The information below provides general guidelines for writing a reflection. Your instructor may have specific requirements for your assignment. Read your assignment instructions and check with your instructor about what is expected in your reflection.
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.