reflection on essay feedback

51 Constructive Feedback Examples for Students

Chris Drew (PhD)

Dr. Chris Drew is the founder of the Helpful Professor. He holds a PhD in education and has published over 20 articles in scholarly journals. He is the former editor of the Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education. [Image Descriptor: Photo of Chris]

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Constructive feedback is feedback that helps students learn and grow.

Even though it highlights students’ weaknesses, it is not negative feedback because it has a purpose. It is designed to help them identify areas for improvement.

It serves both as an example of positive reinforcement and a reminder that there is always room for further improvement. Studies show that students generally like feedback that points them in the right direction and helps them to improve. It can also increase motivation for students.

Why Give Constructive Feedback?

Constructive feedback is given to help students improve. It can help people develop a growth mindset by helping them understand what they need to do to improve.

It can also help people to see that their efforts are paying off and that they can continue to grow and improve with continued effort.

Additionally, constructive feedback helps people to feel supported and motivated to keep working hard. It shows that we believe in their ability to grow and succeed and that we are willing to help them along the way.

How to Give Constructive Feedback

Generally, when giving feedback, it’s best to:

• Make your feedback specific to the student’s work
• Point out areas where the student showed effort and where they did well
• Offer clear examples of how to improve
• Be positive about the student’s prospects if they put in the hard work to improve
• Encourage the student to ask questions if they don’t understand your feedback

Furthermore, it is best to follow up with students to see if they have managed to implement the feedback provided.

General Constructive Feedback Examples for Students

The below examples are general templates that need to be edited so they are specific to the student’s work.

1. You are on the right track. By starting to study for the exam earlier, you may be able to retain more knowledge on exam day.

2. I have seen your improvement over time. As a next step, it is a good idea to…

3. You have improved a lot and should start to look towards taking on harder tasks for the future to achieve more self-development.

4. You have potential and should work on your weaknesses to achieve better outcomes. One area for improvement is…

5. Keep up the good work! You will see better results in the future if you make the effort to attend our study groups more regularly.

6. You are doing well, but there is always room for improvement. Try these tips to get better results: …

7. You have made some good progress, but it would be good to see you focusing harder on the assignment question so you don’t misinterpret it next time.

8. Your efforts are commendable, but you could still do better if you provide more specific examples in your explanations.

9. You have done well so far, but don’t become complacent – there is always room for improvement! I have noticed several errors in your notes, including…

10. It is great that you are trying your best, but don’t stop here – keep pushing yourself to get even better results. It would be good to see you editing your work to remove the small errors creeping into your work…

11. You have put in a lot of hard work, and it is starting to show. One area for improvement is your tone of voice, which sometimes comes across too soft. Don’t be afraid to project your voice next time.

12. You are making good progress, but don’t forget to focus on your weaknesses too. One weakness to focus on is…

13. Your efforts are commendable, but it would have been good to have seen you focus throughout as your performance waned towards the end of the session.

15. While your work is good, I feel you are becoming complacent – keep looking for ways to improve. For example, it would be good to see you concentrating harder on providing critique of the ideas explored in the class.

16. It is great that you are trying your best, but don’t stop here – keep pushing yourself to get even better results! Try to improve your handwriting by slowing down and focusing on every single letter.

17. You have put in a lot of hard work, and it is starting to show. Keep up the good work and you will see your grades slowly grow more and more. I’d like to see you improving your vocabulary for future pieces.

18. You are making good progress, but don’t forget to focus on your weaknesses too. One weakness to focus on is…

19. You have potential and should work on your using more appropriate sources to achieve better outcomes. As a next step, it is a good idea to…

Constructive Feedback for an Essay

1. Your writing style is good but you need to use more academic references in your paragraphs.

2. While you have reached the required word count, it would be good to focus on making sure every paragraph addresses the essay question.

3. You have a good structure for your essay, but you could improve your grammar and spelling.

4. You have made some good points, but you could develop them further by using more examples.

5. Your essay is well-written, but it would be helpful to provide more analysis of the topic.

6. You have answered the question well, but you could improve your writing style by being more concise.

7. Excellent job! You have covered all the key points and your writing is clear and concise.

8. There are a few errors in your essay, but overall it is well-written and easy to understand.

9. There are some mistakes in terms of grammar and spelling, but you have some good ideas worth expanding on.

10. Your essay is well-written, but it needs more development in terms of academic research and evidence.

11. You have done a great job with what you wrote, but you missed a key part of the essay question.

12. The examples you used were interesting, but you could have elaborated more on their relevance to the essay.

13. There are a few errors in terms of grammar and spelling, but your essay is overall well-constructed.

14. Your essay is easy to understand and covers all the key points, but you could use more evaluative language to strengthen your argument.

15. You have provided a good thesis statement , but the examples seem overly theoretical. Are there some practical examples that you could provide?

Constructive Feedback for Student Reports

1. You have worked very hard this semester. Next semester, work on being more consistent with your homework.

2. You have improved a lot this semester, but you need to focus on not procrastinating.

3. You are doing well in most subjects, but you could improve your grades by paying more attention in class and completing all your homework.

4. You are doing well in most subjects, but you could still improve your grades by studying more and asking for help when you don’t understand something.

5. You have shown great improvement this semester, keep up the good work! However, you might want to focus on improving your test scores by practicing more.

6. You have made some good progress this semester, but you need to continue working hard if you want to get good grades next year when the standards will rise again.

7. Next semester, focus on completing all your homework on time and paying more attention in class.

8. You have worked hard this semester, but you could still improve your grades by taking your time rather than racing through the work.

9. Next semester, focus on completing all your homework in advance so you have time to check it over before submission.

10. While you usually understand the instructions, don’t forget to ask for help when you don’t understand something rather than guessing.

11. You have shown great improvement this semester, but you need to focus some more on being self-motivated rather than relying on me to keep you on task.

Constructive feedback on Homework

1. While most of your homework is great, you missed a few points in your rush to complete it. Next time, slow down and make sure your work is thorough.

2. You put a lot of effort into your homework, and it shows. However, make sure to proofread your work for grammar and spelling mistakes.

3. You did a great job on this assignment, but try to be more concise in your writing for future assignments.

4. This homework is well-done, but you could have benefited from more time spent on research.

5. You have a good understanding of the material, but try to use more examples in your future assignments.

6. You completed the assignment on time and with great accuracy. I noticed you didn’t do the extension tasks. I’d like to see you challenging yourself in the future.

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• Examples of Feedback for Teachers
• 75 Formative Assessment Examples

Giving and receiving feedback is an important part of any learning process. All feedback needs to not only grade work, but give advice on next steps so students can learn to be lifelong learners. By providing constructive feedback, we can help our students to iteratively improve over time. It can be challenging to provide useful feedback, but by following the simple guidelines and examples outlined in this article, I hope you can provide comments that are helpful and meaningful.

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2 thoughts on “51 Constructive Feedback Examples for Students”

Very helpful to see so much great developmental feedback with so many different examples.

Great examples of constructive feedback, also has reinforced on the current approach i take.

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Reflection and Reflective Writing - Skills Guide

• Reflective Assignments
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Reflecting on Feedback

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Reflecting on feedback

What is reflectiong on feedback?

Feedback is designed to help you to identify your own strengths and weaknesses in a piece of work.  It can help you improve on your work by building on the positive comments and using the critical ones to inform changes in your future writing.  Therefore, feedback forms a critical role in your learning and helps you to improve each piece of work.   As with all reflection, reflecting on your feedback should follow the three stages of reflection outlined in earlier in this guide.

What should I do with feedback?

Try to identify the main points of the feedback.  What does it say?  Can you break it down into main points or areas of improvement?  Writing these down can be good to refer to later. You may find keeping all of your feedback in one place helps, as it makes it easier to look back and identify common mistakes.  Identifying the main points of the feedback is the descriptive stage of reflection.

