(Identifying outcomes)
Reflecting helps you to clarify what you have studied, integrate new knowledge with previous knowledge, and identify the questions you have and what you have yet to learn. .
Reflecting on mistakes can help you avoid repeating them. At the same time, reflecting on your discoveries helps identify successful principles to use again.
Many learners go through university with a passive approach to learning. Such learners engage with the learning process by accepting information that is presented to them. They often do not consider learning as a skill. Taking an active approach will help you develop your process of learning (making it easier and quicker). Such learners recognise the contestable nature of information that is presented to them. They often engage with activities, quizzes and further research to build their own understanding and viewpoint. That is a winning idea for any student.
For lots of professions, reflective practice is an important part of the job. This is valuable in many, if not all professions and is valuable for helping you continue to identify and build your professional skills development.
The table above is adapted from The Learning Centre, University of New South Wales ( 2013 )
Reflective essays
Reflective essays are academic essays; what makes an essay "good" will work for a reflective essay. What is different about a reflective essay is that the essay is about you and your thinking. However, you will need evidence from your course to back up your reflections.
You should structure a reflective essay as an essay, that is write to persuade your reader of your key reflections (or argument). The diagram above, details how to stucture your reflections through the essay. To find out more see the section on essay writing .
The following example comes from business. Thanks to Dr Colleen Hayes for the three samples.
Students were asked to write a reflective essay on their learning in the course by responding to the following question:
What key thing have you learned about corporate social responsibility in the course?
Example 1: Retelling
This writing is (1) descriptive/listing of content, not reflective and (2) not properly referenced (the definition of stakeholders is directly copied from Freeman in the lecture slides.
Example 2: Relating
One of the most important things I have learned so far is the stakeholder view of the firm. I was very interested to learn that Australia is more of a shareholder-oriented country (similar to UK/US). I come from country X, and I believe that it is also very shareholder-oriented. For example the company I used to work for did not seem to have much concern for its stakeholders. As staff, we were worked extremely hard in poor conditions without overtime pay or paid leave (employees are a stakeholder group), and the company did not care at all about its impact on the environment. The company was just so concerned with cutting costs and making more profit for shareholders - usually at the expense of other stakeholders. |
This writing involves relating to personal experience and has some integration of course concepts (stakeholders).
Example 3: Reflecting
The notion of the stakeholder challenged many of the assumptions I have about the role of corporations in society. I hope to run my own business one day, and the distinction between stakeholders and shareholders really makes me think about what responsible leadership might look like. What I appreciate about Friedman's view is its simplicity - the idea that companies pursuing their own profits creates the best outcomes for society (ref included). Adopting a stakeholder orientation (consistent with Freidman), and managing multifarious accountabilities and balancing trade-offs between them, would seem to be much more complex and a far greater challenge for leaders to navigate. However, today's internet age allows stakeholders to have global reach and a powerful voice, so I'm not sure that it would be so easy to silence or ignore them in pursuit of profit. |
More reflective (forward-looking), better citation and integration of multiple course concepts, and reflection that links with personal experience.
For this assessment, students were required to write a 1500-1800 word essay building on the themes of the course to address the question "We are all pirates". Attached under reference documents is the rubric used to mark the essay (thanks to Dr Caroline Schuster). Notice that it requires both the reflection (reflect, relate and retell) as well as the poor traditional requirements of an essay (Writing and organisation, Supporting claims with scholarly sources).
Learning journals
Use contact details to request an alternative file format.
"Our language is the reflection of ourselves..."
Mahatma Ghandi - Cries of Never (1916)
Our language is part of our identity. How we speak or write or paint or move when communicating shapes our sense of self and our presence in this world. Critical reflection uses particular language and writing styles.
Critical reflection uses particular language and writing styles, often linked to your study area. For example, critical reflection in Health disciplines is linked to evidence-based practice and therefore uses a combination of clinical language and first-hand clinician perspective. In contrast, critical reflective writing for a dance student may have technical terms and creative language. Regardless of area, reflective writing at uni needs you to link your reflection to theories. This means that there is a formal tone to reflective writing assessments.
Critical reflective writing is not just a summary or description of an event or something that you have observed. Description is needed for context in a critical reflection but the core of good reflective writing is exploring the significance of events (the ‘why’ and ‘how’) by providing analysis and insights into your thinking.
In critical reflective writing you need to:
This helps you to develop new insights and perspectives which can inform your future practice.
The language used in reflective writing allows you to discuss your personal experiences, feelings and ideas. It’s fine to refer to yourself and use “I”, “my” and “me”.
You can also use action verbs when writing about your feelings and opinions, for example, “I felt…”, “I think…”, “I realise…”.
Remember you also need to include theory to support what you are saying. Take a look at the language of reflective writing for more support in this area.
Just as there are models to help you critically reflect on your actions, thoughts and feelings, there are also models to help you write critical reflections.
The 'What? So What? Now What?' model guides your own reflections and learning from events that are significant for you. It gives you prompts to help you identify and discuss the different components of critical reflective writing.
Click on the plus symbols (+) below to see what is discussed in each section.
To help you put this model into practice for your own context, download the template provided below to use for assessments.
At uni a common form of critical reflection writing is the critical reflection essay. For a quick recap on the major differences, look at this table.
Essay | Critical reflection essay |
---|---|
Central argument | Central experience, learning event, problem or reflective focus |
Theory | Personal experience plus theory |
Third person | First person |
Past tense | Past, present and future tense |
Formal language | Formal language |
Well organised structure | Well organised structure |
Analyse and articulate | Analyse and articulate |
Try to express your reactions, feelings, attitudes and views in an open and honest way. Avoid writing what you think others ‘want to hear’.
Remember that a critical reflection should describe, analyse and evaluate? Use this checklist to shape up a draft critical reflection based on a recent experience. Don’t forget to use the SWOT model to help prompt your writing
Reflective practice toolkit, introduction.
Many people worry that they will be unable to write reflectively but chances are that you do it more than you think! It's a common task during both work and study from appraisal and planning documents to recording observations at the end of a module. The following pages will guide you through some simple techniques for reflective writing as well as how to avoid some of the most common pitfalls.
Writing reflectively involves critically analysing an experience, recording how it has impacted you and what you plan to do with your new knowledge. It can help you to reflect on a deeper level as the act of getting something down on paper often helps people to think an experience through.
The key to reflective writing is to be analytical rather than descriptive. Always ask why rather than just describing what happened during an experience.
Remember...
Adapted from The Reflective Practice Guide: an Interdisciplinary Approach / Barbara Bassot.
You can learn more about reflective writing in this handy video from Hull University:
Created by SkillsTeamHullUni
You can use reflective writing in many aspects of your work, study and even everyday life. The activities below all contain some aspect of reflective writing and are common to many people:
Both preparing for and writing job applications contain elements of reflective writing. You need to think about the experience that makes you suitable for a role and this means reflection on the skills you have developed and how they might relate to the specification. When writing your application you need to expand on what you have done and explain what you have learnt and why this matters - key elements of reflective writing.
In a similar way, undertaking an appraisal is a good time to reflect back on a certain period of time in post. You might be asked to record what went well and why as well as identifying areas for improvement.
If you have made a purchase recently you are likely to have received a request for feedback. When you leave a review of a product or service online then you need to think about the pros and cons. You may also have gone into detail about why the product was so good or the service was so bad so other people know how to judge it in the future.
Blogs are a place to offer your own opinion and can be a really good place to do some reflective writing. Blogger often take a view on something and use their site as a way to share it with the world. They will often talk about the reasons why they like/dislike something - classic reflective writing.
When researchers are working on a project they will often think about they way they are working and how it could be improved as well as considering different approaches to achieve their research goal. They will often record this in some way such as in a lab book and this questioning approach is a form of reflective writing.
Many students will be asked to include some form of reflection in an academic assignment, for example when relating a topic to their real life circumstances. They are also often asked to think about their opinion on or reactions to texts and other research and write about this in their own work.
Think about all of the activities you do on a daily basis. Do any of these contain elements of reflective writing? Make a list of all the times you have written something reflective over the last month - it will be longer than you think!
A common mistake people make when writing reflectively is to focus too much on describing their experience. Think about some of the phrases below and try to use them when writing reflectively to help you avoid this problem:
Always try and write in the first person when writing reflectively. This will help you to focus on your thoughts/feelings/experiences rather than just a description of the experience.
Many courses will also expect you to reflect on your own learning as you progress through a particular programme. You may be asked to keep some type of reflective journal or diary. Depending on the needs of your course this may or may not be assessed but if you are using one it's important to write reflectively. This can help you to look back and see how your thinking has evolved over time - something useful for job applications in the future. Students at all levels may also be asked to reflect on the work of others, either as part of a group project or through peer review of their work. This requires a slightly different approach to reflection as you are not focused on your own work but again this is a useful skill to develop for the workplace.
You can see some useful examples of reflective writing in academia from Monash University , UNSW (the University of New South Wales) and Sage . Several of these examples also include feedback from tutors which you can use to inform your own work.
Laptop/computer/broswer/research by StockSnap via Pixabay licenced under CC0.
Now that you have a better idea of what reflective writing is and how it can be used it's time to practice some techniques.
This page has given you an understanding of what reflective writing is and where it can be used in both work and study. Now that you have a better idea of how reflective writing works the next two pages will guide you through some activities you can use to get started.
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A Critical Reflection (also called a reflective essay) is a process of identifying, questioning, and assessing our deeply-held assumptions – about our knowledge, the way we perceive events and issues, our beliefs, feelings, and actions. When you reflect critically, you use course material (lectures, readings, discussions, etc.) to examine our biases, compare theories with current actions, search for causes and triggers, and identify problems at their core. Critical reflection is not a reading assignment, a summary of an activity, or an emotional outlet. Rather, the goal is to change your thinking about a subject, and thus change your behaviour.
Tip: Critical reflections are common in coursework across all disciplines, but they can take very different forms. Your instructor may ask you to develop a formal essay, produce weekly blog entries, or provide short paragraph answers to a set of questions. Read the assignment guidelines before you begin.
Writing a critical reflection happens in two phases.
A popular method for analyzing is the three stage model: What? So What? Now what?
In the What? stage, describe the issue, including your role, observations, and reactions. The what? stage helps you make initial observations about what you feel and think. At this point, there’s no need to look at your course notes or readings.
Use the questions below to guide your writing during this stage.
In the second So What? stage, try to understand on a deeper level why the issue is significant or relevant. Use information from your first stage, your course materials (readings, lectures, discussions) -- as well as previous experience and knowledge to help you think through the issue from a variety of perspectives.
Tip: Since you’ll be using more course resources in this step, review your readings and course notes before you begin writing.
Below are three perspectives you can consider:
In the third Now what? stage, explore how the experience will shape your future thinking and behaviour.
Use the following questions to guide your thinking and writing:
After completing the analysis stage, you probably have a lot of writing, but it is not yet organized into a coherent story. You need to build an organized and clear argument about what you learned and how you changed. To do so, develop a thesis statement , make an outline , write , and revise.
Develop a clear argument to help your reader understand what you learned. This argument should pull together different themes from your analysis into a main idea. You can see an example of a thesis statement in the sample reflection essay at the end of this resource.
