What are Reflections?
Reflective writing is one aspect of critical thinking or analyzing. In reflective writing, you answer three important questions:
- What? (Describe, Feel, and Evaluate)
- What is the evidence or experience?
- What did I feel/think?
- What went well/poorly?
- So what? (Analyze)
- What was important about this evidence or experience?
- What impacted my feelings or thoughts?
- What did I learn about myself?
- Now what? (Conclude)
- What can I do to improve my knowledge or skill?
- In the future, what would I do differently? Why?
Reflective Writing Checklist
- Check your verb tense.
- Reflective writing can have multiple verb tenses, depending on the context of your reflection.
- Determine pronoun choice.
- Confirm with your faculty member whether you should use first person "I/we" or third person "it/he/she".
- Describe one or a few main experiences.
- It is important to limit the amount of experiences. This will help keep your reflection focused and give you the ability to provide an in-depth analysis.
- Connect to the literature or theory if needed.
- This shows the reader how you have made text-to-self connections for academic reflection.