Once you have done this, move on to the critical thinking stage.  How do you feel about the feedback?  What are you particularly proud of?  Is there anything you are disappointed by?  Are there any points where you need further clarification from your lecturer?

Finally, there is the future focused stage of reflection.  How will this feedback influence how you complete your next assignment?  What will you do the same?  What will you do differently?  You may find it helpful to put together an action plan ready for when you begin your next module.

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5 Well-crafted Essay Feedback Examples That Promote Growth

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• September 15, 2023

Introduction

Providing constructive and valuable feedback is a crucial aspect of the learning process for students. By offering insightful comments, educators can guide students towards improvement and growth in their essay writing skills. In this article, we will explore five well-crafted essay feedback examples that promote growth and development in students.

Example 1: Highlighting Strengths and Areas for Improvement

One effective feedback approach is to first recognize the strengths of a student’s essay. Start by pointing out the well-developed arguments, strong use of evidence, or exceptional creativity demonstrated in the paper. By acknowledging these strengths, students gain confidence and motivation to continue their growth. However, IT is equally important to point out areas for improvement. Identify the weaker arguments, inconsistencies, or areas that lack clarity. Provide specific suggestions, such as recommending additional research or providing examples to support their claims.

Example 2: Encouraging Critical Thinking

Essay feedback should encourage students to think critically about their arguments and evidence. Prompt them to question assumptions, analyze the underlying logic, and consider alternative viewpoints. For instance, instead of simply providing answers or corrections, ask probing questions that encourage deeper reflection. By fostering critical thinking skills, students learn to evaluate their own work more objectively and develop a more nuanced understanding of the subject matter.

Example 3: Providing Clear and Actionable Suggestions

Clear feedback needs to provide specific suggestions for improvement. Rather than simply stating that the introduction is weak, provide guidance on how to make IT stronger. For instance, suggest different ways to hook the reader or restructure the introduction to create a more compelling thesis statement. Specific and actionable suggestions give students tangible steps to take to enhance their essays, enabling them to actively work towards growth.

Example 4: Focusing on Grammar and Language

In addition to addressing content and arguments, essay feedback should also focus on grammar and language. While IT is important to acknowledge that these aspects do not determine the overall quality of an essay, providing feedback on language use helps students become more effective communicators. Offer suggestions on sentence structure, word choice, and clarity. Additionally, recommend reliable resources, such as grammar guides or language learning tools, to further assist with language improvement.

Example 5: Encouraging Revision and Reflective Practice

Feedback should emphasize the importance of revision and encourage students to engage in reflective practices. Guide students in reflecting on their initial writing process and identifying specific areas for modification. Encourage multiple drafts, emphasizing that quality essays are rarely achieved with just one attempt. By promoting revision and reflection, students understand the iterative nature of writing and are motivated to continuously enhance their skills.

Effective essay feedback is a powerful tool in promoting growth and development in students’ writing abilities. By highlighting strengths and areas for improvement, encouraging critical thinking, providing clear suggestions, focusing on grammar and language, and emphasizing revision and self-reflection, educators can help students become better writers. Constructive feedback not only enhances their current work but also equips students with invaluable skills for future endeavors.

Q: How can essay feedback benefit students?

A: Essay feedback benefits students by encouraging growth and improvement in their writing skills. IT allows them to identify their strengths and weaknesses, prompts critical thinking, and offers actionable suggestions for enhancement.

Q: Should essay feedback only focus on grammar and language?

A: No, essay feedback should not be limited to grammar and language alone. While these aspects are crucial, feedback must also address content , arguments, structure, and clarity. Providing feedback on all these aspects contributes to overall growth in a student’s writing ability.

Q: How often should students receive essay feedback?

A: The frequency of essay feedback may vary depending on educational settings and assignments. However, IT is beneficial for students to receive feedback on a regular basis, ideally after each major essay submission. Frequent feedback enables students to apply the suggestions and lessons learned to subsequent assignments, fostering continuous growth.

Q: How should feedback be delivered to students?

A: Feedback can be delivered in various formats, such as written comments, in-person discussions, or even audio/video recordings. IT is essential to choose a delivery method that ensures clarity and allows students to fully understand the feedback provided. Additionally, offering opportunities for students to ask questions or seek further clarification supports their growth.

Q: Can feedback be overwhelming for students?

A: Feedback, if not properly delivered, can feel overwhelming for students. IT is essential for educators to balance constructive criticism with acknowledgment of their strengths. Providing clear and specific suggestions, along with encouragement and support, can help students navigate feedback and view IT as an opportunity for growth.

Providing well-crafted essay feedback is an art. Educators who perfect this skill empower their students to develop stronger writing abilities, critical thinking skills, and a growth mindset. By employing these five examples of effective feedback, teachers can make a lasting impact on their students’ writing journey.

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• 10 Types of Essay Feedback and How to Respond to Them

The moment of truth has arrived: you’ve got your marked essay back and you’re eagerly scanning through it, taking in the amount of red pen, and looking at the grade and hastily scrawled feedback at the end.

After deciphering the handwriting, you’re able to see a brief assessment of how you’ve performed in this essay, and your heart either leaps or sinks. Ideally, you’d receive detailed feedback telling you exactly where you fell short and providing helpful guidance on how to improve next time. However, the person marking your essay probably doesn’t have time for that, so instead leaves you very brief remarks that you then have to decode in order to understand how you can do better. In this article, we look at some of the common sorts of remarks you might receive in essay feedback, what they mean, and how to respond to them or take them on board so that you can write a better essay next time – no matter how good this one was!

1. “Too heavily reliant on critics”

We all fall into the trap of regurgitating whatever scholarship we happen to have read in the run-up to writing the essay, and it’s a problem that reveals that many students have no idea what their own opinion is. We’re so busy paraphrasing what scholars have said that we forget to think about whether we actually agree with what they’ve said. This is an issue we discussed in a recent article on developing your own opinion , in which we talked about how to approach scholarship with an open and critical mind, make up your own mind and give your own opinion in your essays. If you’ve received this kind of feedback, the person marking your essay has probably noticed that you’ve followed exactly the same line of thinking as one or more of the books on your reading list, without offering any kind of original comment. Take a look at the article linked to just now and you’ll soon be developing your own responses.

2. “Too short”

If your essay falls significantly short of the prescribed word count, this could suggest that you haven’t put in enough work. Most essays will require extensive reading before you can do a topic justice, and if you’ve struggled to fill the word count, it’s almost certainly because you haven’t done enough reading, and you’ve therefore missed out a significant line of enquiry. This is perhaps a sign that you’ve left it too late to write your essay, resulting in a rushed and incomplete essay (even if you consider it finished, it’s not complete if it hasn’t touched on topics of major relevance). This problem can be alleviated by effective time management, allowing plenty of time for the research phase of your essay and then enough time to write a detailed essay that touches on all the important arguments. If you’re struggling to think of things to say in your essay, try reading something on the topic that you haven’t read before. This will offer you a fresh perspective to talk about, and possibly help you to understand the topic clearly enough to start making more of your own comments about it.

3. “Too long”

[pullquote] “The present letter is a very long one, simply because I had no leisure to make it shorter” – Blaise Pascal [/pullquote]It sounds counter-intuitive, but it’s actually much easier to write an essay that’s too long than one that’s too short. This is because we’re all prone to waffling when we’re not entirely sure what we want to say, and/or because we want to show the person marking our essay that we’ve read extensively, even when some of the material we’ve read isn’t strictly relevant to the essay question we’ve been set. But the word count is there for a reason: it forces you to be clear and concise, leaving out what isn’t relevant. A short (say, 500-word) essay is actually a challenging academic exercise, so if you see fit to write twice the number of words, the person marking the essay is unlikely to be impressed. Fifty to a hundred words over the limit probably won’t be too much of an issue if that’s less than 10% of the word count, and will probably go unnoticed, but if you’ve ended up with something significantly over this, it’s time to start trimming. Re-read what you’ve written and scrutinise every single line. Does it add anything to your argument? Are you saying in ten words what could be said in three? Is there a whole paragraph that doesn’t really contribute to developing your argument? If so, get rid of it. This kind of ruthless editing and rephrasing can quickly bring your word count down, and it results in a much tighter and more carefully worded essay.