Tip: For more help on developing thesis statements, see our Thesis statements resource
Once you have a clear thesis statement for your essay, build an outline. Below is a straightforward method to organize your essay.
Time to get writing! Work from your outline and give yourself enough time for a first draft and revisions.
Even though you are writing about your personal experience and learning, your audience may still be an academic one. Consult the assignment guidelines or ask your instructor to find out whether your writing should be formal or informal.
Below are sample annotated paragraphs from one student’s critical reflection for a course on society and privilege.
Background/context of reflection : I became aware of privileged positions in society only in recent years. I was lucky enough, privileged enough, to be ignorant of such phenomena, but for some, privilege is a daily lesson of how they do not fit into mainstream culture. In the past, I defined oppression as only that which is obvious and intentional. I never realized the part I played. However, during a class field study to investigate privileged positions in everyday environments, I learned otherwise. Thesis: Without meaning to, I caused harm by participating in a system where I gained from others’ subtle oppression. In one of these spaces, the local mall, everything from advertisements to food to products, to the locations of doorways, bathrooms and other public necessities, made clear my privilege as a white, heterosexual male.
Topic sentence : Peggy McIntosh describes privilege as an invisible knapsack of tools and advantages. This description crystalized for me when I shopped for a greeting card at the stationary store. There, as a white, heterosexual male, I felt comfortable and empowered to roam about the store as I pleased. I freely asked the clerk about a mother’s day card. Writer’s past position: Previously, I never considered that a store did anything but sell products. However, when I asked the sales clerk for same sex greeting cards, she paused for a few seconds and gave me a look that made me feel instantly uncomfortable. Some customers stopped to look at me. I felt a heat move over my face. I felt, for a moment, wrong for being in that store. I quickly clarified that I was only doing a report for school, implying that I was not in fact homosexual. Writer’s current position: The clerk’s demeanor changed. I was free to check, she said. It was the only time during the field study that I had felt the need to explain what I was doing to anyone. I could get out of the situation with a simple clarification. But what if I really was a member of the homosexual community? The looks and the silence taught me that I should be feared. I realized that, along with its products, the store was selling an image of normal. But my “normality” was another person’s “abnormality.” After I walked out of the store I felt guilty for having denied being homosexual.
Summary of learning: At the mall I realized how much we indirectly shame nonprivileged groups, even in seemingly welcoming spaces. That shame is supported every time I or any other privileged individual fails to question our advantage. And it leads to a different kind of shame carried by privileged individuals, too. Value for self and others: All of this, as Brown (2003) documents, is exacerbated by silence. Thus, the next step for me is to not only question privilege internally, but to publicly question covert bias and oppression. If I do, I may very well be shamed for speaking out. But my actions might just encourage other people to speak up as well.
Sample paragraphs adapted from James C. Olsen's Teaching Portfolio from Georgetown University .
Reflective essays are very similar to other types of writing assignments. The big difference is that they require students to reflect upon their learning experiences and integrate them into their thinking.
In addition, these papers require students to show evidence of critical thinking, synthesis, analysis, evaluation and application.
When writing a reflection paper, it helps to begin with a clear thesis statement. This means that students should begin by identifying a central idea, or theme, that is supported throughout the paper.
Then, students should organize the body of their paper around this central idea. Finally, the conclusion section should summarize both the topic and the central idea. This guide will discuss how to write an excellent reflective essay.
Table of Contents
The term “reflective” refers to the process of reflecting on one’s thoughts and actions. It also implies that students can analyze their own beliefs and attitudes to make changes.
This type of writing assignment requires students to think critically about their ideas and opinions.
This can be difficult for many people because we often have strong feelings about things. However, when writing a reflective essay, students must try to remain objective. They need to keep an open mind and avoid getting caught up in their emotions.
Students who struggle with this task may benefit from using some self-reflection techniques. For example, they could ask themselves questions such as: What am I feeling right now? Why does this matter to me?
Writing a good reflective essay involves more than just stating your opinion on a particular issue. Students should consider all sides of the argument in their reflective essay.
They should also take time to identify what they learned during the semester. By doing so, students can use their reflections to improve their understanding of the subject matter.
Once you understand the purpose of a reflective essay, you can start brainstorming topics for your paper.
There are several different ways to approach a reflective essay. You might want to choose a specific topic that interests you, or you could simply pick something at random.
Regardless of which method you decide to use, remember that you don’t have to stick to one specific format.
There are different models that you could use to structure your reflective essay. Here are a few of them:
This model was developed by Brookfield (1962). In his book, he suggests that there are four steps involved in the process of reflection.
First, students must define the problem. Then, they should describe their initial reactions to the situation. Next, they should explain why they feel the way they do. Finally, they should provide suggestions for future action.
In other words, students should first identify the problem, then explain their reasons for having those feelings, and finally suggest solutions to the problem.
Atkins and Murphy (1991) developed a model that is based on the work of Brookfield. Their model includes five stages:
Students must first recognize that they have a problem before they can begin to reflect.
Students must describe the problem in detail. This step helps them clarify their thoughts and feelings.
Students must examine the causes of the problem.
Students must evaluate possible solutions to the problem. These include both positive and negative aspects of each idea.
Students must choose among various options.
The Gibbs cycle (Gibbs, 1965) is another model that can help students organize their ideas for a reflective essay. It consists of three phases:
The first phase of this model requires students to define the problem clearly. They should be able to state exactly what it is that they need to learn about a certain topic.
After defining the problem, students should explain how they feel about it. They should write down any emotions that they experience while thinking about the problem.
Once they’ve explained their feelings, students should come up with potential solutions to the problem. They may even find additional problems that they didn’t think of originally.
Johns (1993) has developed a model that emphasizes the importance of self-reflection. His model involves six steps:
Students must determine their goals for writing a reflective essay. For example, they may want to improve their academic performance or develop better study habits.
Students must establish the setting in which they will conduct their reflections. This means that they must consider factors such as time constraints, the type of assignment, and the purpose of the assignment.
Students must select one specific issue to focus on during their reflections.
Students must create a plan for conducting their research. They should determine who they will interview, what questions they will ask, where they will look for information, and so forth.
Students must conduct interviews with people who are knowledgeable about the selected issue.
Students must coherently write their reflections.
The Kolb learning cycle (Kolb, 1984) is similar to Johns’ model because it also focuses on the importance of planning and organizing activities.
However, it differs from Johns’ model in that it emphasizes the importance of identifying the learner’s current level of knowledge before beginning a new activity. In other words, students begin by observing themselves and then move on to more abstract concepts.
Students start by becoming aware of their knowledge and skills. Then, they observe themselves using these skills.
Next, they reflect upon their observations and attempt to identify the underlying reasons why they behaved in the way they did. Finally, they use this understanding to change their behavior.
These models will help you develop an outline for your reflective essay. If you’re struggling to figure out where to start, try using one of these models as a starting point.
Reflective essays have three main parts: introduction, body, and conclusion. Each part has its structure. Here is a brief description of each section.
This is usually written at the very beginning of the paper. It provides background information about the topic and explains how the student became interested in it.
This is the most important part of the essay. The writer describes his/her thoughts and experiences related to the topic. You can include any number of examples and details here.
This is the final paragraph of the essay. It summarizes the key points discussed in the body of the paper.
There are many different ways to approach a reflective essay. These tips will help you get started.
Before you even think about writing your reflective essay, you need to know what you want to say.
Your purpose for writing the essay should be clear. What do you hope to accomplish? Why are you doing this project?
You should have a general idea of what you want to cover in your essay. Make sure that you have enough time to complete it.
Be specific when describing events or situations. Don’t just tell readers what happened. Instead, describe the event in detail.
Use concrete examples whenever possible. This helps make your ideas easier to understand.
Don’t try to address too many topics at once. Choose one issue and focus on it throughout the entire paper.
Make sure that your writing is easy to read. Avoid long sentences and complex vocabulary.
Read over your work carefully before submitting it. Look for spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, and other problems.
Always follow the formatting guidelines provided with your course materials. For example, if you’re writing a research paper, always cite sources within the text.
Include all relevant sources (books, articles, websites) in your bibliography. Remember to provide full citations.
Keep track of all your sources by using a separate document. Try to keep your notes organized so that you don’t forget anything.
Reading other students’ papers can give you valuable insight into effective writing techniques.
If you have questions about the assignment, ask them! Many professors are willing to help their students learn more about academic writing.
Ask your professor for feedback after completing the assignment. He/she may offer suggestions on how to improve your writing.
Revising your paper will ensure that you meet all requirements. If you find yourself stuck, take some time off from the task until you feel ready to continue working on it.
The main goal of a reflective essay is to allow the student to examine his/her own beliefs, attitudes, values, and behaviors.
The following steps outline the process for writing a reflective essay:
The first step is to define the topic. You must identify the question you wish to answer.
Selecting an approach involves deciding whether you will use a personal narrative, a case study, or a comparison-contrast essay.
An outline is a plan of action that shows where you intend to go with your essay. The outline includes information such as the thesis statement, supporting details, and conclusion.
Researching the topic means gathering information about the subject matter. You may need to conduct interviews, review books, and visit websites.
Organizing your notes is important because it allows you to easily locate the information you need.
Drafting the introduction requires you to write a summary paragraph that introduces your topic. This introductory paragraph should include the title of the essay, a brief overview of the topic, and any background information.
Drafting the body paragraphs is similar to drafting the introduction. In this section, you develop each point by providing evidence to support your argument.
Proofreading and editing are necessary steps to ensure that your essay meets all the criteria required by your instructor.
We’ve outlined some tips to help you write a high-quality reflective essay below:
Before beginning your reflective essay, think carefully about what you want to achieve. Is there a specific purpose? Do you want to make a particular point? Do you want to convince someone else of something?
Be sure to be very clear about the topic you choose. Make sure you know exactly what you are trying to say.
Use facts and examples to prove your points. When possible, provide quotations from sources.
Plagiarism is when you copy another person’s work without giving credit to the original author. It is illegal and unethical.
Read your paper over several times before submitting it. Check spelling, grammar, and punctuation.
Don’t rush through the writing process. Take enough time to do a good job.
Reflective essays are a great way to improve your critical thinking skills and learn how to express yourself more effectively. They also help you analyze your thoughts and feelings.
3-minute read
If you are at university, you may be asked to write a reflective essay at some point. This is particularly common on courses with a work-based learning focus. But what exactly is a reflective essay ?
A reflective essay is a paper in which you write about your own experiences, a bit like an academic diary entry! The idea is to help you think about something that happened in your life.
For example, a student nurse might be asked to write a reflective essay on a work placement. They would then use this to highlight what happened and what they learned from the experience.
To see what your essay should include, we can look to Professor Graham Gibbs’ reflective cycle . This is designed to help people learn from experience and involves the following steps:
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The key is to make sure all of the above ‘steps’ are included somewhere in your reflective essay.
While there are no hard rules about how to structure a reflective essay, it helps to keep things simple. The basic structure should therefore be something like this:
If you cite any sources in your essay, you will also need a reference list at the end. Cover all of these things in your work and you should have a good reflective essay on your hands! But if you need anyone to offer feedback on the clarity and structure of your work, feel free to get in touch .
