Reflective Writing: Structure, Language, and Vocabularies

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REFLECTIVE WRITING
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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