4. “Contradicts itself”

Undermining your own argument is an embarrassing mistake to make, but you can do it without realising when you’ve spent so long tweaking your essay that you can no longer see the wood for the trees. Contradicting yourself in an essay is also a sign that you haven’t completely understood the issues and haven’t formed a clear opinion on what the evidence shows. To avoid this error, have a detailed read through your essay before you submit it and look in particular detail at the statements you make. Looking at them in essence and in isolation, do any of them contradict each other? If so, decide which you think is more convincing and make your argument accordingly.

5. “Too many quotations”

It’s all too easy to hide behind the words of others when one is unsure of something, or lacking a complete understanding of a topic. This insecurity leads us to quote extensively from either original sources or scholars, including long chunks of quoted text as a nifty way of upping the word count without having to reveal our own ignorance (too much). But you won’t fool the person marking your essay by doing this: they’ll see immediately that you’re relying too heavily on the words of others, without enough intelligent supporting commentary, and it’s particularly revealing when most of the quotations are from the same source (which shows that you haven’t read widely enough). It’s good to include some quotations from a range of different sources, as it adds colour to your essay, shows that you’ve read widely and demonstrates that you’re thinking about different kinds of evidence. However, if you’ve received this kind of feedback, you can improve your next essay by not quoting more than a sentence at a time, making the majority of the text of your essay your own words, and including plenty of your own interpretation and responses to what you’ve quoted. Another word of advice regarding quotations: one of my tutors once told me is that one should never end an essay on a quotation. You may think that this is a clever way of bringing your essay to a conclusion, but actually you’re giving the last word to someone else when it’s your essay, and you should make the final intelligent closing remark. Quoting someone else at the end is a cop-out that some students use to get out of the tricky task of writing a strong final sentence, so however difficult the alternative may seem, don’t do it!

6. “Not enough evidence”

In an essay, every point you make must be backed up with supporting evidence – it’s one of the fundamental tenets of academia. You can’t make a claim unless you can show what has lead you to it, whether that’s a passage in an original historical source, the result of some scientific research, or any other form of information that would lend credibility to your statement. A related problem is that some students will quote a scholar’s opinion as though it were concrete evidence of something; in fact, that is just one person’s opinion, and that opinion has been influenced by the scholar’s own biases. The evidence they based the opinion on might be tenuous, so it’s that evidence you should be looking at, not the actual opinion of the scholar themselves. As you write your essay, make a point of checking that everything you’ve said is adequately supported.

7. “All over the place” / “Confused”

An essay described as “all over the place” – or words to that effect – reveals that the student who wrote it hasn’t developed a clear line of argument, and that they are going off at tangents and using an incoherent structure in which one point doesn’t seem to bear any relation to the previous one. A tight structure is vital in essay-writing, as it holds the reader’s interest and helps build your argument to a logical conclusion. You can avoid your essay seeming confused by writing an essay plan before you start. This will help you get the structure right and be clear about what you want to say before you start writing.

8. “Misses the point”

This feedback can feel particularly damning if you’ve spent a long time writing what you thought was a carefully constructed essay. A simple reason might be that you didn’t read the question carefully enough. But it’s also a problem that arises when students spend too long looking at less relevant sources and not enough at the most important ones, because they ran out of time, or because they didn’t approach their reading lists in the right order, or because they failed to identify correctly which the most important sources actually were. This leads to students focusing on the wrong thing, or perhaps getting lost in the details. The tutor marking the essay, who has a well-rounded view of the topic, will be baffled if you’ve devoted much of your essay to discussing something you thought was important, but which they know to be a minor detail when compared with the underlying point. If you’re not sure which items on your reading list to tackle first, you could try asking your tutor next time if they could give you some pointers on which of the material they recommend you focus on first. It can also be helpful to prompt yourself from time to time with the question “What is the point?”, as this will remind you to take a step back and figure out what the core issues are.

9. “Poor presentation”

This kind of remark is likely to refer to issues with the formatting of your essay, spelling and punctuation, or general style. Impeccable spelling and grammar are a must, so proofread your essay before you submit it and check that there are no careless typos (computer spell checks don’t always pick these up). In terms of your writing style, you might get a comment like this if the essay marker found your writing either boring or in a style inappropriate to the context of a formal essay. Finally, looks matter: use a sensible, easy-to-read font, print with good-quality ink and paper if you’re printing, and write neatly and legibly if you’re handwriting. Your essay should be as easy to read as possible for the person marking it, as this lessens their workload and makes them feel more positively towards your work.

10. “Very good”

On the face of it, this is the sort of essay feedback every student wants to hear. But when you think about it, it’s not actually very helpful – particularly when it’s accompanied by a mark that wasn’t as high as you were aiming for. With these two words, you have no idea why you didn’t achieve top marks. In the face of such (frankly lazy) marking from your teacher or lecturer, the best response is to be pleased that you’ve received a positive comment, but to go to the person who marked it and ask for more comments on what you could have done to get a higher mark. They shouldn’t be annoyed at your asking, because you’re simply striving to do better every time.

General remarks on responding to essay feedback

We end with a few general pieces of advice on how to respond to essay feedback.

• Don’t take criticism personally.
• Remember that feedback is there to help you improve.
• Don’t be afraid to ask for more feedback if what they’ve said isn’t clear.
• Don’t rest on your laurels – if you’ve had glowing feedback, it’s still worth asking if there’s anything you could have done to make the essay even better.

It can be difficult to have one’s hard work (metaphorically) ripped apart or disparaged, but feedback is ultimately there to help you get higher grades, get into better universities, and put you on a successful career path; so keep that end goal in mind when you get your essay back.

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How to Implement Essay Feedback: A Guide to Academic Success

(Last updated: 24 November 2023)

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Embarking on the journey of essay writing is both an art and a skill that requires continuous refinement. One crucial aspect that contributes to this refinement is constructive feedback. Feedback acts as a guiding light, illuminating areas for improvement and highlighting strengths. In this blog post, we'll explore the significance of essay feedback and discuss effective ways to implement it into your writing process.

The Importance of Feedback for Your Essays

Constructive feedback is a cornerstone of academic development. It serves as a valuable tool for honing writing skills, refining arguments, and enhancing overall clarity. Feedback encourages self-reflection, individualised development, and the fostering of a growth mindset. Beyond academia, it prepares students for the real world, nurturing a skill vital for professional success – the ability to receive, process, and act on constructive criticism.

Establishing a Feedback System

• Peer Review : Encourage a collaborative environment by engaging in peer review sessions. Peer feedback provides diverse perspectives, helping you identify blind spots and areas that may require clarification. Constructive criticism from peers fosters a supportive writing community.
• Instructor Feedback : Seek feedback from instructors or mentors who can provide expert insights. Instructors often offer valuable guidance on structure, argumentation, and the application of critical concepts. Don't hesitate to ask for clarification if certain feedback points are unclear. If you need expert guidance to enhance your essay writing , our dedicated team of experienced academics and editors can provide personalised feedback tailored to your unique writing style.
• Online Platforms : Leverage online platforms and writing communities where you can submit your work for feedback. Websites and forums dedicated to writing often have members who are willing to offer constructive criticism. Be open to feedback from diverse sources to get a comprehensive view of your writing.

Implementing Feedback Effectively

• Prioritise Revisions : Once you receive feedback, prioritise implementing revisions. Identify the key areas for improvement and revise your essay accordingly. This iterative process not only enhances the quality of your current work but also contributes to your growth as a writer.
• Reflect on Feedback : Take the time to reflect on the feedback received. Understand the rationale behind the comments and consider how you can apply the suggestions in your future writing. This reflective process builds a deeper understanding of your strengths and areas that need refinement.
• Iterative Writing Process : View essay writing as an iterative process. Each draft is an opportunity for improvement. Embrace the feedback loop by consistently refining your work. The more you engage with feedback, the more your writing will evolve.

