How to Write a Reflective Essay?

Being encountered with something that seems so easy but in reality, so tough, students start to wonder how to write a reflective essays. By the name, it may seem that you only have to showcase what you think about a specific thing, person, or event. But, you should know that there are many layers of this specific type of essay. With so many things you need to keep in mind, you might find difficulty in writing reflective essays, but when you get the right guidance, the process becomes easier for you.

Many students struggle with writing reflective essays because they don’t know how to approach it. With some wrong assumptions, they proceed with the writing and end up with something that is not a reflective essay.

So, before anything else, you must understand what it reflective essay is and how to write them.

What exactly is reflective writing?

In a reflective essay, you will have to explain a specific experience or occurrence, and after that, you will have to examine the meaning that you have derived from that experience, and finally, you will delineate what knowledge or information can be gathered from it.

 Thinking is a critical part of the writing process of any type of essay. In a reflective essay, the focus is more on what you think instead of what a bunch of other people have said.

An article in UNSW Sydney states that there are two aspects of the thinking process, critical thinking and reflective thinking. These two are linked closely with each other.

In a reflective essay, you will personally respond to past situations, experiences, or occurrences. Through your reflection, you will think and learn at the same time.

The purpose of reflective essays is to:

• Give you a chance to attain knowledge about yourself
• Provide a mean to think so that you can discover what you have learnt from your experience
• Give a mean of responding to your feelings and thoughts

What cannot be considered as a reflective essay?

Something that:

• Consist of only the description of the occurrence. However, there can be descriptive elements in the essay.
• Only present some information or argument
• Include a direct decision or verdict

Only after getting a clear idea about this particular essay, you can start writing it.

How to begin?

At first, you have to find out a perfect subject on which you will write the essay. You can choose from one of the following:

• An imaginative topic
• A book, movie, or lecture or audio clip
• An experience
• An inspirational person
• A special place or thing

You should always keep in mind that you have to choose one such topic, which will give you the opportunity to analyse it deeply to get a profound learning experience.

How to reflect on an experience?

After you have chosen the topic, you should think vividly about it. Follow the below steps:

• Put down everything that you remember about your experience and give a clear description of it. Use as much adjective as possible
• Following this, you will have to give a deeper thought about the experience to know how it has affected you and how it is still affecting you. To do this, you can consider some areas or aspects related to that experience such as:
• Your learning from the incident
• How differently could you have done that experience
• Did you get positively or negatively impacted by it

What should you write?

Through a reflective essay, you will be sharing a personal experience of yours to seize the attention of the readers. You need to show how this particular experience has changed your life by influencing your behaviour and attitude.

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