Reflective writing examples might not help you

There is no right or wrong way to write reflections. The only real “wrong” with a reflection is that it doesn’t reflect. If your reflection does not show you have thought about the impact of what happened and that you haven’t explained how your learning developed, then it is not a reflection. The way you do that and express it is not important.

All too often, though, students hand in reflections that are not reflective. Instead, all they do is summarise what took place. As I often say to students, “I don’t need to know what you were taught; I know that because I taught you.” So, if your reflections merely summarise the course content, you have not reflected.

Rather than look for examples, check out this guide on how to write a reflection.

But if you are still determined to see an example of a reflection, here goes…!

Academic reflective essay example

Here is an example of a short reflective essay for a student who has been studying a module on digital business.

This week was one of the most interesting in my studies for digital business. I went to a lecture on the “long tail theory”, which explained how online businesses make most of their profits from the least popular items. That amazed me, and straight after the lecture, I went to the library to borrow the book on the theory written by Chris Anderson. The book gripped me right from the start as it used several examples to help me understand the concept of the theory. After reading the first few chapters of the book, I decided to call some friends to meet for coffee. We chatted about the lecture, and I mentioned what I had read in the book. What was clear was that we all thought that businesses made most of their money from popular items they sold. The fact that most of the money was made from the least popular products was a real surprise to all of us. As I walked back to my room, a thought suddenly struck me. All four of us at the coffee bar had different drinks. None of us had bought a standard coffee – what could be considered the most popular item. Each of us had bought a different drink. Our coffee chat was an example of the long tail in action.

When I thought about what I had learned, I realised that I was surprised that I had not been aware of the obviousness of the theory. It made me feel a little dumb, to be honest. Before, I had always thought that profits came from popular things. But the lecture, the book and the subsequent chat with my friends helped me realise that my previous view was wrong. The lecture itself piqued my interest in the topic and steered me towards the book so that I could fully understand the concept. Also, after reading the book, I realised that my attitude to the lecture at the start was not good. I assumed that we would be told some boring theory, yet the lecture completely changed my mind about how businesses gain profits online.

I learned from this that I should not approach lectures with a pre-set idea of what I will be taught. I ought to go to lectures with a more open mind. I also realised that if the lecture interests me, I gain a lot by going to the library straight away and getting an appropriate book. In the past, I might have thought about getting a book but then never did. Eventually, that thought passes. This week’s lecture helped me realise that I learn more by acting immediately on the impulse to read a book. 

Overall, this has been a significant week for me. I learned a new theory which amazed me. I saw that theory in action. I realised that I should approach lectures with an open mind. Plus, I discovered that if I act impulsively to read a book on the lecture topic, I gain more learning.

However, you may be asked to write your reflection using a particular academic model of reflection. So, here is a handy guide to the most popular models of reflection that are widely used.

The ERA Cycle

The ERA Cycle was summarised by Professor Melanie Jasper in her book “Beginning Reflective Practice” as being: Experience – Reflection – Action. 

We experience everything. You are experiencing reading this. You may have experienced drinking a coffee this morning as well. You might also have experienced a stunning lecture yesterday. Everything we do is an experience.

Sometimes you reflect on each experience. Sometimes you don’t. I doubt if you have reflected on that coffee you drank earlier – unless it triggered some kind of response because it was too hot, or tasted dreadfully. But if it was just your usual, everyday coffee, you didn’t think much about it. However, other experiences you do reflect upon. If you have been to an amazing lecture today, you may well have chatted with your friends about it afterwards and reflected on what it meant. So, some experiences get more of our attention and we think about them.

After we have thought about these more important experiences we then might go on to consider what it all means and what actions we might need to take. For example, if you did not have your usual coffee this morning and bought something else you might have experienced a more bitter taste. You would have reflected on that and thought you didn’t like it. Then you would consider the action you might take such as never buying it again…!

The simplicity of the ERA cycle is appealing because we can easily relate everything we do to it.