Become a More Proficient Writer

Implementing effective essay feedback is a dynamic process that requires openness to critique and a commitment to improvement. Whether it's through peer reviews, instructor feedback, or online platforms, the insights gained from others are invaluable. By embracing feedback as a catalyst for growth, you can refine your writing skills and navigate the path to becoming a more proficient and confident writer. Remember, your writing journey is a continuous evolution, and each piece of feedback is a stepping stone towards mastery.

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Reflective writing

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Learn all about reflective writing - a valuable skill for both your academic and professional life.

Go to: What is reflective writing?   |   Top tips   |   Reflective writing cycles

What is reflective writing?

Reflective writing is common in both the workplace and in academic settings, but how does it differ from writing an essay?

The aim of most reflective writing is to reflect upon and analyse a certain experience to identify how you learned and developed from it. Reflective writing is an excellent tool to aid your development as both a learner and a professional.

Reflection involves thinking critically about an experience and learning from it by:

• Reflecting upon how you felt, what you thought, how you behaved, and what skills or knowledge you applied during the experience.
• Identifying what went well and any areas for development.
• Identifying what you have learnt from the experience and how you will apply this new learning in similar scenarios.
• Using the process as a tool to help develop future practice.

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Reflective writing tips

• Because it is about personal experiences, it is generally acceptable to use the first person (‘I’) in reflective writing.
• Though reflective writing should be personal, it is not private.
• Remember that your module lead or tutor will be reading and potentially marking your work, so keep it formal.
• Reflective writing should be analytical, not merely a description of an experience.
• When it comes to writing reflectively, be selective and choose an event or experience which has been meaningful or impactful to you in some way as a learner or practitioner.
• Do reflect upon both positive and less positive experiences.

Reflective writing cycles

Many schools will recommend you use a reflective cycle such as Gibbs (1988) or Kolb (1974). These models help to structure your reflections, helping you to produce writing that is more analytical and that goes beyond descriptively recording what happened.

Explore the interactive resource for this topic

The following resource guides you through Rolfe et al.'s (2001) model of reflection.

An introduction to reflective writing

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• Academic writing
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Writing a Paper: Reflecting & Improving

Introduction.

The writing process is circular; it does not end when you submit the paper to your instructor. In order to make progress with each assignment, you will need to optimize feedback, reflect on your strengths and weaknesses, and plan for improvement. Review the sections below for more guidance on evaluating and improving your own writing.

Reflecting on Strengths & Weaknesses

To reflect is to think deeply about something. The activity of reflection does not need to be formal in nature.  Simply sit down with a copy of your paper and consider the last week or so you spent writing it.

Areas to consider:

• Time management (Did I plan out time to complete this assignment effectively? What steps should I devote more to in the future?)
• Research skills and use of sources (What great research resources did I discover?  Where can I look for help?)
• Critical reading and note taking (Did I read the assignment closely to make sure I addressed every component? What prewriting strategies seemed to work for me?)
• Organization (Was there an introduction and a conclusion? Did each paragraph have a topic sentence?)
• Argument and analysis (Was my thesis statement clear and specific? Did I explain the evidence for the reader by integrating analysis with summary?)
• Rhythm and flow of the language (Did I use transitions to show relationships? Were my sentences a variety of long and short?)
• In-text citation and references (Did I cite sources appropriately? What aspects of citation or references are still confusing to me?)
• Grammar and punctuation (Were all sentences complete, with a subject and verb? What punctuation was problematic for me?)

Actions to consider:

• Take notes on what difficulties you encountered during the writing process and brainstorm solutions for the future.
• Record your instructor's comments and track these for each assignment.
• Read through the paper, highlighting problem areas in one color and successful areas in another.
• Jot down these strengths and weaknesses and keep them by your writing desk.
• Compare an earlier paper to the one you just completed. Do you see positive change?

Planning for Improvement

Reflection can help you identify the areas for improvement, but in order to actually move forward, you will need to make a plan and remind yourself of your goals. After identifying your writing strengths and weaknesses:

• Celebrate your strengths by congratulating yourself on what you did well.
• Browse the Writing Center website for material on the particular skills you would like to acquire. 
• Attend a live webinar or view past lessons on anything from academic argument to engaging sentence structure. 
• Sign up for a writing course to supplement your other courses and elevate your writing.
• Use the automated grammar checker Grammarly , free for Walden students.
• Practice new writing techniques in discussion post assignments, where there is less pressure to perform well.
• Take one of the Writing Center's interactive quizzes to test your knowledge as you learn.
• Create a checklist for your next writing assignment. The most important thing to remember is that becoming a better writer takes time.

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Examples of Submission Feedback

The following are actual responses to some of our recent submissions to the Online Writing Lab, although the names have been changed to maintain the anonymity of student writers. You can expect similarly global-oriented comments and suggestions for developing your own work. Of course, length and type of feedback vary between individual tutors and between essay submissions.

Dear Rachel: I think you touch on some really nice ideas in this paper, which I'll talk about in a minute, but first I want to address one general concern I had about your writing. You have a tendency to spend too much time summarizing the plot--this is time when you could be advancing your argument. You don't need to tell your reader what happens in the story; you can assume that he or she already knows. For example, look at this paragraph: [...] Everything that I've noted with square brackets is plot summary. The sentence that begins "Feeling rejected, the creature wanders away..." is borderline because you're making a judgment about the creature's motivations, but in general you shouldn't spend time repeating the events of the story. The second part of this paragraph is much better in that you're talking about motivations and making arguments. I think you've got some really interesting ideas in this paper, particularly in your fifth and sixth paragraphs, but you need to expand upon them. For example, you might spend more time talking about Millhauser's rationale--WHY does he think the monster should have been presented as a brutal beast throughout? What would be lost in such a presentation? Why is it better that Shelley shows the monster in terms of growth and progression? You introduce this idea in your introduction, arguing that Shelley is deliberately playing with the reader's sympathies, for the monster and for Frankenstein. Could you say more about HOW she does this? What is the effect of the reader's divided sympathies? Where does the sympathy lie at the end of the book? Why might Shelley be interested in this? In general, what is the value of making the creature sympathetic? I hope you found some of the questions I've raised valuable. You've touched on some interesting issues in this paper, and there is definitely plenty of room for you to develop them even further. If you have any questions about anything I've said, or any further questions, please feel free to write back to me. Good luck with your paper and thank you for submitting to the OWL!

Mark, Thank you for submitting your paper to the OWL; I am a Political Science major and very much enjoyed reading it. Below you will find a few suggestions for how to strengthen your writing during the revision process. You wrote that your major concerns with your paper were "abstract prose" and "elementary points." I did not find your arguments to be too simplistic or "elementary," nor did your language seem too abstract. It did, however, lack clarity and definition at some points. Specifically, there are some concepts that you repeat throughout your paper but never define. One is the "republican role." It may be that your instructor discussed this idea at length in class, or that Machiavelli does in his Discourses on Livy, but there is no such discussion in your paper. A stronger paper would define the proper role of a leader in a republican state from the beginning. Some theoretical questions you may want to consider on this point include: what is the difference between a republican leader and a tyrannical leader? How can one distinguish between the two? Why is it important to prevent against tyranny? Is the leader subservient to the will of the people? Is the leader responsible to anyone? Where does the leader draw his power or right to govern from? What does it mean to "be subordinate to a republican role"? What qualities are valuable in a leader? Which ones are dangerous? It may be beneficial to read over your paper with a critical eye looking for vague concepts. What ideas do you reference but never fully explain? Do you take certain concepts for granted? If you find such problems, generating a list of questions to focus your idea (as above) can be a helpful exercise. There were two more areas I found especially lacking in definition: the concept of tyranny and a "short time in office." Thank you again for submitting your paper to the OWL. Your arguments are strong and I hope my comments will help to fine-tune your essay. Please feel free to e-mail me for further assistance or clarification. Good luck with your revisions!