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Learning outcomes.
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
As you know, one of the most important aspects of improving as a writer is the ability to evaluate yourself and your writing. Certainly, writing assignments help you, but it is important to learn this kind of evaluation for yourself and work to improve. Moreover, as you deconstruct your writing, you will recognize some aspects that carry over to other courses and disciplines, thus demonstrating the universality of writing. Use this rubric to help you plan, write, or review your reflective essay.
| The text always adheres to the “Editing Focus” of this chapter: clear use of pronouns, as discussed in Section 20.6. The text shows ample evidence of the writer’s intent to consciously meet or challenge conventional expectations in rhetorically effective ways. | The writer consistently explains their progress, clearly demonstrating purpose and a combination of thought and narrative in an expert way. Well-chosen transitions and consistently clear connective ideas link the parts of the reflection. | The writer consistently provides meaningful analysis, examples, explanations, observations, speculation, and honest criticism that lead to a thoughtful and purposeful self-evaluation. |
| The text usually adheres to the “Editing Focus” of this chapter: clear use of pronouns, as discussed in Section 20.6. The text shows some evidence of the writer’s intent to consciously meet or challenge conventional expectations in rhetorically effective ways. | The writer explains their progress, clearly demonstrating purpose and a combination of thought and narrative. Transitions, if not always enough, and generally clear connective ideas link the parts of the reflection. | The writer usually provides meaningful analysis, examples, explanations, observations, speculation, and honest criticism that lead to purposeful and thoughtful self-evaluation. However, some areas may be somewhat less developed than others. |
| The text generally adheres to the “Editing Focus” of this chapter: clear use of pronouns, as discussed in Section 20.6. The text shows limited evidence of the writer’s intent to consciously meet or challenge conventional expectations in rhetorically effective ways. | The writer explains their progress, if not always clearly demonstrating purpose and a combination of thought and narrative. Some transitions help achieve coherence, but there are not quite enough, nor are ideas consistently connected. | The writer provides some meaningful analysis, examples, explanations, observations, speculation, and honest, if sometimes superficial, criticism that lead to purposeful and occasionally thoughtful self-evaluation. Some or even most areas may be less developed than others. |
| The text occasionally adheres to the “Editing Focus” of this chapter: clear use of pronouns, as discussed in Section 20.6. The text shows emerging evidence of the writer’s intent to consciously meet or challenge conventional expectations in rhetorically effective ways. | The writer attempts to explain their progress but does not clearly demonstrate purpose or a combination of thought and narrative. There may be too much of one or too little of both. Transitions are either missing or ineffective, as are connecting ideas. The essay may be difficult to follow throughout or in places. | The writer provides a minimum of meaningful details, analysis, examples, explanations, observations, speculation, and honest criticism that lead to purposeful and thoughtful self-evaluation. Some or even most areas may be far less developed than others, or all areas may need considerable elaboration. |
| The text does not adhere to the “Editing Focus” of this chapter: clear use of pronouns, as discussed in Section 20.6. The text shows little to no evidence of the writer’s intent to consciously meet or challenge conventional expectations in rhetorically effective ways. | The paper shows little or no progression through the writer’s growth and demonstrates minimal attention to purpose or a combination of thought and narrative in a useful way. There may be too much of one or too little of both. Transitions are either missing or ineffective, and the essay may be difficult to follow throughout or in places. | The writer provides few meaningful details, analysis, examples, explanations, observations, speculation, or honest criticism that leads to purposeful and thoughtful self-evaluation. Most areas are seriously undeveloped. |
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Advice on how to write reflectively.
Reflective writing gives you an opportunity to think deeply about something you've learned or an experience you've had.
Watch the video below for a quick introduction to reflective writing. The video includes an example of reflecting on practice, but the approach is equally useful when reflecting on theory.
Reflecting on practice.
Reflective writing may ask you to consider the link between theory (what you study, discuss and read about at university) and practice (what you do, the application of the theory in the workplace). Reflection on practical contexts enables you to explore the relationship between theory and practice in an authentic and concrete way.
"Yesterday’s class brought Vygotsky’s concepts of scaffolding and the ‘significant other’ into sharp focus for me. Without instruction, ‘Emily’ was able to scaffold ‘Emma’s’ solving of the Keystone Puzzle without directing her or supplying her with the answer – she acted as the ‘significant other’. It really highlighted for me the fact that I do not always have to directly be involved in students’ learning, and that students have learning and knowledge they bring to the classroom context."
De-identify actual people you have observed or dealt with on placement or work experience using pseudonyms (other names, job titles, initials or even numbers so that real identities are protected). E.g.:
"The lectures and tutes this semester have broadened my views of what sustainability is and the different scales by which we can view it . I learned that sustainability is not only something that differs at an individual level in terms of how we approach it ourselves, but also how it differs in scale. We might look at what we do individually to act sustainably, such as in what and how we recycle, but when we think about how a city or state does this, we need to consider pollution, rubbish collection and a range of other systems that point to sustainability on a much larger scale."
"On the ward rounds yesterday, I felt Mr G’s mobility had noticeably improved from last week. This may be due to the altered physio program we have implemented and it allowed me to experience a real feeling of satisfaction that I had made a real difference."
Action verbs are usually expressing feelings and thoughts in reflective writing, e.g. felt, thought, considered, experienced, wondered, remembered, discovered, learned.
Some reflection tasks are purely theoretical, where you are asked to consider texts you have read, or ideas you may have discussed in tutorials, and reflect on them.
"Comparing the approaches of Mayr and Ulich (2009) and Laevers (2005) to what 'wellbeing' means for the early childhood setting was very illustrative in that I discovered they seek to do similar things but within different frameworks. Analysing the two constructs highlighted that the detail in Mayr and Ulich’s framework provided a much richer framework in defining and measuring wellbeing than Laevers’ does."
When writing reflectively for the first time, it’s not uncommon to produce a summary or description of the event or experience without deeply reflecting on it.
Reflective writing needs to go beyond simply summarising what happened. Your reader needs to gain an insight into what the experience meant to you, how you feel about it, how it connects to other things you’ve experienced or studied and what you plan to do in response.
To be sure you don’t leave out any of these critical elements of reflection, consider writing using the describe, interpret, evaluate, plan (DIEP) model to help.
DIEP approach adapted from: RMIT Study and Learning Centre. (2010). Reflective writing: DIEP .
You can and should refer to yourself in your reflection using personal pronouns, e.g. I, we...
Begin by describing the situation. What did you see, hear, do, read or see? Be as brief and objective as possible.
Starting phrases:
Interpret what happened. What new insights have you gained? How does this experience connect with other things you’ve learned or experienced before? How did the experience make you feel?
Make a judgement. How useful was this experience for you? What is your opinion? Why do you think this might be?
Comment on how this experience might inform your future thoughts or actions. How could you apply what you’ve learned from the experience in the future? How might the experience relate to your degree or future professional life?
[TS] The most surprising insight I have gained so far is how important recording and distributing succinct and accurate information is to the success of the project. [D] In the first week of my internship, I was asked to record some meeting minutes and distribute them to the project team and the client. [I] I initially felt offended as the task appeared trivial to me; it was something we rarely did during team meetings at university. [E] However, after speaking with my industry supervisor, I began to understand how important it is to keep a clear record of the meaningful points raised during meetings. [I] Making accurate notes of the key outcomes was harder than I expected as the rest of my team was relying on my minutes to know what they needed to do. [D]After reviewing my minutes, my supervisor agreed that they were sufficiently clear and accurate. [I] I’ve realised that poorly recorded minutes could have resulted in missed deadlines, miscommunication and costly implications for our contract. [P] To improve my ability to take notes I plan on reviewing the minutes made by my colleagues for other meetings and to investigate note taking techniques such as mind mapping (Trevelyan, 2014). Mind mapping uses links and annotations to record relationships between words and indicate significance. [I] This will help me to continue to develop my skills in this area and develop my ability to “prepare high quality engineering documents” as part of attaining the Stage 1 competency of written communication (Engineers Australia, 2018).
Trevelyan, J. P. (2014). The making of an expert engineer: How to have a wonderful career creating a better world and spending lots of money belonging to other people . Leiden, The Netherlands: CRC Press/Balkema.
Ask yourself:
When editing your draft, try colour coding each element of DIEP to be sure you have a balance of elements.
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07 August, 2020
17 minutes read
Author: Elizabeth Brown
A reflective essay is a personal perspective on an issue or topic. This article will look at how to write an excellent reflexive account of your experience, provide you with reflexive essay framework to help you plan and organize your essay and give you a good grounding of what good reflective writing looks like.
A reflective essay requires the writer to examine his experiences and explore how these experiences have helped him develop and shaped him as a person. It is essentially an analysis of your own experience focusing on what you’ve learned.
Don’t confuse reflexive analysis with the rhetorical one. If you need assistance figuring out how to write a rhetorical analysis , give our guide a read!
Based on the reflective essay definition, this paper will follow a logical and thought-through plan . It will be a discussion that centers around a topic or issue. The essay should strive to achieve a balance between description and personal feelings.
It requires a clear line of thought, evidence, and examples to help you discuss your reflections. Moreover, a proper paper requires an analytical approach . There are three main types of a reflective essay: theory-based, a case study or an essay based on one’s personal experience.
Unlike most academic forms of writing, this writing is based on personal experiences and thoughts. As such, first-person writing position where the writer can refer to his own thoughts and feelings is essential. If the writer talks about psychology or medicine, it is best to use the first-person reference as little as possible to keep the tone objective and science-backed.
To write this paper, you need to recollect and share personal experience . However, there is still a chance that you’ll be asked to talk about a more complex topic.
By the way, if you are looking for good ideas on how to choose a good argumentative essay topic , check out our latest guide to help you out!
The convention of an academic reflective essay writing will vary slightly depending on your area of study. A good reflective essay will be written geared towards its intended audience. These are the general criteria that form the core of a well-written piece:
These seven criteria form the principles of writing an excellent reflective essay.
Still need help with your essay? Handmade Writing is here to assist you!
The purpose of a reflective essay is for a writer to reflect upon experience and learn from it . Reflection is a useful process that helps you make sense of things and gain valuable lessons from your experience. Reflective essay writing allows you to demonstrate that you can think critically about your own skills or practice strategies implementations to learn and improve without outside guidance.
Another purpose is to analyze the event or topic you are describing and emphasize how you’ll apply what you’ve learned.
Don’t forget to adjust the formatting of your essay. There are four main format styles of any academic piece. Discover all of them from our essay format guide!
Related Posts: Essay outline | Essay format Guide
A good way to develop a reflective essay plan is by using a framework that exists. A framework will let help you break the experience down logical and make the answer easier to organize. Popular frameworks include: Schon’s (1983) Reflection in action and reflection on action .
