What is reflective writing?
Reflective writing allows you to explore your own life experiences, knowledge, thoughts, feelings, values and assumptions through an informal writing process.
How to write reflectively
Good reflective writing is not about pure description or listing information. Good reflective writing presents the full story: it captures the essential aspects of a particular event or topic through the five W questions: who, what, where, when and why, countered by how.
Real reflective practice invites you examine your feelings towards your learning as it happens. It requires confidence and honesty in sharing your experiences and expectations. It means acknowledging your successes as well as your failures, and identifying what you might do differently in future.
Reflective writing is one of the rare forms of academic writing that allows you to write in first person — it is all about YOU and YOUR experiences. It is considered a more informal style of academic writing, but may still require formal language and references to relevant texts.
Reflective writing structure
The structure of your reflective assignment may be in the form of an essay, or more of a journal style. As with any assignment, you should make sure your reflective writing flows logically, and explores each point in full before moving onto the next one. Your tutor will outline the type of assignment they want you to write, or may allow you to decide for yourself what format you would like to use. Check your marking rubric if you’re unsure.
Models for Reflective Writing
Gibbs Model of Reflective Practice
Description: What happened?
Feelings and thoughts: What were you thinking and feeling before, during and after the event?
Evaluation: What was good and bad about the experience?
Analysis: What explanations might there be for the situation? Why did it happen the way it happened?
Conclusion: What have you learnt?
Action Plan: In a similar situation in the future, what would you do?
What? So what? What now? Model of Reflection
What?
What happened?
What did you do?
What did you expect?
What was different?
What was your reaction?
What did you learn?
So what?
Why does it matter?
What are the meanings of the experience?
What are the consequences of the experience?
How does the experience and what you have learnt relate to what you are learning at university?
How does the experience and what you have learnt relate to what you do, or will do professionally?
What now?
What are you going to do now?
How will you use what you have learnt?
Example
Note how the following example goes beyond merely describing the events. Also notice how the student is using the ‘first person’ (e.g. ‘I’, ‘me’).
It is now week 4 and it is obvious to me that although the people in this group got along well, we aren’t moving along with the assignment. I suggested that we might need a leader- someone to keep the group on task. I suggested that I would be willing to be a leader if everyone was in agreement. John was fairly resistant to this idea as he felt that we all should be able to work together in a democratic way. I argued that this was the way we had been working and there was only little progress made on the assignment. Davidson et al (2009, p.350-1) defines leadership as a “non-coercive influence to shape the group’s or organisation’s goals, motivate behavior towards achievement of those goals and help define group or organizational culture”. Thinking about this in regard to the way I approached the group when I realized that we needed to be performing, I can see I was trying to use coercive strategies to get them to do the assignment the way I wanted it done. Upon reflection, it would have been better if I remembered the stages of group formation (Davidson et al 2009, p.444-5) and considered that we needed to be storming and forming into a cohesive group first before we could attempt the assignment. I should’ve asked for their input into how we could move forward and then subtly made some suggestions about how to manage this task. In future group work I will now…
In the example above, we can see that the student is following the simple process outlined below.
Introduction >
Development >
Development >
Conclusion
Concept/Theme/Topic >
Incident – What happened? >
Literature – Textbooks, articles, etc. >
Insight/Outcome
What a reflection isn’t
a diary entry, emotional dump, a rant or a place to vent
straightforward decision or judgement (e.g. about whether something is right or wrong, good or bad)
a summary of course notes
a standard university essay
just conveying information, instruction or argument
pure description, though there may be some descriptive elements.
Example
In contrast to the previous example, the excerpt below demonstrates a poor example of reflection. The student is venting rather than reflecting. The student does not offer any insight into what has happened by drawing on the literature to explain the ‘why’. You would expect this in a personal diary – but not in an academic setting.
I am so over this group assignment. The others are just soooo annoying! We’re supposed to do this presentation together & nobody is doing anything! I tried to get them to consider me as a leader and John started complaining about how we live in a democratic system and we shouldn’t hassle each other (like what, who says that!?). He thinks things will happen spontaneously. I was only trying to help get this stupid assignment done & they don’t even appreciate the seriousness of this. I can’t afford to fail. I’ve always been a good student and I don’t want my WAM to fall because of these frustrating and lazy people. I have to think of my future!
What value does reflective writing offer me?
You may be asking yourself ‘why do I have to do this?’ or thinking ‘I am not going to learn anything from this task – what a waste of time’. However, you may be surprised to know that most successful people, such as Richard Branson, reflect on a daily basis. They reflect upon what worked and what didn’t; they then use this to learn and to improve themselves. Reflective writing allows you to stand back and assess your work in a more detached light especially if you go that step further and read scholarly papers that help you to think through some of the themes that affect the task you’re working on. Examining both your positive and negative experiences can help you understand why you tend to approach things in certain ways and avoid others. Reflecting is a valuable skill to possess not only during university, but in your professional and personal life as well.
Reflective writing can:
improve critical and lateral thinking
challenge current thinking and bring to light alternative solutions
be an opportunity to gain self-knowledge and to learn from failures and past mistakes
achieve clarity, a deeper understanding of what you are learning and make meaning out of what you study
demonstrate to your lecturers your understanding so they can guide and assist you more effectively
reveal how you have changed when you look back on it at a later date
give you confidence in dealing with the uncertainties of professional life
bring about a greater awareness of personal values, relationships, ethics, prejudices, assumptions, decision-making processes that can influence how you work
offer an analysis of your fears and knowledge/skills gaps.
Reflective practice and learning styles
We are all different and none of us learns in any one way. Some of us (convergent learners) like to answer the ‘what?’ and ‘how?’ questions whereas others (divergent learners) like to answer the ‘why?’ and ‘how?’ questions. This is why not everyone will find reflective writing easy, but it is a highly valued skill that you must develop.
What will I be asked to reflect on?
A practical learning experience within a course (e.g. clinical placement in nursing)
A response to a text (e.g. what you agree or disagree with)
A past experience (e.g. going on exchange)
A review of your learning in a subject or on a topic (e.g. comparisons between new and prior knowledge)
Types of reflections
The type of reflection you will be asked to do will depend on your field of study and your lecturer’s preference. You may be asked to keep a learning journal or logbook, to engage in peer review or self-assessment, or simply asked to write a reflective essay. Lecturers can ask you to organise reflective writing in a structured or unstructured way. A structured way could involve the use of guiding questions or topics that you must answer. An unstructured way involves the lecturer asking you to ‘write a reflection’ on a given activity or experience.
You may also use a reflective framework, which can be a useful tool to guide and structure your reflection; however, if you are planning to use a reflective framework that has not been provided by the subject lecturer, it would be best to check with the lecturer’s first. Have a look through the frameworks below to consider how you might be able to use them in future reflective tasks.
Your reflection is about how YOU have performed and your insights gained from participating in the exercise. It should not read like an essay, and should be written in the first person, using emotive and powerful language to leave a convincing and memorable impression on the reader.
Reflective writing requires you to write about your behaviour, thoughts, and actions during the relevant activity. It is designed to allow you to reflect with the aim of understanding yourself as a person in various situations. When you understand yourself in a certain situation then you can address any changes in behaviour that may be required for success.
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