Thanks for submitting your essay-I enjoyed reading it. I hope my comments help you in your revision process.

Your personal narrative is without a doubt at its best when you give vivid details of the day from your perspective, which is, as you describe, a very unique one. The "chalky taste" of the air, for instance, is a detail that really brings the scene to life.

You asked for help with structure, and I think the most sensible structure in this case is a chronological one. It's fine to start with a vivid scene to land the reader in the event, but then it makes sense to step back and tell the story as it happened. To help you accomplish this end, you might consider listing each of the major points you want to cover and then turning them into an outline. It might help, too, to think about the overall message you want to convey. Then make sure all of your details contribute to that message.

As for constructive comments, you never really explain why you were at Ground Zero on September 12. Do you just happen to live nearby? Did you have any special connection to the firefighters or the victims? Why did you decide to help out?

I would also be careful of the very general statements you use to sum up the essay, such as , "That day brought to my attention a side of humanity that had lay dormant in my mind. That moment in time showed me that people have the capacity to act unselfishly." It's best to convey your point through examples rather than summation-the old advice to "show not tell."

It takes a lot of courage to tackle in an essay the events of September 11 and the days following, but I think you have a great perspective, and the ability to look beyond the chaos to the details of the scene.

Feel free to write back as you revise this piece. I'd be glad to talk more about it.

Hello, Angela,

Your paper is coherent, well-organized, and very informative. You do a nice job of incorporating various theorists and applying their ideas to the phenomenon of AHANA. You also do a good job of considering "the opposing viewpoint" and introducing relevant arguments to substantiate your position.

One area I would suggest giving a little more attention to how exactly AHANA functions. You mention that the term was coined as an alternative to the more negative term "minority," and that the group exists to "promote understanding..." etc. But I still want to know more about HOW the group works to achieve their goals; do they sponsor events on campus? hold workshops? etc. You did an effective job of explaining the philosophy of the group, but I would be interested in seeing just a little bit more of how it works in action, so to speak.

The second point is that you might want to explain in greater detail how subjective experiences shape the need for a group such as AHANA. You mention that racial and cultural differences do exist and that the "differing perspectives caused by these distinctions exist regardless of whether they are acknowledged." This is a very integral part of your argument, so maybe developing it further would be helpful. I realize it's a very broad concept to try and condense within your paper, but focusing on explicating that part might be helpful. Overall, I think you have a very strong paper that seems to fulfill the parameters of the assignment quite well.

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Examples of Reflective Writing

Types of reflective writing assignments.

A journal  requires you to write weekly entries throughout a semester. May require you to base your reflection on course content.

A learning diary is similar to a journal, but may require group participation. The diary then becomes a place for you to communicate in writing with other group members.

A logbook is often used in disciplines based on experimental work, such as science. You note down or 'log' what you have done. A log gives you an accurate record of a process and helps you reflect on past actions and make better decisions for future actions.

A reflective note is often used in law. A reflective note encourages you to think about your personal reaction to a legal issue raised in a course.

An essay diary  can take the form of an annotated bibliography (where you examine sources of evidence you might include in your essay) and a critique (where you reflect on your own writing and research processes).

a peer review  usually involves students showing their work to their peers for feedback.

A self-assessment task  requires you to comment on your own work.

Some examples of reflective writing

Social science fieldwork report (methods section).

Engineering Design Report

Learning Journal (weekly reflection)

Brookfield, S 1987, Developing critical thinkers: challenging adults to explore alternative ways of thinking and acting , Open University Press, Milton Keynes.

Mezirow, J 1990, Fostering critical reflection in adulthood: a guide to transformative and emancipatory learning , Jossey-Bass, San Francisco.

Schön, DA 1987, Educating the reflective practitioner , Jossey-Bass. San Francisco.

We thank the students who permitted us to feature examples of their writing.

Prepared by Academic Skills, UNSW. This guide may be distributed or adapted for educational purposes. Full and proper acknowledgement is required. 

Essay and assignment writing guide

• Essay writing basics
• Essay and assignment planning
• Answering assignment questions
• Editing checklist
• Writing a critical review
• Annotated bibliography
• How do I write reflectively?
• Examples of reflective writing
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Ma1 learning journey, my reflection on feedback.

Personally, I feel that feedback is very beneficial. Feedback is given to improve you as a person and ensure that you can do the job to the best of your ability. I am a dancer and a horse rider and both these sports involve a lot of feedback. You should not feel embarrassed by negative feedback as it is only being given to make you better. Both in horse riding and dancing, I have had private lessons during which I was given a lot of feedback and criticism to take on board. I have learnt not to be offended by it as my teacher only wants me to be the best that I can. Also in group lessons and classes, we learnt to give feedback to each other to ensure that we were all kept safe and that our group could come out on top and win competitions.

The benefits of feedback is that it helps you grow as a group. It makes you feel that you can rely on others and that they will help you when needed. It also helps you to improve your skills and allows you to identify where more work is needed. Also sometimes, having another person’s perspective changes your view on something and allows you to develop a deeper understanding of the topic. However, a disadvantage of peer feedback is that it could be used incorrectly. Sometimes, people respond harshly when they originally didn’t intend to which can led to disagreements and frustration.

I have found that receiving postive feedback makes me feel more confident in my work. Any negative feedback I receive makes me even more determined to work harder to ensure that I do not make the same mistake again. I feel that when you are given feedback, it encourages you to work harder due to the confidence boost and also because you want to prove to the person that you have taken their views on board and have improved.

When given feedback, I find it easy to give positive feedback but I find it more difficult to express the negative feedback. I have learnt that if you word it in a certain way it comes across better. For example – maybe next time, you should think more about…

Feedback is something which is used throughout life and as a teacher it is important to give feedback to pupils and fellow teachers. As a student teacher, I will be receiving a lot of feedback from lectures and teachers on my placement and I understand that not all of it is going to be positive but I know that it will make me even more determined to succeed and try harder.

2 thoughts on “ My reflection on Feedback ”

I really enjoyed reading your post. I agree with what you say about positive feedback building confidence, and how negative feedback can make you all the more determined! It’s sometimes difficult to not take comments personally, but as you say, feedback is something used throughout life, and as teachers we need to embrace the use of it to our advantage and to encourage our pupils in the future.

I love how you associate critical feedback with determination to improve. We could all take a leaf out of your book here! It’s true that no-one can become an expert at what they do without constructive feedback from others, and so I feel that you have a really healthy way of viewing it.

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Essay Papers Writing Online

Learn how to effectively write reflective essays and improve your writing skills.

In the realm of the written word, there exists a distinctive genre that invites a deep exploration of personal experiences and thoughts. These compositions, known as reflective essays, offer a unique opportunity for individuals to delve into the depths of their own minds and emerge with a newfound understanding of themselves and their experiences. Through the artful weaving of narratives, insights, and emotions, reflective essays serve as a powerful tool for self-reflection and growth.

Within these reflective compositions, one can find a wealth of tips and techniques that elevate the quality of the writing, thereby enabling individuals to convey their thoughts and feelings with precision and clarity. From the careful selection of language to the strategic deployment of literary devices, these strategies serve as guideposts as writers embark on their introspective journey. By employing these techniques, one can transform a mere collection of anecdotes into a cohesive and resonant piece of literature, capable of stirring the hearts and minds of its readers.

Embracing the inherent strength of these essays lies in the ability to capture the essence of one’s experiences and thoughts through the lens of introspection. By cultivating a strong sense of self-awareness, writers can effectively convey their emotions and perceptions, allowing their words to reach the hearts of their audience. The reflective essay, at its core, seeks to create a connection, a bond between the writer and reader, as they embark on a shared voyage of understanding and introspection. Through the power of vulnerability and honesty, these essays possess the ability to touch the souls of those who encounter them, fostering a sense of unity and empathy in an increasingly disconnected world.