Schon wrote ‘The Reflective Practitioner’ in 1983 in which he describes reflection-in-action and reflection-on-action as tools for learning how to meet challenges that do not conform to formulas learned in school through improvisation. He mentioned two types of reflection : one during and one after. By being aware of these processes while on a work-experience trail or clinical assignment you have to write a reflective account for, you get to understand the process better. So good questions to ask in a reflective journal could be:
<td “200”>Reflection-pre-action <td “200”>Reflection-in-action <td “200”>Reflection-on-Action<td “200”>What might happen? <td “200”>What is happening in the situation? <td “200”>What were your insights after?<td “200”>What possible challenges will you face? <td “200”>Is it working out as you expected? <td “200”>How did it go in retrospect?<td “200”>How will you prepare for the situation? <td “200”>What are the challenges you are dealing with? <td “200”>What did you value and why?<td “200”> <td “200”>What can you do to make the experience a successful one? <td “200”>What would you do differently before or during a similar situation?<td “200”> <td “200”>What are you learning? <td “200”>What have you learned?
This will give you a good frame for your paper and help you analyze your experience.
Kolb’s reflective framework works in four stages:
Gibbs model is an extension of Kolb’s. Gibb’s reflection cycle is a popular model used in reflective writing. There are six stages in the cycle.
The Driscoll Method break the process down into three questions. What (Description), So What (Analysis) and Now What (Proposed action). Rolf et al 2001 extended the model further by giving more in-depth and reflexive questions.
This model is mostly used for clinical experiences in degrees related to medicine such as nursing or genetic counseling. It helps to get students comfortable thinking over each experience and adapting to situations.
This is just a selection of basic models of this type of writing. And there are more in-depth models out there if you’re writing a very advanced reflective essay. These models are good for beginner level essays. Each model has its strengths and weaknesses. So, it is best to use one that allows you to answer the set question fully.
This written piece can follow many different structures depending on the subject area . So, check your assignment to make sure you don’t have a specifically assigned structural breakdown. For example, an essay that follows Gibbs plan directly with six labeled paragraphs is typical in nursing assignments. A more typical piece will follow a standard structure of an introduction, main body, and conclusion. Now, let’s look into details on how to craft each of these essay parts.
There are several good ways to start a reflective essay . Remember that an introduction to a reflective essay differs depending on upon what kind of reflection is involved. A science-based introduction should be brief and direct introducing the issue you plan on discussing and its context.
Related post: How to write an Essay Introduction
For example, a nursing student might want to discuss the overreliance on medical journals in the industry and why peer-reviewed journals led to mistaken information. In this case, one good way how to start a reflective essay introduction is by introducing a thesis statement. Help the reader see the real value of your work.
Do you need help with your thesis statement? Take a look at our recent guide explaining what is a thesis statement .
Let’s look at some reflective essay examples.
‘During my first month working at Hospital X, I became aware just how many doctors treated peer-views journal articles as a gospel act. This is a dangerous practice that because of (a), (b) and (c) could impact patients negatively.’
The reflective essay on English class would begin differently. In fact, it should be more personal and sound less bookish .
The main body of the essay should focus on specific examples of the issue in question. A short description should be used for the opener. Each paragraph of this piece should begin with an argument supporting the thesis statement.
The most part of each paragraph should be a reflexive analysis of the situation and evaluation . Each paragraph should end with a concluding sentence that caps the argument. In a science-based essay, it is important to use theories, other studies from journals and source-based material to argue and support your position in an objective manner.
A conclusion should provide a summary of the issues explored, remind the reader of the purpose of the essay and suggest an appropriate course of action in relation to the needs identified in the body of the essay.
This is mostly an action plan for the future. However, if appropriate a writer can call readers to action or ask questions. Make sure that the conclusion is powerful enough for readers to remember it. In most cases, an introduction and a conclusion is the only thing your audience will remember.
Here are some good topics for a reflective essay. We’ve decided to categorize them to help you find good titles for reflective essays that fit your requirement.
Medicine-related topics:
Topics on teamwork:
Topics on personal experiences:
Academic topics:
Related Posts: Research Paper topics | Compare&Contrast Essay topics
Tips on writing a good reflective essay.
Some good general tips include the following:
As long as you use tips by HandMade Writing, you’ll end up having a great piece. Just stick to our recommendations. And should you need the help of a pro essay writer service, remember that we’re here to help!
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Have you watched or read something that impressed you much? In this case, you may want to talk about it in your essay. Often, students write such a paper not because they genuinely want to share something but because the professor wants to check how they have mastered the material. Thus, this article will give instructions to help you write an exciting and valuable reflection paper.
Before we share what you need to know about effective reflection paper writing, we need to clarify what this type of essay is. It is your personal opinion and reaction about something, e.g., a movie or a trip. Accordingly, you must write about how that topic affected you instead of using only facts and arguments. As such, these papers are very appealing, and most students enjoy writing them. Of course, some don’t like these and rely on a writing essay service to complete a paper in no time.
In essence, the reflection’s purpose is to create a paper expressing your thoughts and opinions about the main topic. There are a few variations of reflection here, and we will explain each below.
To write a reflection paper, you must pay close attention to the type you use. Word count is low here, so you must stay focused and use all the steps and proper elements. The essential element is to know about three different types. These will determine how to write a good reflection paper, how you need to optimize body paragraphs, and so much more. It is also one reason that makes writing reflection papers so hard.
It is the most common and hardest type. It will be based on your study and has to include different points. For example, you need to elaborate on what you have learned, the experiences you received, and how and what challenges it took. However, you don’t have enough room, so you will need to be professional in this kind of academic writing, and you still need to focus on the main themes. Additionally, you will have to provide details about your experiences and reactions and analyze them in detail. Studying reflection paper examples may be necessary to get a general idea.
Here, you also need to provide your experiences. Besides, you will also have to explain how it concerns you. There are countless examples and plenty of things you are about to discover. It differs from a critical reflection paper and focuses more on the experience’s personal element than anything else. You can always write a personal reflection essay how you like and want, but try to focus on the essential occasion.
Being a pivotal component of education, a reflection paper plays a significant role in conveying the impact of literature, particularly books, on the individual. It necessitates clearly articulating how the reading material has influenced and shaped personal experiences. At many educational institutions, crafting a reflection on literature is a standard assignment. In meeting this requirement, it is essential to encompass all key aspects of this academic genre. Thus, the expected length of a reflection paper typically ranges from 2 to 3 pages, ensuring a concise yet comprehensive exploration of the insights gained from the literary experience.
A reflection assignment is a powerful tool for personal growth and learning, allowing individuals to explore their experiences and derive meaning from them. Various approaches to thoughtful inquiry provide frameworks that can significantly enrich the narrative of a reflective essay. By incorporating these theories, writers can deepen their self-awareness, analyze their experiences from different perspectives, and articulate the transformative journey within their narratives. This exploration delves into five prominent approaches, each offering a unique lens through which individuals can reflect on something.
Graham Gibbs’ model offers a structured approach with six stages: Description, Feelings, Evaluation, Analysis, Conclusion, and Action Plan. This cycle ensures a comprehensive exploration of the experience by systematically guiding writers through each step. From initial impressions to actionable insights, Gibbs’ Reflective Cycle provides a robust framework for dissecting and creating a personal experience essay.
David Boud’s model comprises Descriptive Reflection, Dialogic Reflection, and Critical Reflection. By progressing through these levels, writers can move beyond surface-level observations, engage in a meaningful internal dialogue, and critically evaluate the broader implications of their experiences. Consequently, Boud’s model encourages writers to delve into the complexity of their reflections, fostering a more profound understanding of the self and the surrounding context.
Donald Schön’s model distinguishes between Reflection-in-Action, Reflection-on-Action, and Knowing-in-Action. This approach emphasizes the importance of reflecting in real time, analyzing past experiences, and understanding how knowledge shapes future actions. Hence, Schön’s Reflective Practitioner offers a dynamic perspective that aligns with the ever-evolving nature of personal and professional development.
Stephen Brookfield’s model encourages writers to view their experiences through four distinct lenses: Autobiographical, Student, Colleague, and Theoretical. By adopting these different perspectives, writers gain a holistic understanding of their experiences, considering personal biases, the viewpoints of others, and theoretical frameworks that contribute to a more comprehensive self-reflection paper.
Sensing, Selecting, Executing, and Evaluating form the four stages of this model. Writers following this approach systematically progress through decision-making, implementation, and reflection, offering a practical reflection essay structure for examining the entire process. Particularly, Atkins and Murphy’s Model ensures writers reflect on the outcomes, decision-making, and implementation phases.
John Dewey’s model follows a problem-solving approach with four stages: Identifying a Problem, Describing the Problem, Suggesting Solutions, and Testing Solutions. This model emphasizes recognizing challenges, contextualizing them, generating solutions, and assessing their effectiveness. Thus, Dewey’s Reflective Thinking aligns reflection with practical problem-solving, making it applicable in various contexts.
That being said, incorporating these reflective inquiry approaches into essay narratives enables writers to transcend surface-level descriptions, fostering a more profound understanding of their experiences. Whether examining emotions, analyzing actions, or considering multiple perspectives, these frameworks provide a structured pathway for meaningful self-discovery and growth.
Writing a reflection paper involves more than simply recounting experiences; it requires a thoughtful and organized approach to convey personal insights and growth effectively. That is why creating a reflective essay outline and adhering to a specific format can enhance the clarity and coherence of your reflective essay.
Reflection Paper Introduction:
Body Paragraphs:
Description:
Evaluation:
Conclusion:
Action Plan (Optional):
Here, we can see one crucial fact about reflective writing. All papers of this kind must use proper formatting. Admittedly, a reflective paper format will make your essay look as it should, and you won’t have any issues with your professor making any mistakes possible. In simple terms, this is the template you can use for all papers of this kind.
To encourage you to explore your ideas for different reflective essay topics , we will have to interpret the main facts below so you can use them. Keep in mind that your school may have a different requirement, so you will have to talk to your professor and get the guidelines to use them to write a reflection essay.
An academic writing is different worldwide, but you must do this before starting any essay:
How to start a reflection paper? For this purpose, we will have a complete process of creating an effective reflective paper. All the experts use this simple guide, and it can have a huge effect on your writing. Undoubtedly, each reflective paper must follow the points, so you can imagine how crucial these are. If you skip at least one, you can finish poorly and get a lower grade. While at college, you can use these all the time but only on papers of this kind.
The first is to pick the topic and thesis statement for reflective essay. Thus, you will have an easier time writing, and you will be able to focus more on the things you like and find interesting. You can also find some self-reflection paper examples . If the topic is not something you can opt for, you will probably have a harder time. Indeed, your chosen topic must perfectly match your experience and opinion and make you passionate. This is one of the reasons why so many students need help and want to get a good reflection paper done. They don’t want to write about some topic they don’t like. Luckily, you can always buy a research paper and get it over with.
You must write about what you have learned from the experience you are defining. Try to match the readers. They will want to be able to link up with you, and they will need that. In other words, if you can choose this, you already have a good reflection paper. They should be able to relate to that from reading your essay. Additionally, you can use strong words and many details if you are trying to define this from a book. At college, this is essential.
This can be an interesting part. You will need to relax and write down all the ideas that you have on your mind for self-reflective writing. It is not substantial how silly they are or how special they sound. Just write them down. Once you are done, you can organize them and make corrections. You should start with a title page when this is a more significant element. In general, you will have to write down anything memorable that may have any impact on the essay you are writing now.
✏️Example:
Main theme: A constant fear of missing out.
