sentence or paragraph; just start writing and you can always come back later to edit. Your first draft won’t necessarily be your best essay writing but it’s important to remember that the earlier you start writing, the more time you will have to keep reworking your essay until it’s at the stage that you are really pleased with your efforts!

Body
Next up is planning the body of your essay. This can be the hardest part of the entire paper; it’s easy to waffle and repeat yourself both in the plan and in the actual writing.
Have you ever tried recounting a story to a friend only for them to tell you to ‘cut the long story short’?

The key here is to put plenty of time and effort into planning the body, and you can draw on the following tips to help you do this well:
Use a chronological approach, which means working through everything you want to touch upon as it happened during the time. This kind of approach will ensure that your work is systematic and coherent.

Conclusion
This is where you should focus on bringing your piece together by providing a summary of both the points made throughout, and what you have learned as a result.
Try to include a few points on why and how your attitudes and behaviours have been changed.
Consider also how your character and skills have been affected, for example: what conclusions can be drawn about your problem-solving skills? What can be concluded about your approach to specific situations?

Reflect on 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.

Choose your vocabulary carefully to properly convey your feelings and emotions. Remember that reflective writing has a descriptive component and so must have a wide range of adjectives to draw from. Avoid vague adjectives such as ‘okay’ or ‘nice’ as they don’t really offer much insight into your feelings and personality. Be more specific – this will make your writing more engaging.
– Be honest with your feelings and opinions. Remember that this is a reflective task, and is the one place you can freely admit – without any repercussions – that you failed at a particular task.
When assessing your essay, your teacher will expect a deep level of reflection, not a simple review of your experiences and emotion.

Showing deep reflection requires you to move beyond the descriptive. Be extremely critical about your experience and your response to it. In your evaluation and analysis, ensure that you make value judgements, incorporating ideas from outside the experience you had to guide your analysis.
Important Notes:
Remember that you can be honest about your feelings without writing in a direct way. Use words that work for you and are aligned with your personality.

– Once you’ve finished learning about and reflecting on your experience, consider asking yourself these questions: what did I particularly value from the experience and why? Looking back, how successful has the process been?

Think about your opinions immediately after the experience and how they differ now, so that you can evaluate the difference between your immediate and current perceptions. Asking yourself such questions will help you achieve reflective writing effectively and efficiently.

– Don’t shy away from using a variety of punctuation. It helps keeps your writing dynamic!
– If you really want to awaken your reader’s imagination, you can use imagery to create a vivid picture of your experiences.
– Ensure that you highlight your turning point, or what we like to call your “Aha!” moment. Without this moment, your resulting feelings and thoughts aren’t as valid and your argument not as strong.
– Don’t forget to keep reiterating the lessons you have learned from your experience.
Use some wider sources

Although a reflective piece of writing is focused on a personal experience, it’s important you draw on other sources to demonstrate your understanding of your experience from a theoretical perspective. It’ll show a level of analysis – and a standard of reliability in what you’re claiming – if you’re also able to validate your work against other perspectives that you find.

Think about possible sources, like newspapers, surveys, books and even journal articles. Generally, the additional sources you decide to include in your work are highly dependent on your field of study.

Analyse a wide range of sources, will show that you have read widely on your subject area, that you have nuanced insight into the available literature on the subject of your essay, and that you have considered the broader implications of the literature for your essay.

The incorporation of other sources into your essay also helps to show that you are aware of the multi-dimensional nature of both the learning and problem-solving process.

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