Tips for Writing Reflective Essays

In this section, we will explore some valuable advice for crafting thoughtful and engaging reflective essays. By following these tips, you can enhance your writing skills and effectively convey your personal experiences and insights.

By incorporating these tips into your writing process, you can create insightful and impactful reflective essays that captivate readers and evoke thoughtful contemplation.

Choosing a Meaningful Topic

When starting a reflective essay, one of the most important steps is choosing a meaningful and engaging topic to write about. Selecting a topic that resonates with you personally will not only make the writing process more enjoyable, but it will also allow for a deeper exploration of your thoughts and emotions.

Instead of simply choosing a generic or common topic, try to think of an experience or event in your life that has had a significant impact on you. This could be a personal achievement, a challenging obstacle you overcame, or a meaningful relationship or friendship. By selecting a topic that holds personal significance, you will be able to connect more intimately with your writing and convey your thoughts and feelings more authentically.

In addition to personal significance, it is also important to consider the potential for growth and self-reflection within a chosen topic. Reflective essays are meant to encourage introspection and self-awareness, so be sure to choose a topic that allows for this exploration. Look for topics that offer the opportunity to analyze your thoughts and actions, and consider how they have shaped your personal growth and development.

Finally, consider the potential audience for your essay when selecting a topic. While reflective writing is deeply personal, it is still important to consider who will be reading your essay and what they may find interesting or meaningful. If your essay is for a specific class or instructor, think about how you can select a topic that aligns with the course material or objectives. If the essay is for a wider audience, such as a personal blog or publication, consider selecting a topic that may resonate with a broader range of readers.

In conclusion, choosing a meaningful topic for your reflective essay is crucial to the success of your writing. By selecting a topic that holds personal significance, offers room for growth and self-reflection, and considers your audience, you can create a reflective essay that truly engages and resonates with your readers.

Organizing Your Thoughts and Ideas

Arranging and structuring your thoughts and ideas is essential when it comes to effectively expressing your reflective thoughts in an essay. Developing a clear and coherent framework enables you to convey your reflections in a logical and organized manner.

One practical approach to organizing your thoughts and ideas is to start by brainstorming or mind mapping. This technique allows you to generate a variety of ideas and connections related to your topic. By jotting down these initial thoughts and arranging them spatially, you can visually see the relationships between different concepts and identify potential themes or patterns.

After brainstorming, it is helpful to create an outline for your reflective essay. Outlining helps you structure your essay and provides a roadmap for your writing process. Consider dividing your essay into sections or paragraphs based on the main topics or ideas you want to discuss. This will help you maintain a clear and logical flow throughout your essay.

Within each section of your essay, consider using transitional phrases and sentences to connect your thoughts and ideas smoothly. Transitional words and phrases such as “however,” “in addition,” or “therefore” can help you establish relationships between different points and ensure your essay’s coherence.

Furthermore, consider using headings and subheadings to provide an additional level of organization and clarity. Headings can help guide your reader through your essay and make it easier for them to follow your train of thought. Additionally, using headings can help you stay focused on specific aspects of your reflections.

Lastly, revisiting and revising your essay is crucial for ensuring that your thoughts and ideas are effectively organized. Take the time to read through your essay and check for any inconsistencies or gaps in your reasoning. Consider seeking feedback from others to gain different perspectives and to ensure that your essay effectively conveys your reflective thoughts.

In conclusion, organizing your thoughts and ideas is a vital step in writing a reflective essay. By brainstorming, creating an outline, using transitional phrases, incorporating headings, and revising your work, you can ensure that your essay effectively conveys your reflections in a logical and coherent manner.

Using Personal Examples and Anecdotes

Utilizing personal experiences and anecdotes can greatly enhance the quality and effectiveness of your reflective essay. By incorporating your own unique stories, you can help readers connect with your ideas on a deeper level and make your essay more relatable.

Sharing personal examples allows you to illustrate the concepts and themes you are discussing in a tangible and memorable way. Through these stories, you can provide concrete evidence and real-life situations that support your argument or reflection. Additionally, personal anecdotes can add authenticity and emotional appeal to your writing, making it more engaging and compelling for your audience.

When utilizing personal examples and anecdotes, it is vital to choose stories that are relevant to your topic and align with your main points. Consider experiences that have had a significant impact on your life or have shaped your perspective. These stories should help to illustrate your main themes and offer a unique insight into your reflections.

Furthermore, be sure to provide enough detail in your anecdotes to paint a vivid picture for your readers. Describe the setting, the people involved, and the emotions you felt during the experience. By providing this level of detail, you can transport your readers into the moment and help them better understand your perspective.

However, it is important to strike a balance when using personal examples and anecdotes. While they can be valuable tools for enhancing your writing, it is crucial not to overuse them. Your essay should still maintain a sense of coherence and flow, with the main focus remaining on your reflective analysis.

Reflecting on Your Emotions and Feelings

Examining and understanding your emotions and feelings is a crucial part of the reflective essay-writing process. In this section, we will explore the various ways in which you can reflect on your emotional experiences and delve into the depths of your innermost thoughts. By doing so, you will be able to gain insights into your own personal growth and development, as well as enhance your self-awareness.

When reflecting on your emotions and feelings, it is important to delve beneath the surface and explore the underlying reasons behind them. Sometimes our emotions can be influenced by past experiences, cultural background, or even societal expectations. By taking the time to understand the root causes of our emotions, we can gain a deeper understanding of ourselves and our reactions to certain situations.

• Consider the context: Reflecting on your emotions involves considering the context in which they arise. Analyze the specific circumstances, events, or interactions that trigger strong emotional responses. Ask yourself why certain situations provoke certain emotions and what you can learn from them.
• Identify patterns: Look for recurring themes or patterns in your emotional reactions. Do you notice a tendency to feel anxious in certain situations or to become overly excited in others? Recognizing these patterns can help you gain valuable insights into your emotional tendencies and may lead to personal growth.
• Use descriptive language: When reflecting on your emotions and feelings, try to express them using descriptive language. This will help you capture the depth and intensity of your emotional experiences, allowing you to reflect on them more effectively.
• Consider the impact: Reflecting on your emotions involves not only understanding how they affect you, but also considering how they impact others. Reflect on how your emotional reactions may have influenced your relationships, decision-making, or overall well-being.
• Seek feedback: Sometimes, gaining an outside perspective can provide valuable insights into your own emotions. Consider seeking feedback from trusted friends, family members, or mentors who can offer a different perspective on your emotional experiences.

Overall, reflecting on your emotions and feelings is an integral part of the reflective essay-writing process. By engaging in self-reflection and introspection, you can gain a deeper understanding of yourself and your emotional responses. This will not only enhance your writing but also contribute to personal growth and self-awareness.

Providing Concrete Examples and Evidence

When crafting reflective essays, it is crucial to support your thoughts and ideas with concrete examples and evidence. By doing so, you can effectively convey your experiences and observations while making your writing more engaging and credible.

Utilizing specific examples allows you to delve into the details of your experiences, providing a vivid picture for your readers. Instead of simply stating that you had a challenging experience, describing a particular instance or interaction helps paint a clearer picture and allows your readers to connect with your story on a deeper level.

In addition to providing specific examples, incorporating evidence further strengthens your reflective essays. This can include references to academic studies, research findings, or expert perspectives that support your claims and enhance the validity of your arguments. By backing up your thoughts and ideas with evidence, you demonstrate that you have thoroughly researched and considered the topic at hand.

When selecting examples and evidence to include in your reflective essay, it is essential to choose ones that are relevant and directly support your main points. Be sure to use a variety of sources and perspectives to provide a well-rounded view of your experiences and insights.