Borton’s Model

This model goes back to 1970 when the American schoolteacher, Terry Borton, wrote a book called Reach, Touch and Teach about his desire to make High School “as relevant, involving, and joyful as the learning each of us experienced when we were infants first discovering ourselves and our surroundings”. Borton describes three essential questions which need asking if we are to reflect on our learning effectively. These are “What?”, “So What?” and “Now What?”.

This model asks you to describe what happened. Then you consider what it means to you. Then you think about what you can do about it.

Driscoll’s Model

Some years after Borton’s book was published John Driscoll adapted the model specifically for clinical practice in nursing. Since then, the Driscoll Model has been widely used in the medical and health sectors. The Driscoll Model adds further questions as triggers for thinking about each of the main “what” questions that Borton suggested.

What? This includes trigger questions such as “What happened?”, “What did I do?” and “What was my reaction?”

So what? This has trigger questions including “So what did I feel at the time?”, “What do I feel now” and “What were the effects on me?”

Now what? This involves trigger questions like “Now what are the implications for me?” and “Now what is the main learning I take from this?”

Kolb’s Experiential Cycle

The Kolb Experiential Cycle is not just a model of reflection. It is a theoretical model of how we learn. 

The essence of Kolb is similar to the other models discussed so far. However, added here is the concept of going beyond reflecting and thinking about what we have experienced. What Kolb introduces is the notion of “active experimentation”. 

Kolb’s Cycle begins with us experiencing something, as in the ERA model. Then, Kolb suggests we reflect on it. We think about what the experience means to us. The ERA model suggests we then consider how to act in the future. However, Kolb’s model essentially splits this into two stages. Kolb’s model suggests that having reflected on our experiences we then form abstract concepts about meanings. Then we change our behaviour according to those concepts to see if we have made a difference. That leads to new experiences, and we go around and around the cycle again and again. 

Gibb’s Reflective Cycle

One of the most popular models of reflection is Gibb’s Reflective Cycle. 

This extends the earlier models even further. The three steps of the ERA model have now become six steps. 

Description: What happened?

Feelings: What did you feel and what did you think?

Evaluation: What was good or bad about the experience you described?

Analysis: What other impacts can you think about?

Conclusion: What could you have done instead?

Action plan: What would you do in future in the same situation?

Using models of reflection

There are many other models of reflection you may read about. They all have the same fundamental basis in common, though, which is the ERA model. You may be asked to write reflections using a particular model, so make sure you conduct all the steps necessary. If you are in the healthcare sector using the Driscoll Model is going to be commonplace. 

However, models of reflection are just that – models. They have problems. They do not always match the circumstances of your studies. Equally, they suggest you have to follow the “cycle” in a particular order that might not be useful in your specific situation.

So, even though these models are popular they are not the “final word” on reflective practice. Good reflection has an impact. And if your way of producing that impact does not follow one of these models, then it doesn’t matter. Reflection is personal, so having a personal model of reflection is just fine.

So, tip number one for ensuring you produce a good reflective writing structure is to write what seems right and natural to you. 

Having said this, however, there are some key components of reflective writing that anyone marking your work would expect. Academic reflective writing generally requires the following three elements to be considered in this order:

1. What happened? A summary of the elements on which you are reflecting. For university students, for instance, this could be a summary of what you read, the lectures you attended and so on. You don’t need to summarise the content itself, rather you ought to say what happened, such as which chapters you read, what lectures you went to and so on.
2. What did you feel about it? Provide a detailed explanation of your emotions. What did you feel when you read those chapters? Frustrated? Annoyed? Relaxed? Amazed? Discuss your overall feelings about what you studied. Did it help you understand the subject? Are you finding the topic easy or tough? 
3. What does it mean for the future? Explain how you will change or adapt your future thinking or behaviour. For instance, if reading a textbook chapter made you frustrated and tired you might think that an audiobook version could help in the future. Or, if you found a lecture stimulating and thought-provoking you might think you would look out for other lectures on similar topics. 

