How to write a reflective essay
Many students doing a dissertation - especially at postgraduate masters or doctoral level – will be asked to write some sort of reflective piece or reflective statement.
Yes, that dreaded reflective essay or reflective report or reflective poster, urgh. Why does this give us the ick?
Because it’s not an easy thing to do.
Reflecting, putting a lot of you into a piece of writing is hard, because for so many years, you’ve been taught not to, right? You’ve been told to stay objective and neutral and detached. If you want to make a contribution to the debate, that needs to be backed up with a reference to a peer reviewed piece of academic literature, mmm-kay?!
And you’re like, “Right, so, how the F am I supposed to be reflective having been conditioned by the higher education system to be the complete opposite?”.
I know frustrating isn’t it?
That’s why I wrote this blogpost, about the key things you need to know about reflective writing, so if you do have to produce a reflective piece about your thesis, you’ll know exactly what to do. Here’s what we’ll be covering.
What is reflective writing?
How can you be prepared for writing reflectively?
What should you actually write in the different sections?
What is reflective writing?
Reflective writing is a way of demonstrating what you know, and how this relates to experiences you have had during your research process. It is a useful way of thinking about your own learning and how you change and evolve as a researcher as you experience different things during your dissertation journey.
Here are the three main characteristics of reflective writing:
It’s personal. You write about your research as something you have first-hand, lived experience of. You write in the first person: "I", which can feel a bit uncomfortable at first. Because academic writing often aims to be detached and objective: a reflective piece of writing does not. It will be more subjective, because you have been immersed in the situation you’re writing about. You may write about your emotions, thoughts and feelings in a way that you would not do in standard academic writing.
It’s temporal and transformative. It’s temporal in that it relates to time, in terms of how you have developed and changed over a period of time whilst you’ve been doing your dissertation. It’s transformative because it’s about how you have learned something new and what you might do with that in the future. It is not only about your personal transformations but those of others – for instance your participants, your gatekeepers, your supervisory team. You can think about things from other people's perspectives and reflect upon their actions as well as your own.
It's evidence based. You still need to use evidence to support what you are writing, but the type and combination of evidence will look different from what you use in standard academic writing. In standard academic writing, you draw upon academic sources to demonstrate your understanding of a topic. Academic literature can still be present in a reflective piece, but it is used differently: as an aid to help you make sense of your own, lived experiences of research. There will be other types of evidence in a reflective piece, which you use to support your arguments. For example, entries from a research journal or diary, observations, artefacts or documents relating to your research, that kind of stuff.
How can you be prepared for writing reflectively?
What can you do to be prepared to write reflectively about your research?
Before you put pen to paper, or fingers to keyboard, you need to collate as much information as possible about your experience of research. Here are some of the things you need to grab hold of.
If you kept a fieldwork diary or journal, or just a general journal in which you wrote about your research that’s going to come in handy.
Go and find any documents- virtual or hard copy, that relate to your experience. Your ethical approval form. Your research proposal. Your emails with your supervisory team or any other people involved in your research. Any literature, leaflets or other information you picked up when you were out and about doing your research. If so, gather this all together.
Also, check your smartphone for information that might help. Can you use your calendar to reconstruct what you did on particular days? Did you take any photos during your experience that are saved on your phone? Did you text any of your friends about what you were seeing, feeling or experiencing?
Talk to people who you regularly share your experiences of your research with – that might be your partner, best friend or fellow student, or your supervisor. Ask them what they remember about you during particular stages of your research so far. Were there times you were a complete nightmare to be around? Were there other times where you were incredibly upbeat and positive about your research? Take some notes of these chats, because they will be super helpful.
Another helpful thing to do is to set a timer for 30 minutes and write down your memories and recollections of your research so far. Try to recall what happened and how you felt about it.
What should you actually write in the different sections?
In this section, I’m going to give you some actual sentences that you can use, some prompts to get you thinking. What might you actually write in each of the different parts of a reflective piece?
Well, when you’re describing something that happened in your research you need to:
Write in the past tense, as you are describing events that have happened in the past.
Use clear and precise language, For example, "In my fourth supervisory session on Thursday 4th May with my director of studies and my second supervisor, the week before I started my data collection…”, rather than “In a supervision session before my data collection..”. Be specific.
Use temporal indicators to help the reader understand the sequence of events. For example, "It started by...", "Then...", "Subsequently...", "Finally...".
Be as objective as possible. For example, "My interviewee stood up, whilst I remained seated, he was speaking loudly and gesticulating with his arms", rather than, "My interviewee was trying to intimidate me". So that’s what to do when you’re describing what happened.
When you’re describing what you thought and felt about what happened, you need to go one step further. You have already described what happened, now you need to describe your thoughts and feelings about it.
Use verbs that relate to thinking and feeling. For example:
"I believed..."
"I thought..."
"I was of the opinion..."
"I was pleased / frustrated...”
"I was aware of...", "I understood that..."
"I empathized with..."
"I had sympathy for..."
Be aware of tense. When you write reflectively, you are sometimes writing about how you felt at the time, and at other times, how you feel now that you are thinking back to it. Be careful to distinguish clearly between the two. Use present tense for feelings you have now, and past tense for feelings you had at the time.
Take time to process your feelings. Try not to rant. If you feel angry or triggered by recounting an experience, take the time to process those feelings before putting it into your written work. Maybe do some journaling separately. Giving yourself time to think things through will help your understanding of the situation and give you valuable insights to channel into your reflective piece.
When you describe your thoughts and feelings about what happened, you zoom in. What you need to do next is zoom out and try to make sense of it all. That involves three stages.
Firstly, you need to analyse. This is about identifying different views, positions or perspectives on what happened. What assumptions were the different views, positions or perspectives based on? What preconceived ideas did you have?
Secondly, you need to interpret. That involves examining the implications of your experience. How did you make sense of your experience? How did this affect you? Who was in agreement or disagreement with you? Who else did your experience have an impact upon?
Thirdly, you need to evaluate. Evaluation involves thinking through the value of this experience. How useful or helpful was it for you? What did it make you realize or consider that you hadn't before.? Has it changed or altered something about you? In these sections, use comparative / contrasting language. For example, "similarly", "unlike", "just as", "in contrast...". Also use causal language to show connections and links. For example, "as a result of", "because of", "due to", "therefore".
Now, we’re onto your concluding sections. When you’re drawing your reflective writing to a close, when you’re concluding and considering what you’ll do in the future, you need to sum up the most important learning and development points. You also need to indicate what you will do in the future, how you will implement what you have learnt from this process of reflection. Identify three things that you can implement within a specific time period. For example, within the next month or the next three months. Write another sentence that describes where you hope you will be one year from now in terms of how the things you have learnt will continue to have an impact on you.
End the reflective piece of writing with a power statement. Make the last couple of sentences stand out. You could pose a question, which tackles something you raised in your reflections. You could identify something that needs to change at a social or cultural level based on the insights you have gained through your experiences. Be creative, have some fun with it!
Next steps - check out my Reflective Essay Guide on Etsy!
Click here to learn more.
