reflective writing essay example

reflective writing essay example

The Importance of Reflective Writing

1. Introduction

David Yeo explains that learning is about change, and at a personal level where change is an emotionally charged experience, making sense and learning from that experience involves the ability to revisit and re-evaluate that experience. It is through finding a new perspective on past events, we are able to understand them in order to make better decisions and be more adequately prepared for similar situations in the future. This re-interpretation of a past experience and the ability to imagine it as something different presents a good opportunity for positive change. This re-imagining and re-interpreting can occur informally day-to-day in thought, but the best way to make it concrete, bring out all thoughts and truly understand what has been learnt, is through reflective writing.

The importance of reflective writing can be difficult to convey when a myriad of ideas and thoughts are running through a writer’s head. But when the pen is put to paper, the writing process begins and it is through reflective writing that a writer can truly grasp an understanding of their own ideas and the subject matter. It is a way for a writer to connect with all aspects of who they are, in order to reach a deeper level of understanding and to make sense of, or re-make sense of, an experience in their lives. While this re-writing or re-interpretation of an experience may seem like an unimportant task, it is in fact a very important part of the learning process.

2. Benefits of Reflective Writing

By nature, reflective writing matters a lot to self-managed learning (Betts, 1998). As writers engage in the consideration of experiences, they are inclined to connect the new learning to prior knowledge and comprehend the experience as a role of the learning process. It forces cognitive effort and engagement of the learner because the questioning of what, how, and why an event has occurred needs clarification and sustains an inquisitive climate.

Reflective writing is important as well as useful and is beneficial to the writer in their learning. Below are some areas where the positive impact is valid. Firstly, reflective writing benefits the writer on a personal level (Reed, 2011). It fosters the development of insights regarding personal and professional growth. Such insights are discovered through the author’s ability to link the new information to what they have previously known. This translates into uncovering the significance and consequences of an experience, which nudges the writer to think overly and analyze an event that may be useful in problem-solving situations.

Reflective writing is the expression of concrete reasons and actions that are implemented through self-information and the comprehension or adaptation of practical and ideological changes by knowing the learning. The basis is on self-motivation and intellectual understanding, and it is defined by the learning process. Reflective writing can be presented in numerous forms. It can be recorded in a personal journal and can be understood based on the certain task at hand, such as an essay or a presentation.

3. Steps to Write a Reflective Essay

Lastly, evaluate what you have written. Rethink your experience and give a clear evaluation of what has happened. This is identifying what has contributed to a change in your thinking or how you felt about a situation and end with giving an opinion.

Thirdly, you must be resourceful. You want to make sure you give an accurate description of the situation, thinking, and learning. An easy way for this to be accurate and not forget anything is an information web. This will map out your situation, following through with learning and thinking, and result in a quality piece of work.

Secondly, you want to communicate your thoughts and emotions to your audience. With this, detail is the key. This is identifying how you will convey your thoughts and emotions to your audience. What you want to be doing is identifying separate and independent issues and emotions that you have experienced in the situation. Once these have been identified, sort them by putting events and the effects they have had as separate. Then go through these explaining what happened, followed by what you were thinking and feeling at that time. Remember to be as in-depth as possible.

First, you must decide what you are going to write about. It could be an event that stands out in your mind, an experience, or a person who has had an impact on you. Remember to include what happened, why it was important to you, and why it may be important to the reader. By doing this, you can identify the cause and effect of the situation. By doing this, your thoughts and details will be much easier to understand and the reader will be on the same page as you.

Before starting the steps, you must remember that a reflective essay is not like other essays. As the writer, you must think about what went right and what went wrong and write about this. This type of essay often takes on a first person or third person voice. A writer using this form of writing uses details to paint a picture for the audience to help them understand what the writer has gone through. Whether it is a project you had to do, an event you experienced, your learning in a certain area, or an assessment of a person or experience, it is required that you go through what has happened and the effects of what has happened.

4. Examples of Reflective Writing

My favorite book on writing is “Bird by Bird” by Anne Lamott. Lamott explains that the secret of good writing is to strip complex situations down to their basics. Her father once told her 10-year-old brother, who was completely overwhelmed by a report on birds that he’d had three months to write, “bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.” After getting a bad mark for a particularly rushed and incomplete nasty comment I made on an assessment sheet regarding a patient who was having an awful time coming to terms with his son’s mental illness, I’ve learned that maybe I have attempted to take too many birds at once. Maybe I should have taken the reflection one step at a time, the same way I did a month later with the client who discovered my rotten comment. I decided upon this opportunity that I would reflect throughout the whole assignment and take one aspect of a complex patient, and through the use of theory and literature, dissect this bird till I understood it completely.

5. Conclusion

It is important to keep in mind that reflective writing is your response to experiences, situations, events, or new information. It is not merely recollection nor is it a description. Reflective writing is an exploration and an explanation of an event or that a student may have witnessed or been a part of. This will then enable the student to think about what they have learned, as opposed to just recapping on what they may have just read. This is a key learning and studying strategy as the exploration of an event enables an influential learning experience. Reflective writing can help you to improve your analytical skills because it requires you to express what you think, and it is assumed that your thinking will be in depth. This will then enable you to demonstrate an understanding of the event you are learning about. Reflective writing can help you to improve your analytical skills because it requires you to express what you think, and it is assumed that your thinking will be in depth. This will then enable you to demonstrate an understanding of the event you are learning about. With plenty of opportunity, any topic of study can be improved by a student’s reflective writing. At any level of study, the reflective essay is a common task. For students, this can be a good thing, as their reflective writing can help them to more clearly understand their own learning, and further, it can help them understand how to improve. This can also be a useful task for the lecturer – for example, the exploration of an event can help to more clearly understand what students often find complicated. The task is flexible and that it can be completed at any time after a learning event has occurred. This can be a study session, a learning task, or an experience the student has had. This will then encourage the student to think clearly since the topic is still fresh in their minds. Any writing can be time-consuming, but the understanding of the topic or learning experience can be significantly more in depth. Reflective writing is a useful approach in life learning and often results in clear changes and improvements.