So, tip number two is to consider these three essentials of reflective writing as central components in your own work. You do not have to write them in that order – as already said, do what works for you.

If your reflection is covering several weeks of study you may wish to break it down into week-by-week sections. Or, you may find it easier to write if you break it down by themes, such as the elements of all of those weeks that amazed you, the elements that helped you understand and so on. Either way is OK, but breaking a long-term reflection into sections provides clarity. If you do break it down by themes, rather than weeks, that will show deeper thinking as you integrate ideas across all your weeks of study.

Tip number three for a good reflective writing structure is to consider how you will break it down into sections to create clarity. Themes will demonstrate deeper thinking.

One other aspect of your structure that is essential for academic reflections is ensuring it is connected with theories and properly referenced. You need to link what you say to theory wherever possible. If, for example, you say that you did not understand something as a result of reading the textbook, but felt good about it after the lecture, try to consider what that might mean from a theoretical basis. Could it be, for instance, that it ties in better with your individual style of learning? If so, you could create a link to they theory about that and reference it. This demonstrates even deeper thinking about your own learning.

So, the final tip here, tip number four, is to connect what you say to theory and reference it.

All you need is a pen and a notebook. Yes, you do need to write it by hand and not type it on your laptop, or worse still on your mobile phone. Research conducted at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology showed that school children remember more when they write by hand than using technology. It turns out that when we use our hands to write we have more “memory hooks”. When you write words on a page with a pen, you are more actively involved in creating each individual letter than you are when you hit a key on a keyboard. And that means you are more connected with what you are writing which is exactly what you need for good reflection.

So, step one – get a notebook that is just for writing your journal by hand. My favourite notebooks that I use for reflections are called “Forbes Notebooks“.

The next thing to do is to make sure you have a pen that you are comfortable with. Most of us have dozens of pens and pencils lying around the place. Your journal is personal, so any old pen that you happen to find when you are about to write your journal is not going to create that individual connection you need. Get a pen that you can keep with your journal. You will find that your journaling becomes much easier. My favoured pen is a Parker IM.

Step two is to get yourself a good pen that you use just for writing a journal.

Now that you have your essential gear, you can get going with your journal writing.

Ideally you will write your journal every day. Set aside time when you have finished studying for the day to write your journal. Make it a habit. You don’t forget to brush your teeth each day because it is a habit. If you make journaling a habit, you will do it every day without thinking about it.

The best way to make something habitual is to associate doing it with some specific event already in your existing daily timetable. For example, you could decide to write your journal each day just before you brush your teeth at night. You would have to force yourself to do that for a few weeks. Of course, you would forget every now and then, only remembering half-way through cleaning your teeth that you hadn’t written your journal. However, after a while your brain would begin to associate “writing my journal” with your “going to bed routine”. And once that happens, which is usually after about a month of forcing yourself to do it, then it will have become a habit.

So, step three in writing your journal is to set up a routine that becomes a habit.

But what should you write about in your daily journal? 

There are three good things to focus on in your daily journal. These are:

1. What happened?
2. What did you feel about it?
3. What do you think it means to you?

These are the key components of reflection, so they are a good basis for a daily journal. However, you can add anything else you like to your journal. It is, after all, entirely personal. So, there is no right or wrong.

Step four in your journal writing is simply to write. Write whatever you think is relevant and important. Whatever comes into your head about your day, just write it down.

One other way of helping to ensure that your journal has a lasting impact is to use images. Draw pictures of how you felt. A smiley face here or there, will help. Or perhaps a cloud to show you were feeling low at some point. Arrows, diagrams, tables, underlining, double underlining – whatever takes your fancy. Using images and symbols in your journal will improve its lasting value to you. The Harvard psychologist Jerome Bruner established the importance of visuals and symbols to our thinking and memory more than 50 years ago.

Step five in writing a journal is to enhance what you have written with symbols and images. Go for it…! A interesting way of thinking about this is covered in the excellent book “The Sketch Note Handbook”.