In conclusion, providing concrete examples and evidence is a crucial aspect of writing reflective essays. By including specific instances and supporting your ideas with relevant evidence, you not only engage your readers but also strengthen the credibility of your writing. Remember to choose examples and evidence that directly support your main points and provide a well-rounded perspective on your experiences.

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How to Write a Reflective Essay

Writing a reflective essay is like deep diving into your experiences and thoughts and sharing what you've learned. 

It's not your typical academic paper – it's more about exploring your personal growth and understanding. Reflective essays are about looking back on moments in your life, analyzing how they've shaped you, and expressing those insights clearly and meaningfully. 

From how to start a reflective essay to what kinds of stylistic devices to use, this article will teach you how to offer readers a glimpse into the complexities of your human experience as a human being.

What Is a Reflective Essay

A reflective essay is a type of personal writing where the author delves into their thoughts, emotions, and experiences regarding a particular topic, event, or aspect of their life. 

Unlike other forms of academic writing, it focuses on the writer's introspection and self-analysis, often exploring how they have been affected or changed by their experiences. 

Reflective essays typically involve a structured approach in which the writer examines the significance of their experiences, considers lessons learned, and considers how they might apply these insights in the future.

Should you need urgent help with this assignment, use our essay writing service without hesitation.

What Is the Purpose of Writing a Reflective Essay

Composing a reflective essay provides a platform for individuals to explore and analyze their experiences, thoughts, and emotions in a structured manner. Through reflection, writers can gain deeper insights into themselves, their beliefs, and their actions. 

Reflective essays provide opportunities for self-discovery, growth, and learning. They encourage individuals to critically examine their experiences, identify patterns, and understand how they have been shaped by various factors. 

Additionally, reflective essays allow custom writers to communicate their insights and perspectives to others, fostering empathy, understanding, and connection. 

Types of Reflective Essays

Reflective essays can take various forms depending on the purpose, audience, and context. Some common types include:

How to Start a Reflective Essay

Starting a reflective essay can be approached in various ways, but here are a few effective strategies to consider:

• Begin with an Engaging Anecdote

Capture your reader's attention by sharing a brief, compelling story or anecdote related to the topic you'll be reflecting on. This can set the tone for your essay and draw readers in from the start.

• Pose a Thought-Provoking Question

Start with a question that prompts readers to think deeply about the topic you'll explore in your reflection. This can create curiosity and encourage engagement right from the beginning.

• Provide Context

Offer some background information or context about the experience or topic you'll reflect on. This will help orient your readers and give them a foundation for understanding your reflection.

• State Your Thesis or Main Idea

Clearly state your reflective essay's main idea or thesis in the introduction. This gives readers a preview of what to expect and directs your reflection.

• Use a Quotation

Begin with a relevant quotation that sets the tone for your reflection and encapsulates what you'll discuss in your essay. Make sure the quotation is meaningful and resonates with your topic.

• Start with a Strong Statement

Open with a bold statement or assertion that captures the essence of your reflection. This can be a striking observation, a personal revelation, or a philosophical insight related to your topic.

Recommended for reading: Academic Essay Guide.

Writing a reflective essay involves several key steps:

Select a Meaningful Topic

Choosing a meaningful topic is pivotal as it sets the foundation for your reflective essay. Consider moments that have left a profound impact or triggered significant growth. These can range from personal experiences and academic achievements to challenges overcome. 

Selecting a topic involves considering personal experiences that have significantly impacted you. Here's how to choose a topic before writing a reflective essay:

• Reflect on Personal Experiences – Think about moments that have left a lasting impression or provoked deep thought and introspection. Consider experiences that have shaped your beliefs, values, or outlook on life.
• Identify Key Events or Challenges – Look for specific events, challenges, or milestones that stand out in your memory. These could be achievements, failures, conflicts, transitions, or moments of self-discovery.
• Consider Emotional Significance – Reflect on experiences that have evoked strong emotions, whether positive or negative. Emotional depth often leads to rich reflection and meaningful insights.
• Focus on Growth or Learning – Choose a topic that highlights personal growth, learning, or transformation. Reflective essays are most compelling when they explore how experiences have influenced your development.
• Think about Relevance and Universality – Consider topics that are not only personally significant but also have broader relevance or universal themes. Reflecting on experiences that others can relate to can make your essay more engaging and impactful.
• Brainstorm Ideas – Brainstorm potential topics, jotting down any experiences or moments that come to mind. Don't censor yourself at this stage; let your thoughts flow freely.
• Narrow Down Your Options – Review your list of potential topics and consider which ones resonate with you the most. Choose a topic you feel passionate about and eager to explore in depth.
• Ensure Personal Connection – Choose a topic that feels authentic and meaningful to you. Your passion and genuine interest in the topic will shine through in your writing, making your reflective essay more compelling and engaging for readers.

Outline Your Essay

An organized outline is a blueprint for your reflective essay, ensuring a structured and coherent narrative flow. Begin by outlining the main points you intend to explore in each section, including the introduction, body paragraphs, and conclusion. 

Structure your outline logically, allowing for smooth transitions between ideas and reflections. Consider the overarching themes and insights you wish to convey, ensuring they are seamlessly integrated into your essay's framework. 

Through outlining, you streamline the writing process and maintain a cohesive narrative that captivates your audience and effectively communicates your reflections.

Reflect and Brainstorm

Reflection and brainstorming are the cornerstones of a reflective essay, allowing you to delve deep into your thoughts, emotions, and experiences. Take the time to introspect on your chosen topic, exploring the nuances of your feelings, reactions, and lessons learned. 

Embrace moments of vulnerability and introspection, as they can lead to genuine insights and self-awareness. Through brainstorming, jot down key moments, reflections, and realizations that have shaped your perspective. 

This process enriches your writing and fosters personal growth and understanding as you navigate through the complexities of your experiences.

Come up with a Thesis Statement

Crafting a compelling thesis statement is essential as it encapsulates your reflective essay's core message or insight. 

Your thesis serves as a roadmap, guiding both you and your readers through the narrative journey ahead. It should concisely summarize your reflection's central theme or purpose, offering a glimpse into the key aspects of your experience and its significance. 

A well-crafted thesis statement provides clarity and focus and sets the tone for the rest of your essay. It acts as a beacon, directing your efforts toward articulating your reflections cohesively while inviting readers to delve deeper into the complexities of your narrative.

Write, Reflect, and Revise

Writing, reflecting, and revising are iterative processes culminating in a polished reflective essay. 

Draft your essay, beginning with a compelling introduction that sets the stage for your reflection. Dive into the body paragraphs, exploring specific aspects of your experience and their implications. Incorporate personal anecdotes, observations, and reflections to enrich your narrative, fostering a deeper connection with your readers. Alternatively, you can buy an essay online to avoid having to do everything on your own.

As you write, reflect on your journey, acknowledging the growth and insights gained along the way. Finally, revise your essay for clarity, coherence, and impact, ensuring that your reflections are articulated effectively and leave a lasting impression on your audience. 

Through this process, you refine your writing and deepen your understanding of yourself and others.

Reflective Essay Outline

Before you start writing any content for your essay, it would be wise to draw up an outline of your document:

Tips for Writing a Reflective Essay

As we know, a reflective essay involves examining your experiences and expressing how they influenced you. Here are seven useful and practical tips to help you write an effective essay about self-reflection:

Focus on a Specific Moment

Choose a specific incident or moment that had a profound impact on you. Narrowing your focus to a single event or series of related events can make your reflection deeper and more meaningful.

Ask Guiding Questions

Use questions to guide your reflection. For example:

• What happened?
• How did it make me feel?
• Why did I feel that way?
• What did I learn from this experience?
• How has this experience changed me?

Answering these questions can help you explore your thoughts and emotions more thoroughly.

Use the 'What, So What, Now What' Framework

• What: Describe the experience or event.
• So What: Analyze why the experience was significant.
• Now What: Reflect on how the experience will influence your future actions or perspectives. This structure ensures your essay has depth and direction.