Now, you will need to choose and analyze that idea in depth. You will need to write about how and why it hit you and your experience at the end. This is more important than you may believe and has a huge role. While at school, you always need to ask yourself how to make a self-reflection assignment and why. These are mandatory questions for all types of writing, which can help you get your desired grade.
✏️Examples of reflective writing:
You will need to write about the connection between what you thought about that idea, your experience, and what you observed. Try to link these simply and reach your readers as well. It may sound obvious, but one element can be essential for understanding. If you are writing a reflection essay about the book, you must say something about the author, the characters’ names, and how it affected you.
Writing a reflective essay is a powerful vehicle for self-discovery and learning, allowing you to delve into your experiences and extract valuable insights. Here are six essential tips to enhance the effectiveness of your reflection paper:
Bring your experiences to life by vividly describing the details. Engage your reader’s senses with colorful language, capturing the moment’s sights, sounds, and emotions, especially if you are writing a reflection paper on a book. Transport them into the scene by painting a rich picture, allowing them to connect with your experience on a deeper level. Whether it’s a significant life event or a subtle moment of realization, the power of your reflection lies in the ability to convey the experience with clarity and depth.
Reflection papers are inherently personal, so embrace the use of first-person pronouns. This approach allows you to express your thoughts, feelings, and perceptions authentically. Accordingly, using “I” and “me” invites the reader into your journey, fostering a connection and providing a more genuine reflection of your experiences. Don’t shy away from sharing your perspective; it is the foundation of a reflection paper format.
Strike a balance between personal reflections and objective analysis. While conveying your emotions and subjective experience is crucial, incorporate objective elements to provide context and depth to your reflection in psychology and self-development. Besides, consider the broader implications of your experience and how it fits into the larger socio-cultural or academic context. This balance ensures that your reflection is both introspective and intellectually engaging.
Authenticity is the heart of reflective writing. Be honest with yourself and your readers about your thoughts and emotions. Share the highs and lows, acknowledging moments of uncertainty or personal growth. No doubt, readers connect with authenticity, adding depth to your narrative. Also, avoid embellishment or artificial positivity; let your genuine voice shine through, creating a narrative that resonates with sincerity.
Go beyond surface-level descriptions by engaging in critical self-reflection. Thereupon, challenge your assumptions, question your beliefs, and analyze your thought processes during the experience. After, consider how external factors or societal influences may have shaped your perspective. Critical self-reflection demonstrates intellectual rigor and a willingness to explore the complexities of your thoughts, contributing to a more nuanced and insightful reflection.
A reflection paper is not just about recounting an experience; it’s an opportunity to showcase personal growth and learning. Thus, reflect on how the experience has influenced your beliefs, attitudes, or actions. Discuss any changes in your mindset or behavior that have resulted from this reflection. Plus, articulate the lessons learned and highlight the ongoing process of development. Demonstrating growth adds a forward-looking dimension to your reflection, illustrating the transformative impact of your experiences.
Incorporating these tips into your reflective writing process will make your paper more engaging and provide a platform for genuine self-exploration and learning. Embrace the opportunity to share your unique perspective, allowing your reflection to resonate authentically with yourself and your readers.
“Reflecting on the Moment I Received a Long-Desired Possession” I still vividly remember the day I received the item I had been longing for – a sleek, silver MacBook Pro laptop. It was a momentous occasion for me, as I had been saving up for it for months and constantly researching and comparing different models and features. The laptop symbolized a new level of independence and creativity for me, and I was beyond excited to finally have it in my hands. As I eagerly tore open the box, I felt a rush of emotions – excitement, gratitude, and a sense of accomplishment. I had worked hard for this, and it was a tangible representation of my efforts and determination. I felt proud of myself for setting a goal and following through with it, and I couldn’t wait to start using my new laptop to its full potential. Using the MacBook Pro was like a dream come true. Its sleek design, fast processing speed, and advanced features made it so much easier for me to accomplish tasks and unleash my creativity. Whether I was working on school projects, writing personal essays, or just browsing the web, I felt inspired and empowered. This experience taught me a valuable lesson about the power of perseverance and hard work. I learned that if I set my mind to something and put in the effort, I can make it happen. This sense of control and autonomy was empowering and gave me a new level of confidence. In conclusion, receiving my long-desired MacBook Pro was a moment that will stay with me for a long time. It taught me about the rewards of hard work and perseverance, and gave me a new sense of confidence and independence. I am grateful for this experience, and I am looking forward to using my laptop for many years to come.
As you already know, writing a reflective essay requires speaking from experience and expressing yourself. That means that not only do you need to have an understanding of a specific matter. But you have to find a relation between the subject of the writing and yourself. That is related to creative skills, as interpreting that connection and experience is not an easy matter.
When writing such assignments, knowing how to pick your topic is crucial. For that, you should choose something of interest, and it can be anything dear to you—places, events, or meaningful moments with special people.
Always conduct thoughtful research. Finding information about your topic is crucial, as you must not only speak with your experiences but be able to confirm that with some facts and examples too. It is vital to ensure that you do not make up facts by yourself and provide truthful information, see from your perspective, and explain with your understanding.
Keep these tips in mind when selecting your reflective essay topic. They will greatly help and make the writing process more comfortable. Now it’s time to give you another shoulder. Check down below, and you will find reflective essay topic examples that inspire you to create the perfect one.
In navigating the landscape of reflective writing, embracing vivid descriptions, first-person engagement, and a delicate balance of personal and objective elements is essential. Authenticity and honesty form the bedrock of compelling reflections, creating connections between writer and reader. Otherwise, you can ask for help and Google someone who will perform your “ write my paper for me ” request or try to do it yourself.
Critical self-reflection elevates the discourse, fostering intellectual exploration. A well-crafted reflection paper should be a testament to growth and learning. As you embark on your reflective journey, remember that each experience, when authentically shared, has the potential to resonate profoundly. Embrace the transformative power of your narrative and let the true essence of your journey unfold!
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Reflective writing involves describing your experiences and critically analysing what you’ve learnt from those experiences. There are two steps:
Make sure you check with teaching staff or your assignment for specific requirements in your subject or discipline.
There are many models to help you reflect on an event or new information. They all follow a common pattern of moving from describing to interpreting and planning the next steps. These models can also help you to structure your writing in a reflection.
If you haven’t been given specific instructions, use either the What? So what? Now what? or Gibbs model to structure your writing.
The What? So what? Now what? (Rolfe et al., 2001) model is often applied in the Health and Physical Sciences.
Description:
Interpretation:
Adapted from Bartlett and Derrington (2021).
The Gibbs Reflective Cycle (Gibbs, 1988) is a 6-step reflective model. It is often applied in Education, Nursing, Engineering and Applied Sciences.
What happened? Where, when and with whom?
What were you thinking or feeling when it happened?
What was good and bad about the experience?
This is one of the most important sections of your reflection.
What did you learn? What else could you have done?
If it were to happen again, what would you do? How will you apply what you have learnt?
The above examples have been adapted and used with student permission. For the full sample of a Gibbs reflection with annotations, see the Word and PDF files at the bottom of the page.
For a full sample of reflective writing with annotations, see the Word and PDF documents below.
Still have questions? Do you want to talk to an expert? Peer Learning Advisors or Academic Skills and Language Advisors are available.
Bartlett, C., & Derrington, K. (2021). Types of assignments. In C. Bartlett, T. Cawthray, L. Clark, S. Conway, K. Derrington, A. Devi, A. Frederiks, L. Gunton, W. Hargreaves, D. Howarth, S. Irvine, M. Jeffers, K. Lovric, R. McGregor, E. Peters, L. Pickstone, B. Retallick, Y. Rose, A. Sahay, ... R. Tweedale (Eds.), Academic success (Australian ed., pp. 332-339). University of Southern Queensland. https://usq.pressbooks.pub/academicsuccess/ Used under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.
Gibbs, G. (1988). Learning by doing: A guide to teaching and learning methods . Further Education Unit. Oxford.
Rolfe, G., Freshwater, D., & Jasper, M. (2001). Critical reflection in nursing and the helping professions: a user’s guide . Palgrave Macmillan.
Ultimate guide on writing an effective evaluation essay – tips, examples, and guidelines.
Are you puzzled when it comes to writing an evaluation essay? In this guide, we will provide you with all the essential information you need to master the art of crafting a compelling appraisal composition. Whether you are new to this type of writing or just looking to refine your skills, this comprehensive manual will equip you with the necessary tools and techniques to excel. From understanding the purpose and structure of an evaluation essay to exploring various tips and examples, this guide has got you covered.
An evaluation essay is a piece of writing that aims to assess the value or quality of a particular subject or phenomenon. It involves analyzing a topic, presenting your judgment or opinion on it, and providing evidence or examples to support your claims. This type of essay requires critical thinking, research, and effective communication skills to present a well-balanced evaluation.
Throughout this guide, we will delve into the nitty-gritty of writing an evaluation essay. We will start by discussing the key elements that make up a successful evaluation essay, such as establishing clear criteria, conducting thorough research, and adopting a structured approach. Additionally, we will explore practical tips and strategies to help you gather relevant information, organize your thoughts, and present a persuasive argument. To illustrate these concepts, we will provide you with a range of examples covering various topics and subjects.
When it comes to crafting a high-quality evaluation essay, there are several key tips to keep in mind. By following these guidelines, you can ensure that your essay stands out and effectively evaluates the subject matter at hand.
1. Be objective and unbiased: A top-notch evaluation essay should approach the topic with an unbiased and objective perspective. Avoid personal bias or overly emotional language, and instead focus on presenting an honest and well-balanced evaluation of the subject.
2. Provide clear criteria: To effectively evaluate something, it’s important to establish clear criteria or standards by which to assess it. Clearly define the criteria you will be using and explain why these specific factors are essential in evaluating the subject. This will help provide structure to your essay and ensure that your evaluation is thorough and comprehensive.
3. Support your evaluation with evidence: In order to make a convincing argument, it’s crucial to support your evaluation with solid evidence. This can include examples, statistics, expert opinions, or any other relevant information that strengthens your claims. By providing strong evidence, you can enhance the credibility of your evaluation and make it more persuasive.
4. Consider multiple perspectives: A well-rounded evaluation takes into account multiple perspectives on the subject matter. Acknowledge and address counterarguments or differing opinions, and provide thoughtful analysis and reasoning for your stance. This demonstrates critical thinking and a comprehensive evaluation of the topic.
5. Use clear and concise language: Clarity is vital in an evaluation essay. Use clear and concise language to express your thoughts and ideas, avoiding unnecessary jargon or complex vocabulary. Your essay should be accessible to a wide audience and easy to understand, allowing your evaluation to be conveyed effectively.
6. Revise and edit: Don’t neglect the importance of revising and editing your essay. Take the time to review your work and ensure that your evaluation is well-structured, coherent, and error-free. Pay attention to grammar, spelling, and punctuation, as these details can greatly impact the overall quality of your essay.
7. Conclude with a strong summary: For a top-notch evaluation essay, it’s important to conclude with a strong and concise summary of your evaluation. Restate your main points and findings, providing a clear and memorable conclusion that leaves a lasting impression on the reader.
