Reflective writing

Reflective writing usually has a different style to the academic writing you would use in other written assignments at university. It addresses your thoughts and feelings, and therefore is mostly subjective. In addition to being reflective and logical, you can be personal, hypothetical, critical and creative.

Reflective writing is an activity that includes description (what, when, who) and analysis (how, why, what if). It may allow you to use different modes of writing and language. You can comment on your experiences, rather than solely drawing on academic evidence. 

• It is analytical. You can write about your personal experiences, framing them in relation to what you have learned and how you have developed as a result.  
• It is written in the first person, for example “I discovered…” and “I was surprised…” and may use more informal language. 
• It can be more emotive and less objective. 
• It is usually less prescriptive about form and structure. The structure needs to be logical and clear but not necessarily the same as a typical essay. 
• It often requires less academic literature as evidence than a typical academic essay.

You can discuss: 

• Your perceptions of the experience and any questions you had. 
• Ideas and observations you have had or made, and how they relate to your experience. 
• What you found confusing, inspiring, difficult, interesting, and why. 
• Possibilities, speculations, hypotheses or solutions, including an alternative interpretation or different perspective. 
• How new ideas challenge what you already know and what you need to explore next in terms of thoughts and actions. 
• How you solved a problem, reached a conclusion, found an answer or reached a point of understanding. 
• Comparisons and connections between what you have learned and your prior knowledge, experience and assumptions. 

These are some examples of typical features of reflective writing. It is important to always read your assignment brief, as different disciplines can have different requirements and styles. 

Although a reflective writing assignment may not always be structured in the same way as a typical essay, it should always have a clear and logical structure. It requires a clear line of thought, use of evidence or examples to illustrate your reflections, and an analytical approach. Basic reflective writing often includes three parts: description, interpretation, and outcome.

To build on basic reflective writing, you should structure your writing logically and include critical analysis of what happened and your thoughts and feelings. There are many ways you could structure a piece of reflective writing, these are just two examples. Click between the two slides below to see them.

You could structure your writing by using the following major components of reflection:

1. Introduction: the event, incident or topic
2. Description and problematisation of the experience
3. Cause and effect of the experience (keep description to a minimum here)
4. Explain and critically analyse what happened – what are you trying to resolve here, what have you learned and how will you move forward? 

You may also choose to structure your reflective writing according to a model of reflection, such as Gibbs’ Reflective Cycle:

1. Description: explain what happened, describe who was involved and the event/experience itself.
2. Feelings: discuss your feelings and thoughts about the experience.
3. Evaluation: discuss what was good and bad about the experience, how you and others reacted and include theory (references).
4. Analysis: analyse what might have helped or hindered the situation and how or why the incident came about, including theory and your experience.
5. Conclusion: address what you could have done differently and what you have learned from the experience.
6. Action plan: summarise what you need to do in future to improve things for next time. 

When writing reflectively, it’s important to remember not to focus too much on describing your experience, but to also include an analytical approach. Phrases like these below can help you to build critical analysis into your reflection. 

• The most important thing was...
• At the time I felt...
• This was likely due to...
• After thinking about it...
• I learned/I discovered that...
• I need to know more about... 

• Later I realised...
• This was because...
• This was like...
• I wonder what would happen if...
• I'm still unsure about...
• My next steps are... 

• I was surprised / I was excited by…
• I was moved by / I felt…
• I wonder about...
• I was reminded that…
• I’m challenged by… /challenged to…
• I need to remember… /remember to…

Congratulations- you've reached the end of this guide! Why not try out writing a reflection in the activity below?