Reflective Writing: Structure, Language, and Vocabularies

This article discusses the structure, language, and vocabularies used in reflective writing. It explains the stages of reflective thinking and provides tips on how to write a reflective essay. It also emphasizes the importance of using evidence and vocabulary to make the essay more personal and academic.

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REFLECTIVE WRITING
By Name
Course
Instructor
Institution
Location
Date

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Introduction
Reflective writing can be summarized as looking back, thinking or learning from something of
the past. This can be an idea, an event or even an object.in short it is describing something but at
the same time exploring it (Moon, 2013)
The format of the reflective essay many vary depending who the audience are. For instance,
when writing a reflective essay for a collage course and an academic audience will slightly vary
in how the essay will be organized from writing a reflective essay for a magazine or a collection
of reflective essay which has a broader audience. However, some of the major elements which
goes into a typical reflective essay are introduction, body and conclusion.
Structure of a reflective essay
The reflective essays usually contain introductions, whereby the author shares either indirectly or
directly, what the entire focus of the reflection will be. In most cases the others tend to be bit
indirect regarding to their main topic or what kind of experience they will be writing about.
Nevertheless, an academic author should be more direct in elaborating what aspect of his/her
experience that he or she is talking about (Diamantopoulos, 2010.).
The body of the reflective essay discusses how the writer or what the he/she has learned from
that experience. For instance, many academic writers are asked to reflective essay on how they
improved as writers over the semester. Most of the writers will share how the various
assignments and other work made them to be stronger writers
A well-crafted reflective essay will not only give the changes but give examples to illustrate the
details that led to the changes. For instance, if an author becomes more optimistic in life then the
examples in that essay should be given to illustrate what made her to change this way for

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example sharing about an instance where the writer took a positive approach to solve the
incident(Schön, 2017).
The conclusion of a reflective essay, the writer usually summarizes how he or she has changed or
the impact of the changes that occurred. In the conclusion the writer can either look forward or
backward. In the situations where the writer looks ahead, the writer usually shares how he/she
thinks that the experience in the essay will change he/she in the future. In the situations where
the writer looks backward, the writer will note how different he/she was from the current time. In
the conclusion of the reflective essay the writer will always compare the past and the future
selves to show the difference
How to write a reflective essay
In the process of writing a reflective writing it can be very essential to think about the experience
in-depth and from various points of view, this helps the writer to gain a full understanding of
the experience. In the process of doing that, the writer can be able to think what the experience
means to him or her (Tummons, 2011). There are a variety of questions the writer should ask
herself which can greatly assist in coming up with the reflective writing. Some of them include.
 Is the experience a significant part of working or academic life?
 How did you feel regarding to what you saw or did?
 Has the experience given your insight which you did not have before?
 Are there any implications for the future works?
The kind of the questions that are listed above makes the reflective essay more personal than
other types of writing (Hays and Gay, 2011).
Stages of reflective thinking

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The phase of reflective thinking can be broken down into four stages that are shown in the figure
below.
Language of the reflective assay
The language used in writing the reflective writing should be:
 Be personal, since the writer is writing about his or her experience
 The language should be about the own views of the writer
 The language should be in 1st person
 The language should be in active voice

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Even though the language of the reflective writing should be person the writer should remember
that his or her essay should be academic (Didehban and Marzban, 2016). The writer should not
be informal in style. The writers should always follow a coherent structure with a clear
introduction, body and conclusion.
Reflective writing vocabularies
It is very essential in reflective writing to include the language that highlights the various parts of
the reflective process. One is required to begin with including a brief description. In this the
writer should be very careful to focus on the significant points such as when, who, why, how and
when.
 The type of vocabularies used should be able to enable the writer to interpret the issues
that are being discussed in the essay
 The vocabularies can enable the writer to tell the reader how the experience affected him
or her.
 Some of the vocabularies that will be used can explain to the reader why you understood
the event like that (Briceland and Hamilton, 2010).
Use of evidence in the reflective essay
In the process of writing a reflective essay it is very important for the writer to be aware that
he/she is trying to make links between what you learnt from the lectures and reading with the
practical experience. There are always 3 main things one should remember when writing a
reflective writing.
Being selective, one is not required to write for every observation or incident.one is required to
pick the main observations or incidents and focuses on them.

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Discuss. It is very important to share the experience to others to enable one to deepen the
understanding and at the same time explore a wider range of views.
Evidence. All the arguments in the essay should be supported with evidence from the experience
being discussed in the essay (Balgopal and Montplaisir , 2011).
Conclusion
In conclusion, a reflective writing is a report or an essay in which the writer of the essay
examines his/her own experience and how it has changed him or her. The writer then writes into
details about those experiences exploring how they changed him or her.

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References
Balgopal, M.M. and Montplaisir, L.M., 2011. Meaning making: What reflective essays reveal
about biology students’ conceptions about natural selection. Instructional Science, 39(2), pp.137-
169.
Briceland, L.L. and Hamilton, R.A., 2010. Electronic reflective student portfolios to demonstrate
achievement of ability-based outcomes during advanced pharmacy practice
experiences. American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education, 74(5), p.79.
Diamantopoulos, A., 2010. Reflective and formative metrics of relationship value: Response to
Baxter's commentary essay. Journal of Business Research, 63(1), pp.91-93.
Didehban, A. and Marzban, A., 2016. Comparative Critical Reading and Its Effect on
Argumentative Assay Writing Performance of Iranian Efl Learners. Modern Journal of
Language Teaching Methods, 6(7), p.45.
Hays, R. and Gay, S., 2011. Reflection or ‘pre‐reflection’: what are we actually measuring in
reflective practice. medical education, 45(2), pp.116-118.
Moon, J.A., 2013. A handbook of reflective and experiential learning: Theory and practice.
Routledge.
Schön, D.A., 2017. The reflective practitioner: How professionals think in action. Routledge.
Tummons, J., 2011. ‘It sort of feels uncomfortable’: problematizing the assessment of reflective
practice. Studies in Higher education, 36(4), pp.471-483.

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