By following these tips, you can enhance your writing skills and create a top-notch evaluation essay that effectively assesses and evaluates the subject matter at hand.
When it comes to writing an evaluation essay, one of the most important aspects is selecting a topic that is both relevant and engaging. The topic you choose will determine the focus of your essay and greatly impact the overall quality of your writing. It is crucial to choose a topic that not only interests you but also captivates your audience.
When selecting a topic, consider the subject matter that you are knowledgeable or passionate about. This will enable you to provide a well-informed evaluation and maintain your readers’ interest throughout your essay. Additionally, choose a topic that is relevant in today’s society or has a direct impact on your target audience. This will ensure that your evaluation essay has a practical and meaningful purpose.
Furthermore, it is essential to select a topic that is controversial or debatable. This will allow you to present different perspectives and arguments to support your evaluation. By choosing a topic that sparks discussions and debates, you can engage your readers and encourage them to think critically about the subject matter.
In conclusion, choosing a relevant and engaging topic is crucial for writing an effective evaluation essay. By selecting a topic that interests you, appeals to your readers, and is relevant to society, you can ensure that your essay is engaging and impactful. Remember to choose a topic that is controversial or debatable to provide a comprehensive evaluation and encourage critical thinking among your audience.
Crafting an impactful thesis statement is an essential aspect of writing an evaluation essay. The thesis statement serves as the main argument or claim that you will be supporting throughout your essay. It encapsulates the central idea and sets the tone for the rest of the paper.
When developing your thesis statement, it is crucial to be clear, concise, and specific. It should provide a clear indication of your stance on the subject matter being evaluated while also highlighting the main criteria and evidence that will be discussed in the body paragraphs. A strong thesis statement should be thought-provoking and hook the reader’s attention, compelling them to continue reading.
To build a strong thesis statement, you need to engage in a careful analysis of the topic or subject being evaluated. Consider the various aspects that you will be assessing and select the most significant ones to include in your argument. Your thesis statement should be focused and arguable, allowing for a clear position on the matter.
Additionally, it is crucial to avoid vague or general statements in your thesis. Instead, aim for specificity and clarity. By clearly stating your evaluation criteria, you provide a roadmap for the reader to understand what aspects you will be analyzing and what conclusions you intend to make.
Furthermore, a strong thesis statement should be supported by evidence and examples. You should be able to provide concrete support for your evaluation through relevant facts, statistics, or expert opinions. This strengthens the credibility and persuasiveness of your argument, making your thesis statement more compelling.
In summary, developing a strong thesis statement is a critical step in writing an evaluation essay. It sets the foundation for your argument, guiding your analysis and providing a clear direction for the reader. By being clear, concise, specific, and well-supported, your thesis statement helps you create a persuasive and impactful evaluation essay.
One of the most important aspects of writing an evaluation essay is providing clear and concise criteria for evaluation. In order to effectively evaluate a subject or topic, it is essential to establish specific standards or benchmarks that will be used to assess its performance or quality.
When establishing criteria for evaluation, it is crucial to be thorough yet succinct. Clear criteria enable the reader to understand the basis upon which the evaluation is made, while concise criteria ensure that the evaluation remains focused and impactful.
There are several strategies you can employ to provide clear and concise criteria for evaluation. One approach is to define specific attributes or characteristics that are relevant to the subject being evaluated. For example, if you are evaluating a restaurant, you might establish criteria such as the quality of the food, the level of service, and the ambience of the establishment.
Another strategy is to utilize a scoring system or rating scale to assess the subject. This can help provide a more quantitative evaluation by assigning numerical values to different aspects of the subject. For instance, a movie review might use a rating scale of 1 to 5 to evaluate the acting, plot, and cinematography of the film.
In addition to defining specific attributes or using a scoring system, it is important to provide examples or evidence to support your evaluation. This can help make your criteria more concrete and relatable to the reader. For instance, if you are evaluating a car, you could provide examples of its fuel efficiency, handling performance, and safety features.
Clear Criteria | Concise Criteria |
---|---|
Define specific attributes | Utilize a scoring system |
Provide examples or evidence | Ensure focus and impact |
By providing clear and concise criteria for evaluation, you can effectively communicate your assessment to the reader and support your conclusions. This will help ensure that your evaluation essay is well-structured, informative, and persuasive.
When writing an evaluation essay, it is crucial to support your evaluations with solid evidence. Without proper evidence, your evaluation may appear weak and unsubstantiated. By providing strong evidence, you can convince your readers of the validity of your evaluation and make a compelling argument.
One effective way to support your evaluation is by using concrete examples. These examples can be specific instances or cases that illustrate the strengths or weaknesses of the subject being evaluated. By presenting real-life examples, you can provide tangible evidence and make your evaluation more persuasive.
Another way to support your evaluation is by referring to expert opinions or research studies. These external sources can add credibility to your evaluation and demonstrate that your assessment is based on sound knowledge and expertise. Citing respected experts or referencing reputable studies can enhance the validity of your evaluation and make it more convincing.
In addition to concrete examples and expert opinions, statistical data can also be a powerful tool for supporting your evaluation. Numbers and statistics can provide objective evidence and strengthen your evaluation by adding a quantitative dimension to your argument. By citing relevant statistics, you can add weight to your evaluations and demonstrate the magnitude of the subject’s strengths or weaknesses.
Furthermore, it is important to consider counterarguments and address them in your evaluation. By acknowledging opposing viewpoints and addressing them effectively, you can strengthen your own evaluation and demonstrate a thorough understanding of the subject. This approach shows that you have considered different perspectives and have arrived at a well-rounded evaluation.
In conclusion, supporting your evaluation with solid evidence is essential to writing a persuasive evaluation essay. By using concrete examples, expert opinions, statistical data, and addressing counterarguments, you can bolster the validity and strength of your evaluation. Remember to present your evidence clearly and logically, making your evaluation more compelling and convincing to your readers.
When writing an evaluation essay, it is important to use a structured format to organize your thoughts and arguments. This will help you present your ideas in a clear and logical manner, making it easier for your reader to follow along and understand your points. By using a structured format, you can ensure that your essay flows smoothly and effectively communicates your evaluation.
One effective way to structure your evaluation essay is to use a table format. This allows you to present your evaluation criteria and supporting evidence in a concise and organized manner. By using a table, you can easily compare and contrast different aspects of the subject being evaluated, making it easier for your reader to grasp the overall evaluation.
Aspect | Evaluation Criteria | Supporting Evidence |
---|---|---|
Plot | Engaging and well-developed storyline | Strong character development and unexpected plot twists |
Acting | Convincing and compelling performances | Emotional depth and believable portrayal of characters |
Visuals | Stunning cinematography and visually appealing scenes | Beautiful set designs and attention to detail |
In addition to using a table format, you should also follow a logical structure within each section of your essay. Start with a clear introduction, where you introduce the subject you are evaluating and provide some background information. Then, present your evaluation criteria and explain why these criteria are important for assessing the subject. Next, provide specific examples and evidence to support your evaluation, using the table format as a guide. Finally, end your essay with a strong conclusion that summarizes your evaluation and reinforces your main points.
By using a structured format, you can effectively organize your evaluation essay and present your ideas in a clear and concise manner. This will make your essay more engaging and persuasive, and help your reader understand and appreciate your evaluation.
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Maybe some simple self-reflection is the key to happiness.
“What would you do if today was your last day?”
Over 20 years as a transplant doctor at Stanford University Medical Center, I asked thousands of patients this very question when I first met with them to discuss getting a lifesaving lung transplant. It was a way to get them talking, and for me to learn what the person valued: in short, not if they wanted to go on living, which was obvious because the patient was in my clinic room — but why they wanted to go on living.
To hear their answers was a unique privilege. Most of us don’t get to ask that question of people who had weeks, months and sometimes years to sit on the side of their own coffin and contemplate what life really meant to them. Ultimately, they taught me the difference between mere lifespan and health span. Listening to them and sharing some of their stories is akin to participating in a unique kind of master class. If we know how we would spend our last day, we can then make decisions about how to spend our second to last day, our last year, our last decade and every day from this moment forward.
If we know how we would spend our last day, we can then make decisions about how to spend our second to last day, our last year, our last decade and every day from this moment forward.
When I met *Nancy in my office, she was emaciated and I could tell she knew that death was an imminent possibility. I learned that she’d been plagued by a feeling of not being enough, instilled by her parents from an early age: not smart enough, not thin enough. She felt that she needed to do more, be more. She walked around with this heavy weight every day of her young life. But then she found a drug that made her feel better. With crystal meth, she felt she could conquer the world, that she could be anything she wanted, no matter what anyone else thought. That feeling lasted until her addiction turned into a life-threatening lung disease called pulmonary hypertension . When I asked her “What would you do if today was your last day?” she thought for a moment, then said in hushed tones, “All my life, I tried to be what everyone else wanted me to be — the pretty girl, the smart girl, the girl who achieved stardom.” Then she paused. “So, on my last day, I would want to live up to only one person’s expectations: my own.” She slowly nodded as a way to make her point. “That way, I could at least have one day of peace.”
I asked my nurse to get her on the waiting list as soon as possible. It occurred to me that when I asked thousands of patients my question, not one answered, “Gee, I wish I had lived my life in accordance with other people’s expectations — that would have been awesome!”
I asked myself: Have we really spent enough time thinking about how we would live if we were free of expectations? And would we regret living by our own accord at the end of our days? I’m pleased to share that Nancy did get the chance to reboot and live the way she wanted to, with two healthy lungs.
Not all patients are like Nancy. We’re taught to treat everyone the same in medical school, but Larry tested me.
When *Larry, a white man, learned that his life had been saved by a transplant using a donated lung from a Black man, he aggressively questioned why he hadn’t been informed earlier — and given the opportunity to refuse the lung. It left all of us in the clinic room speechless, as Larry’s words echoed with the weight of centuries-old hatred, ignorance and prejudices.
But as the months went by in Larry’s recovery, something shifted within him. Perhaps the question of how he would live his last day lingered, or his newfound health gave him an appreciation for the gift of life, but either way, a curiosity in him stirred about the person who had given him a second chance. He sought out the family of his donor, thanked them in a sincere way, closely connecting with people he had once viewed through a lens of ignorance. In a moment of profound humility, at one of our post-op check-ins, Larry admitted that he had shaped many of his beliefs from ignorance. He even expressed shame that he had spent so much of his life judging people based on race, acknowledging that “everyone’s blood runs red.” I assured him that it did.
Although I have advocated for patients who need a transplant no matter their race or socioeconomic status, I wondered about prejudices we carry within us that we are not fully conscious of. Larry, for example, was so blinded by prejudice he was ready to give back a healthy lung. As opposed to spinning down into a depressing thought cycle about deeply embedded prejudices and damaging judgements, I asked myself: What opportunities for growth, connection and happiness might we discover if we shed our protective layers against those we consider “other”? And how does considering health span, and not just lifespan, encourage us to do that? It seems most people wouldn’t waste their last day on judging and hating others.