Integrate Theory and Practice

If relevant, connect your personal experiences with theoretical concepts or lessons you've learned in your studies or professional life. This can add a layer of intellectual reflection to your reflective essays and demonstrate your ability to apply theory to practice.

Include Dialogue and Thoughts

Incorporate direct quotes or internal monologue from the experience. This adds authenticity and gives readers insight into your immediate reactions and thoughts during the event.

Use Reflective Language

Employ phrases that indicate reflection, such as "I realized," "I learned," "This made me think," "I understood that," etc. This helps convey your introspective process to the reader.

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Reflective Essay Examples

Recommended for reading: Definition Essay Examples .

Reflective essays are super important for students because they help you think about what you've learned and how you've grown. They make you reflect on your experiences, figure out what went well and what didn't, and understand how it fits into your life. 

By doing this, you don't just memorize stuff for a test – you get why it matters and how it applies to real life. Plus, reflecting like this helps you improve at thinking things through, understanding yourself, and solving problems. 

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How to Write a Reflective Essay?

What are the parts of a typical reflective essay, what is a reflective essay format.

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• Reflective essays | Australian National University. (2023, November 14). https://www.anu.edu.au/students/academic-skills/writing-assessment/reflective-writing/reflective-essays
• Reflective Essays. (n.d.). The Writing Center. https://writingcenter.gmu.edu/writing-resources/different-genres/reflective-essays
• https://westernsydney.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0007/1082779/Reflective_writing_Structure.pdf

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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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Don’t Underestimate the Power of Self-Reflection

by James R. Bailey and Scheherazade Rehman

Summary .   

Research shows the habit of reflection can separate extraordinary professionals from mediocre ones. But how do you sort which experiences are most significant for your development?

• To answer this questions, the authors asked 442 executives to reflect on which experiences most advanced their professional development and had the most impact on making them better leaders.
• Three distinct themes arose through their analysis: surprise, frustration, and failure. Reflections that involved one or more or of these sentiments proved to be the most valuable in helping the leaders grow.
• Surprise, frustration, and failure. Cognitive, emotional, and behavioral. These parts of you are constantly in motion and if you don’t give them time to rest and reflect upon what you learned from them, you will surely fatigue.

Empathy, communication, adaptability, emotional intelligence, compassion. These are all skills you need to thrive in the workplace and become a great leader. Time and again, we even hear that these capabilities are the key to making yourself indispensable — not just now but far into the future. Soft skills, after all, are what make us human, and as far as we know, can’t be performed well by technologies like artificial intelligence.

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• Learning Environments
• Teaching, learning and assessment

Reflective practice

Reflective practice is a learning strategy that promotes metacognition and develops students’ capacity for self-regulation.

What is it?

Reflective practice is a learner-centred strategy that helps students to make sense of what they are learning and engages them in deep learning. Reflection can be in-action and on-action:

• Reflection-in-action takes place while students are engaged in a practical activity and requires them to act on their reflection immediately
• Reflection-on-action invites students to reconsider and clarify a past event (for example a site visit, an in-class activity, or a practicum).

Students can also reflect on their prior knowledge to prepare for a ‘core’ activity. Reflection tasks encourage students to take a step back, observe, and evaluate their actions to either problem solve or gain a new perspective. Reflection works best when it is regular, scaffolded, and progressively develops in complexity. Through regular reflection, students engage in metacognition and become self-regulated learners.

Why is it useful?

Benefits for students.

• Assesses functioning knowledge, including application of skills and competencies
• Prompts metacognition, which, in turn, encourages students to take responsibility for their own learning
• Develops evaluative judgment through metacognition and analysis of their own thought process
• Promotes the development of professional identity through a reflection on a work placement or a practice simulation.

Benefits for educators

• Gives you access to the thought process of your students, which, in turn, facilitates an effective feedback loop.

How do I implement it?

To implement reflective practice, try these strategies:

• Set a model for students’ reflections. This will prompt students what to include and give you a clear framework to assess the reflection. It will also help students who are less familiar with reflective tasks and unsure where to start. You can use one of the established reflection models:

Driscoll, J.J. (2007) Supported reflective learning: the essence of clinical supervision? Chapter 2 in Practising Clinical Supervision: A Reflective Approach for Healthcare Professionals (2nd edition). London: Bailliere Tindall. pp 27-‐50.

Example question prompts

Kolb DA. Experiential learning: experience as the source of learning and development. Englewoods Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1984.

Johns C. Becoming a reflective practitioner: a reflective and holistic approach to clinical nursing practice, development and clinical supervision. Oxford: Blackwell Science, 2000.

Atkins, S. and Murphy, K. (1994). Reflective Practice. Nursing Standard , 8(39) 49-56.

Leeds Beckett University. Skills for Learning – Models for structuring reflection. Secondary Skills for Learning – Models for structuring reflection 2015.

Whatever model you choose, make sure it is aligned with the task at hand and the intended learning outcomes.

• Engage students in regular reflective practice through blogging or journaling. Based on your subject, students can reflect on weekly readings, practice sessions, site visits, scenario-based group activities or work placements. When setting a continuous reflective task, be clear why you are asking students to reflect and how they will be assessed.
• Integrate reflection in regular learning activities. Give students opportunities to reflect in class. To make this work, it is important to consider reflection when planning a learning activity. For example, if students are working in small groups on a structured case analysis, you can pause the activity at different stages and prompt students to reflect in action and act on their reflection upon returning to the activity. Alternatively, you can use one of the reflection models (outlined above) to prompt a reflection-on-action at the end of the group activity. These strategies can be used with other types of synchronous and asynchronous learning activities. What’s important is to allocate sufficient time for reflection so that students can fully engage in a reflective cycle and reflect on what happened, why it was important, and how they will apply this in future.

Supporting technologies

• Cadmus is an online assessment environment that offers assessment templates for the most common written assignment types, including a reflective journal and a reflective essay. The templates for reflective assessment provide checklists for students to guide them through the reflection process and keep them on track. In addition, Cadmus allows submission of assignment drafts, which you can then use to provide cohort-level feedback.
• PebblePad is an ePortfolio platform – a space for students to blog, journal, and showcase their project work. PebblePad can integrate reflection and self-assessment into digital portfolios.
• LMS Discussions can facilitate blogging . Students can both respond to a reflection prompt and interact with their peers’ responses. This deepens students’ reflection and supports a provision of formative peer feedback.
• H5P allows you to create interactive activities and embed them into the LMS. The Documentation tool in H5P allows you to embed reflection boxes on the LMS pages and prompt students to reflect with structured questions in line with your chosen reflection model. Once students enter their reflection into the text box, they can then generate a downloadable document with their responses.
• FeedbackFruits allows you integrate reflection into peer review, self-assessment and social annotation tasks. You can make this a structured reflection by adding instructions and structured questions for students to reflect on.
• LMS Quizzes can facilitate structured reflection exercises. You can use the essay question type to ask students structured reflection questions in line with one of the reflection models (presented above). Students’ access and completion of quizzes can be monitored via New Analytics.
• Academic Skills, University of Melbourne. Reflective writing .
• Biggs, J., & Tang, C. (2011). ‘ Assessing and grading for functioning intended learning outcomes ’ in Teaching for quality learning at university . McGraw-Hill Education.
• Instructure Community. How do I create a quiz with individual questions?
• Learning Environments, University of Melbourne. Designing reflection activities .
• Learning Management System, University of Melbourne . FeedbackFruits .

This page was last updated on 11 Apr 2024.

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• DOI: 10.26907/2782-4756-2024-75-1-47-52
• Corpus ID: 269022095

Comparison of character nominations as a reflection of the national worldview (based on the texts of heroic epics “Jangar” and “Beowulf”)

• Published in Philology and Culture 6 April 2024
• Linguistics

3 References

The grammar of names in anglo-saxon england: the linguistics and culture of the old english onomasticon, symbols of color in the traditional world perception of the mongolian ethnous, names and naming in beowulf, related papers.

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