That’s it – five steps to writing a journal:

1. Get a notebook
2. Buy a decent pen
3. Establish a routine
4. Write what you feel
5. Enhance your writing with images and symbols

Keep a journal

The first step in writing a reflective essay happens before you even start planning what to write. To ensure that you are able to write a good reflection after several weeks of study you need to make sure you keep a reflective journal.

It’s best to write your journal every day. That way your thoughts will be current and you are unlikely to forget things. If you wait until near the deadline it is inevitable you will forget things that struck your mind several weeks beforehand.

Write down what happened

The first step in writing your reflective essay is to summarise what happened. This is going to be the shortest part of your essay. One of the reasons why so many students get poor marks for reflective essays is because they focus on logging what they studied, rather than dealing with the implications. So, take each of your weekly journal notes and write a short summary of what you have studied in the period running up to the deadline for the essay. This summary does not have to be long, or in great detail. All you are doing is providing context for what you will be writing next.

Explain how it made you feel

The next part of your essay should be your reaction to what you have been studying. This ought to be a substantial part of your essay. You need to explain what emotions were triggered. These can include all kinds of feelings from pleasure, to surprise or even anger. It doesn’t matter what you say about how you felt; after all, this is a personal reflection it is about you. Hence, there is no right or wrong thing to say.

Another key component of this part of your reflective essay would be to explain how your understanding or knowledge of the topic had changed. What happened to improve your ability to think about the topic? These are key factors which any lecturer or tutor will expect you to write about in this section of your reflective essay.

Say what you will do in the future

The final part of your essay should explain what you are going to do as a result of your analysis. Your emotional reactions, for instance, might lead you to study things in a different way in the future. Or you may have discovered that a particular way in which you increased your understanding could be applied to other topics. Again, there is no right or wrong answer here. However, university lecturers will expect you to discuss the implications for your future studies as a result of your reflection.

Four steps to a reflective essay

There are four steps to writing a successful reflective essay that will gain high marks. These are:

1. Keep a daily journal of your studies
2. Summarise how you learned that week’s material
3. Explain how the studying of the topic made you feel and how it increased your understanding
4. Provide details of what you will do in the future as a result of thinking about how you studied the topic

That’s all there is to it. Write your journal every day and you will then be able to use it as the basis of your reflective essays or other reflections that you are required to compile. A journal is central to good reflective practice.

That’s the essence of reflective writing. It isn’t just writing down what you have done. Rather, it is about interpreting what you have done and considering its consequences for your future behaviour or thinking.

As a university lecturer who marks a great deal of reflective writing, this is at the heart of why I have to give poor marks to students. Instead of considering the consequences, their reflections are mere “journals”. They summarise what happened but do not consider the implications. That means what they produce is not reflective writing.

If you want to produce good reflective writing then you need to consider the implications of your experiences and actions. Reflective writing is about the future more than it is about the past.

However, having said this, a commonly agreed definition of what is meant by “reflective writing” is hard to find. Indeed, you can find many different ideas as to what reflection is all about. There are several different models of reflection too.

At their heart, though, are three key things:

1. Remembering what you have done
2. Analysing what you have done
3. Thinking about what all that means.

If you go back to the 1910 ideas from John Dewey, he pointed out that we should consider reflective writing to be about a series of steps. Thinking about something, without it leading to another step, is not a reflection, according to Dewey.

Reflective writing, therefore, is about considering the steps towards something different in terms of your behaviour or thinking. 

Another important aspect of reflective writing is that it should be intensely personal. Reflection is about you. What do you see when you look in the mirror? That reflection is you. It isn’t somebody else, nor is it some abstract individual. You see yourself. In much reflective writing, students appear to want to write “academically” in the third person. But that’s not a reflection. Reflective writing is personal. If your reflective writing doesn’t include pronouns like “I” or “my” or “mine” and so on, then it isn’t really a reflection. 

So, what is reflective writing? It is something that is written in the first person that looks back at what you have done or thought and projects that forward to changes you could or will make in your behaviour or thinking. Good reflective writing focuses on the future, not the past.