Lastly, meet *Katherine. Katherine had been sick most of her life with cystic fibrosis, hospitalized over 40 times during her 31 years on the planet. When she wasn’t in the hospital, Katherine adhered to a treatment regimen that took 4-6 hours per day. The rest of the time, exhausted, she tried to stitch together a life. That life included a man named Henry, whom she met on a dating app. When Katherine told Henry, after a few dates, that she had CF, Henry said, “I know.” “How?” Katherine asked.
“My sister did, too. She died when we were young. I helped my parents take care of her.” Henry knew what the disease looked like, long before he met Katherine, and perhaps had received his own master class in how to live through his experience with his sister. Instead of running away from Katherine, Henry ran toward her. They went on to marry and found themselves in my lung transplant clinic one day as Katherine’s lungs got worse and she was bedridden, bound to oxygen 24/7.
They held hands as I discussed the process involved with getting a transplant. When I was finished with the logistics, I asked her, “What would you do if today was your last day?” Tears ran down Katherine’s face before I could even get the entire question out. I looked over at Henry, and he was crying too.
“That’s the easiest question of the day, doc,” she said. “I would spend it with Henry, walking in a park by our house, holding his hand, telling him how much I loved him, how he kept me going. And when we couldn’t walk anymore, when I gave out, I would sit with him on a bench overlooking one of the lakes in the park and tell him that his love has made me the luckiest person alive, not just now, but ever.”
I had no follow-up questions.
Luckily, because most transplants are successful, including Katherine’s, my patients had a chance to mid-course-correct, to hit the most powerful reset button there is. But they’re not exceptions to the rule: The clock is running — for all of us. If we truly accept the fact that we don’t have forever, can we identify what really matters to us, and make the changes needed to live with that as our North Star?
My guess is that if everyone did this, we would stop trying to find what matters on our screens, on social media, or through the echo chamber of cable news.
We are one of the most sick, depressed, anxious and stressed-out cultures in the world — and yet we are obsessed with longevity . It seems odd that we are obsessed with lifespan, but the quality of our life is usually, well, sucky? (Yes, that’s a medical term.) So what’s keeping us obsessed with trying to stay alive longer when we have yet to determine what would comprise our best life?
My hunch is that while we spend an ungodly amount of time on external things like our appearances, overpacking out schedules, striking through the to-do list, and of course somehow making time for doomscrolling, we spend hardly any time on our inner life, going deep into self-discovery. That is what I took away from the 20-year master class that my patients gifted me — that it’s important we spend time doing the contemplative, meditative, looking-within work, which includes asking ourselves the hard question of what we would do if we had one day to live.
Spend the time now thinking about what really matters to you. You will win if you spend every day as though it may be your last — because one day, it will be.
*Names of patients have been changed to protect their privacy.
Dr. David Weill is the former director of the Center for Advanced Lung Disease and Lung Transplant Program at Stanford University Medical Center. Dr. Weill’s memoir, “Exhale: Hope, Healing, and A Life in Transplant” was published in 2021 and his novel, “All That Really Matters,” is available now.
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With May and June comes the conclusion of the academic school year. The average student returns or sells his or her textbooks, throws his or her backpack into a closet, and pushes all thoughts of academia to the back of his or her mind until August or September. However, the conclusion of the school year is also the perfect time to pause and evaluate your academic performance. How? With thorough self-reflection, of course! It may seem like the last thing you’d want to do as summer begins, but taking just a little bit of time to revisit your past school year now can greatly enhance your future academic performance. You may also want to consider these tips to help you stay current any in class this summer.
Self-reflection is a crucial skill that not enough students exercise. If you are one of those students who has not yet put forth the effort to do this, do not fret—it is never too late to begin! Self-reflection refers to a process in which you seriously consider your actions and motives, as well as the outcomes that result. Like any art, you can hone your self-reflective abilities with practice, but you can also begin at any time. The question you may now be pondering, of course, is, “Why should I?”
The answer to your question is surprisingly simple: self-reflection allows you to improve. It teaches you to recognize your weaknesses, yes, but it also enables you to determine the source of said weaknesses and to construct solutions. In an increasingly competitive academic and professional world, self-reflection can serve as a true advantage.
Begin with broad questions—“What course(s) was I strongest in? What course(s) was I weakest in? Was this semester or year typical for me?” Then, seek connections: “Did I take on too many responsibilities, academically or otherwise? Was my performance better or poorer than in past years?” Delve deeper—“What did I do to earn high marks in these courses? What study habits did I rely on? Did I abandon them in classes where I received low grades? Will I need to take a course like this again? Am I satisfied with my results?” Any and all questions are valid, so feel free to expand upon this list and to experiment.
Once you complete the self-reflection process, you may feel overwhelmed. This is completely natural. If you took notes during the active, questioning phase, closely review them. Highlight observations that seem especially salient. If you did not take notes, jot down several now. Once you have done so, step away for 24 to 48 hours. This will allow you to decide upon a plan of action with a fresh mind.
When you return to your observations, examine them for similarities across classes. Did a specific habit, such as reading your textbook in the morning or working with tutors , contribute to your success in biology and English literature? Did a particular practice harm your performance in geometry and history? What can and will you do differently next semester or next year? What will you not change? If you are initially uncertain about how to address the issues that self-reflection raises, what resources can you turn to for further guidance? Build a short list of items to continue or implement in your future courses, and then store it in a safe location. You will need it when the academic year begins anew—as well as when it is time to evaluate your academic performance again!
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Applying to college here’s how a.i. tools might hurt, or help..
ChatGPT might change the application essay forever.
By Natasha Singer
I spent the last week talking with university officials, teachers and high school seniors about the dreaded college admissions essay.
I cover education technology at The Times. And I’ve been thinking a lot about how artificial intelligence tools like ChatGPT, which can manufacture school essays and other texts, might reshape the college application process.
I was particularly interested to learn whether admissions officials were rejiggering their essay questions — or even reconsidering personal essays altogether.
Amid a deluge of high school transcripts and teacher recommendations, admissions officers often use students’ writing samples to identify applicants with unique voices, experiences, ideas and potential. How might that change now that many students are using A.I. chatbots to brainstorm topics, generate rough drafts and hone their essays?
To find out, I contacted admissions officials at more than a dozen large state universities, Ivy League schools and small private colleges, including Juan Espinoza , the director of undergraduate admissions at Virginia Tech.
Right now, he told me, many universities are still trying to figure out how the A.I. technologies work and what they mean for the admissions process.
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Five high school students helped our tech columnist test a ChatGPT detector coming from Turnitin to 2.1 million teachers. It missed enough to get someone in trouble.
High school senior Lucy Goetz got the highest possible grade on an original essay she wrote about socialism. So imagine her surprise when I told her that a new kind of educational software I’ve been testing claimed she got help from artificial intelligence.
A new AI-writing detector from Turnitin — whose software is already used by 2.1 million teachers to spot plagiarism — flagged the end of her essay as likely being generated by ChatGPT .
“Say what?” says Goetz, who swears she didn’t use the AI writing tool to cheat. “I’m glad I have good relationships with my teachers.”
After months of sounding the alarm about students using AI apps that can churn out essays and assignments, teachers are getting AI technology of their own. On April 4, Turnitin is activating the software I tested for some 10,700 secondary and higher-educational institutions, assigning “generated by AI” scores and sentence-by-sentence analysis to student work. It joins a handful of other free detectors already online. For many teachers I’ve been hearing from, AI detection offers a weapon to deter a 21st-century form of cheating.
But AI alone won’t solve the problem AI created. The flag on a portion of Goetz’s essay was an outlier, but shows detectors can sometimes get it wrong — with potentially disastrous consequences for students. Detectors are being introduced before they’ve been widely vetted, yet AI tech is moving so fast, any tool is likely already out of date.
It’s a pivotal moment for educators: Ignore AI and cheating could go rampant. Yet even Turnitin’s executives tell me that treating AI purely as the enemy of education makes about as much sense in the long run as trying to ban calculators.
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Ahead of Turnitin’s launch this week, the company says 2 percent of customers have asked it not to display the AI writing score on student work. That includes a "significant majority” of universities in the United Kingdom, according to UCISA , a professional body for digital educators.
To see what’s at stake, I asked Turnitin for early access to its software. Five high school students, including Goetz, volunteered to help me test it by creating 16 samples of real, AI-fabricated and mixed-source essays to run past Turnitin’s detector.
The result? It got over half of them at least partly wrong. Turnitin accurately identified six of the 16 — but failed on three, including a flag on 8 percent of Goetz’s original essay. And I’d give it only partial credit on the remaining seven, where it was directionally correct but misidentified some portion of ChatGPT-generated or mixed-source writing.
Turnitin claims its detector is 98 percent accurate overall. And it says situations such as what happened with Goetz’s essay, known as a false positive, happen less than 1 percent of the time, according to its own tests.
Turnitin also says its scores should be treated as an indication, not an accusation . Still, will millions of teachers understand they should treat AI scores as anything other than fact? After my conversations with the company, it added a caution flag to its score that reads, “Percentage may not indicate cheating. Review required.”
“Our job is to create directionally correct information for the teacher to prompt a conversation,” Turnitin chief product officer Annie Chechitelli tells me. “I’m confident enough to put it out in the market, as long as we’re continuing to educate educators on how to use the data.” She says the company will keep adjusting its software based on feedback and new AI advancements.
The question is whether that will be enough. “The fact that the Turnitin system for flagging AI text doesn’t work all the time is concerning,” says Rebecca Dell, who teaches Goetz’s AP English class in Concord, Calif. “I’m not sure how schools will be able to definitively use the checker as ‘evidence’ of students using unoriginal work.”
Unlike accusations of plagiarism, AI cheating has no source document to reference as proof. “This leaves the door open for teacher bias to creep in,” says Dell.
For students, that makes the prospect of being accused of AI cheating especially scary. “There is no way to prove that you didn’t cheat unless your teacher knows your writing style, or trusts you as a student,” says Goetz.
Spotting AI writing sounds deceptively simple. When a colleague recently asked me if I could detect the difference between real and ChatGPT-generated emails, I didn’t perform very well.
Detecting AI writing with software involves statistics. And statistically speaking, the thing that makes AI distinct from humans is that it’s “extremely consistently average,” says Eric Wang, Turnitin’s vice president of AI.
Systems such as ChatGPT work like a sophisticated version of auto-complete, looking for the most probable word to write next. “That’s actually the reason why it reads so naturally: AI writing is the most probable subset of human writing,” he says.
Turnitin’s detector “identifies when writing is too consistently average,” Wang says.
The challenge is that sometimes a human writer may actually look consistently average.
On economics, math and lab reports, students tend to hew to set styles, meaning they’re more likely to be misidentified as AI writing, says Wang. That’s likely why Turnitin erroneously flagged Goetz’s essay, which veered into economics. (“My teachers have always been fairly impressed with my writing,” says Goetz.)
Wang says Turnitin worked to tune its systems to err on the side of requiring higher confidence before flagging a sentence as AI. I saw that develop in real time: I first tested Goetz’s essay in late January, and the software identified much more of it — about 50 percent — as being AI generated. Turnitin ran my samples through its system again in late March, and that time only flagged 8 percent of Goetz’s essay as AI-generated.
But tightening up the software’s tolerance came with a cost: Across the second test of my samples, Turnitin missed more actual AI writing. “We’re really emphasizing student safety,” says Chechitelli.
