By While studying, students are required to write various essays and assignments that show their understanding of a certain topic. Furthermore, they also boost their critical thinking, research, and writing skills. One of the major types of essays you will encounter is reflective essays. While working on this essay might seem simple, it is not, especially if you don’t know how to tackle the reflective essay. The reason is that they are not like your ordinary essays.
Instead, think of them as a way to express your thoughts, experiences, and insights on particular incidents and topics. Working on reflective essays allows you to look back at your life and think of the moment that shaped you.
But the question is how to write one. Well, are you also thinking the same? And that’s why while searching, you stumbled upon our guide. Then you are at the right place. In this blog, we will reveal a step-by-step guide to writing a reflective essay. So, come on! Stop scrolling and read our blog!
Reflective Essay: Top Tips for Effective Writing
A reflective essay goes beyond simple essays. They are your way to express your feelings, past good or bad experiences, and life moments with the audience. When writing them, you need to have a structured approach. Furthermore, there are certain writing strategies to implement while working. Below are some top tips for effective essay writing. They include:
1. Understand the Essay’s Purpose
That’s right! One of the key tips for writing a reflective essay is to understand why you are writing it. There are three reasons why you may have to work on this composition. They include:
- Analysing personal experiences on a particular topic.
- Additionally, they evaluate how some experiences contributed to personal growth.
- They reflect on how these experiences impact your beliefs and values.
Hence, while working, ask yourself these questions. This way you will write an effective essay. Now, come on! Let’s move to the next point!
2. Choose A Topic
The next step is to choose a topic on which you are going to write a reflective essay. It can be any of your recent experiences, life moments, or events that led to a significant impact on your life. Below are some topic ideas for you.
- An achievement or failure that shaped your experiences.
- A turning point in your life.
- Happening moments that brought joy to you.
- An influential person you are inspired by.
- A special place that holds significant value.
While selecting the topic, ensure you can easily write on this. Moreover, if you are having trouble choosing, consider seeking help from your professor or any essay writing service. They will suggest the topic you can opt for in your reflective essays that will make a valuable impact.
3. Brainstorm and Planning
That’s right! Essay writing requires proper planning. Hence, before you start writing, make sure to think about what you are going to write in your essay. Take a piece of paper and jot down whatever ideas come to your mind. Don’t worry about clarity. Instead, focus on planning. You can also read the sample reflective essays to get solid ideas.
4. Structure your Essay
When writing a reflective essay, structuring matters the most as it shapes your work and acts as a road map for your audience. Typically, essays follow a specific format, including an introduction, main body paragraphs, and conclusion. Let’s have a look at them in detail.
● Introduction
Let’s face it! The introduction is the first thing your audience is going to read. It is your responsibility to keep the readers hooked till the end. Start with an engaging anecdote. State your topic and what made you choose it.
Additionally, briefly describe the event, reflections, and what you learned. Keep your wording simple yet attractive. Also, using easier sentences is a better way to approach your essays.
● Body Paragraphs
Now divide your essay into three sections, according to how long it is. Make sure to dive deep into the details of the experience or event. Furthermore, discuss your feelings, whether they were positive or negative, what you learned, and how it shaped you as a person.
Also, connect your experiences with your personal life, values, and beliefs. Moreover, if you are having a tough time in writing, consider seeking help from the Essay Writing Service. They have experts who will help you structure your work and effectively write it. Make sure that your paragraphs connect and have a logical flow.
● Conclusion
Lastly, you need to end your essay with a solid conclusion. Summarise your work in a small paragraph. Talk about the critical reflection points. Additionally, tell if the experience had a lasting impact on your life and whether it will influence you in the future.
5. Use A Reflective Model
While writing the reflective essay, two different models will help you complete your work. They include:
- Gibbs-Reflective Cycle: This model has six different stages, including description, evaluation, feelings, analysis, conclusion, and action plan
- Kolb’s Model: Another model you can use is this one. It has four stages, including concrete experiences, observation, abstract, and experiment.
So, familiarise yourself with this reflection model and see how it applies to your essay topic. It will help you in shaping your work.
So, these are the top tips you need to follow while working on your reflective essay. Before we end the guide, let’s look at some additional tips.
Reflective Essay: Writing Tips You Need to Follow
If you want to keep your reader engaged till the end, there are some writing tips you need to follow. Come on! Let’s have a look at them. They include:
- Start as soon as possible to complete your essay on time.
- Furthermore, don’t go overboard. Instead, stick to the point.
- Also, don’t fabricate the truth. Instead, always tell the truth.
- Since reflective essays are personal, make sure to use first-person language.
- Don’t just tell the experience. Instead, analyse and reflect on them and tell how they shape you.
- Edit and revise your work once you have completed your work. For this, you can seek help from the essay writing service. They will help you get rid of grammatical errors, maintain clarity and enhance the quality. Furthermore, they will ensure your work is original.
- Lastly, seek feedback from your peers before making the final submission.