Say hello to your new tutor: It’s ChatGPT
Turnitin does perform better than other public AI detectors I tested. One introduced in February by OpenAI, the company that invented ChatGPT, got eight of our 16 test samples wrong. (Independent tests of other detectors have declared they “ fail spectacularly .”)
Turnitin’s detector faces other important technical limitations, too. In the six samples it got completely right, they were all clearly 100 percent student work or produced by ChatGPT. But when I tested it with essays from mixed AI and human sources, it often misidentified the individual sentences or missed the human part entirely. And it couldn’t spot the ChatGPT in papers we ran through Quillbot, a paraphrasing program that remixes sentences.
What’s more, Turnitin’s detector may already be behind the state of the AI art. My student helpers created samples with ChatGPT, but since they did the writing, the app has gotten a software update called GPT-4 with more creative and stylistic capabilities. Google also introduced a new AI bot called Bard . Wang says addressing them is on his road map.
Some AI experts say any detection efforts are at best setting up an arms race between cheaters and detectors. “I don’t think a detector is long-term reliable,” says Jim Fan, an AI scientist at Nvidia who used to work at OpenAI and Google.
“The AI will get better, and will write in ways more and more like humans. It is pretty safe to say that all of these little quirks of language models will be reduced over time,” he says.
Given the potential — even at 1 percent — of being wrong, why release an AI detector into software that will touch so many students?
“Teachers want deterrence,” says Chechitelli. They’re extremely worried about AI and helping them see the scale of the actual problem will “bring down the temperature.”
Some educators worry it will actually raise the temperature.
Mitchel Sollenberger, the associate provost for digital education at the University of Michigan-Dearborn, is among the officials who asked Turnitin not to activate AI detection for his campus at its initial launch.
He has specific concerns about how false positives on the roughly 20,000 student papers his faculty run through Turnitin each semester could lead to baseless academic-integrity investigations. “Faculty shouldn’t have to be expert in a third-party software system — they shouldn’t necessarily have to understand every nuance,” he says.
Ian Linkletter, who serves as emerging technology and open-education librarian at the British Columbia Institute of Technology, says the push for AI detectors reminds him of the debate about AI exam proctoring during pandemic virtual learning.
“I am worried they’re marketing it as a precision product, but they’re using dodgy language about how it shouldn’t be used to make decisions,” he says. “They’re working at an accelerated pace not because there is any desperation to get the product out but because they’re terrified their existing product is becoming obsolete.”
Said Chechitelli: “We are committed to transparency with the community and have been clear about the need to continue iterating on the user experience as we learn more from students and educators.
Deborah Green, CEO of UCISA in the U.K., tells me she understands and appreciates Turnitin’s motives for the detector. “What we need is time to satisfy ourselves as to the accuracy, the reliability and particularly the suitability of any tool of this nature.”
It’s not clear how the idea of an AI detector fits into where AI is headed in education . “In some academic disciplines, AI tools are already being used in the classroom and in assessment,” says Green. “The emerging view in many U.K. universities is that with AI already being used in many professions and areas of business, students actually need to develop the critical thinking skills and competencies to use and apply AI well.”
There’s a lot more subtlety to how students might use AI than a detector can flag today.
My student tests included a sample of an original student essay written in Spanish, then translated into English with ChatGPT. In that case, what should count: the ideas or the words? What if the student was struggling with English as a second language? (In our test, Turnitin’s detector appeared to miss the AI writing, and flagged none of it.)
Would it be more or less acceptable if a student asked ChatGPT to outline all the ideas for an assignment, and then wrote the actual words themselves?
“That’s the most interesting and most important conversation to be having in the next six months to a year — and one we’ve been having with instructors ourselves,” says Chechitelli.
“We really feel strongly that visibility, transparency and integrity are the foundations of the conversations we want to have next around how this technology is going to be used,” says Wang.
For Dell, the California teacher, the foundation of AI in the classroom is an open conversation with her students.
When ChatGPT first started making headlines in December, Dell focused an entire lesson with Goetz’s English class on what ChatGPT is, and isn’t good for. She asked it to write an essay for an English prompt her students had already completed themselves, and then the class analyzed the AI’s performance.
The AI wasn’t very good.
“Part of convincing kids not to cheat is making them understand what we ask them to do is important for them,” said Dell.
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Your reflective essay should utilize language that conveys introspection and self-awareness. Use phrases like "I realized," "I learned," or "I now understand" to show personal growth and development. 5. Structure your essay: Organize your reflective essay in a logical manner to ensure clarity and coherence.
Evaluation and Analysis - Think about what went well and what could be improved upon based on your experience. Try to refer to ideas you've learned in class while thinking about this. Conclusions - Final thoughts on what you've learned from the experience. Action - How you will put what you've learned into practice.
The language of reflective writing. Reflective academic writing is: almost always written in the first person. evaluative - you are judging something. partly personal, partly based on criteria. analytical - you are usually categorising actions and events. formal - it is for an academic audience. carefully constructed.
1st Step: Review the assignment. As with any writing situation, the first step in writing a reflective piece is to clarify the task. Reflective assignments can take many forms, so you need to understand exactly what your instructor is asking you to do. Some reflective assignments are short, just a paragraph or two of unpolished writing.
Reflective writing is a process of identifying, questioning, and critically evaluating course-based learning opportunities, integrated with your own observations, experiences, impressions, beliefs, assumptions, or biases, and which describes how this process stimulated new or creative understanding about the content of the course.
The style and tone of your reflective essay should match the purpose of the overall assignment. This is a personal essay meant to showcase what you learned from the text, event, or experience that you are writing about. You can use the pronouns "I," "me," and "mine.". Describe the text, event, or experience fully, using plenty of ...
Yes-we recommend using evidence in reflective writing! When connecting personal experiences to the readings, that means selecting quotes from the readings and then coming up with specific moments in your life that relate to those quotes. When reflecting on learning or growth, that might mean locating evidence (quotes) from your previous ...
Reflection is: a form of personal response to experiences, situations, events or new information. a 'processing' phase where thinking and learning take place. There is neither a right nor a wrong way of reflective thinking, there are just questions to explore. Figure 1 shows that the reflective thinking process starts with you.
The Hull Employability Awards. A normal requirement of assessment at university is the ability to write in an academic style. Based on the application of reason and argumentation, academic essays draw on other academic sources. The style of writing is impersonal and discursive. Reflective writing style is different in several respects.
Reflective essays are academic essays; what makes an essay "good" will work for a reflective essay. What is different about a reflective essay is that the essay is about you and your thinking. However, you will need evidence from your course to back up your reflections. You should structure a reflective essay as an essay, that is write to ...
Critical reflection essay ; Central argument: Central experience, learning event, problem or reflective focus : Theory: Personal experience plus theory: Third person: First person: ... Remember that a critical reflection should describe, analyse and evaluate? Use this checklist to shape up a draft critical reflection based on a recent ...
You might be asked to write an essay where you respond to a piece of text or an image, relate a topic to your own experiences or discuss whether a certain model fits with your own views. Reflection can also be useful when constructing an academic argument as you will have to think about how all the evidence fits with your own understanding of a ...
Writing a critical reflection happens in two phases. Analyze: In the first phase, analyze the issue and your role by asking critical questions. Use free writing as a way to develop good ideas. Don't worry about organized paragraphs or good grammar at this stage. Articulate: In the second phase, use your analysis to develop a clear argument ...
Models of reflection There are frameworks that you can use to aid your reflective process. Alternatively, you may want to create your own. It needs to be a set of questions that you can ask yourself about an experience, plus a process by which you apply and learn from your reflection. Here are just two examples of models of reflection:
Johns' Model Of Reflection. Step 1: Determine The Goal. Step 2: Establish The Context. Step 3: Select An Issue. Step 4: Develop A Plan. Step 5: Conduct Interviews. Step 6: Write Your Reflection. Kolb's Reflective Learning Cycle. The Structure Of A Reflective Essay.
A reflective essay is a paper in which you write about your own experiences, a bit like an academic diary entry! The idea is to help you think about something that happened in your life. ... Evaluation and Analysis - A look at the positives and negatives of the experience (e.g. what went right and what went wrong), along with how you ...
The writer consistently provides meaningful analysis, examples, explanations, observations, speculation, and honest criticism that lead to a thoughtful and purposeful self-evaluation. 4. Accomplished. The text usually adheres to the "Editing Focus" of this chapter: clear use of pronouns, as discussed in Section 20.6.
Reflective writing may ask you to consider the link between theory (what you study, discuss and read about at university) and practice (what you do, the application of the theory in the workplace). Reflection on practical contexts enables you to explore the relationship between theory and practice in an authentic and concrete way.
Set the scene by using the five W's (What, Where, When, Who and Why) to describe it. Choose the events or the experiences you're going to reflect on. Identify the issues of the event or experience you want to focus on. Use literature and documents to help you discuss these issues in a wider context.
3 Approaches to Reflective Inquiry. 3.1 Gibbs' Reflective Cycle. 3.2 Boud's Three-Level Model of Reflection. 3.3 Schön's Reflective Practitioner. 3.4 Brookfield's Four Lenses. 3.5 Atkins and Murphy's Model. 3.6 Dewey's Reflective Thinking. 4 Writing a Reflection Outline. 5 Reflection Paper Format.
Reflective writing. Reflective writing involves describing your experiences and critically analysing what you've learnt from those experiences. There are two steps: First, thinking about and analysing your feelings and actions around an experience. Second, writing your critical reflections to gain insight and knowledge to help you in the future.
Use clear and concise language: Clarity is vital in an evaluation essay. Use clear and concise language to express your thoughts and ideas, avoiding unnecessary jargon or complex vocabulary. Your essay should be accessible to a wide audience and easy to understand, allowing your evaluation to be conveyed effectively. 6.
Live discharge is a common process in UK hospices; it is estimated that around one-third of patients admitted are moved to an alternative care setting prior to death. 1 Whilst the authors note that discharge rates and processes may be different in other countries, 2 we hope that the themes of loss and change discussed in this reflective essay ...
Katherine had been sick most of her life with cystic fibrosis, hospitalized over 40 times during her 31 years on the planet. When she wasn't in the hospital, Katherine adhered to a treatment ...
Mission. The Purdue On-Campus Writing Lab and Purdue Online Writing Lab assist clients in their development as writers—no matter what their skill level—with on-campus consultations, online participation, and community engagement. The Purdue Writing Lab serves the Purdue, West Lafayette, campus and coordinates with local literacy initiatives.
Highlight observations that seem especially salient. If you did not take notes, jot down several now. Once you have done so, step away for 24 to 48 hours. This will allow you to decide upon a plan of action with a fresh mind. When you return to your observations, examine them for similarities across classes.
Alternatively, you can explore our Disciplines Hubs, including: Journal portfolios in each of our subject areas. Links to Books and Digital Library content from across Sage.
An applicant who submitted a chatbot-generated essay, they said, would violate the university's admissions policy. The Yale experts also argued that personal essays for college applications were ...
Five high school students helped our tech columnist test a ChatGPT detector coming from Turnitin to 2.1 million teachers. It missed enough to get someone in trouble. Lucy Goetz, a student at ...