A short guide to reflective writing
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Reflection is a purposeful activity in which you analyse experiences, or your own practice/skills/responses,
in order to learn and improve.
Reflection in academia
We reflect quite naturally in our day to day lives, thinking about things that have happened, why
they happened, whether we handled them well. In academia, you may be asked to formalise your reflections to show that learning is taking place.
This may involve:
Reflecting on your own professional or academic practice
Scrutinising an experience and the way you dealt with it
Evaluating a project or experiment and considering how to do it better next time
Reflecting on things you have read and linking theory with practice/reality
2 A short guide to reflective writing
What is reflection, and why is it important?
Keeping a reflective learning journal You may want to consider keeping a learning journal, as a form of informal, regular reflection. Below is an example of one way of approaching it.
Example entry in a learning journal
Event
A short guide to reflective writing 3
Helping yourself to reflect
What did I learn?
What went well?
What could I have done better?
Long-term implications
Attended first ever seminar
Discussing ideas made me realise there are many ways o/ reading a piece o/ literature. I was surprised by other people’s interpretations, but the ones who convinced me were those who linked their interpretations to specific parts o/ the text.
Made some contributions. They were mainly responses to other people’s ideas but I was glad I took part and it made me think more deeply about the novel.
Could have been braver in /orming own interpretations. Had a preconception that there was a right or wrong way to read the text.
In /uture I want to open my mind more.
Now realise that there are many ways o/ reading a text – and i/ you can find evidence, you can convince people o/ your perspective
Use/ul /or essays - putting /orward a unique viewpoint is possible as long as you have persuasive reasoning.
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:
Reflection before, during and after a learning process (Schön, 1983)
| Before an experience | During an experience | After an experience |
|---|---|---|
| What do you think might happen? | What’s happening now, as you make rapid decisions? | What are your insights immediately after, and/ or later when you have more emotional distance from the event? |
| What might be the challenges? | Is it working out as I expected? | In retrospect how did it go? |
| What do I need to know or do in order to be best prepared for these experiences? | Am I dealing with the challenges well? | What did I particularly value and why? |
| Is there anything I should do, say or think to make the experience successful? | Is there anything I would do differently before or during a similar event? |
|
| What am I learning from this? | What have I learnt? |
Gibbs’ Reflective Cycle
Graham Gibbs (1988) created a reflective learning cycle, including the role of feelings:
Description What happened?
Action Plan
If it arose again what would you do?
Feelings What were you thinking and feeling?
Conclusion What else could you have done?
Analysis What sense can you make of the situation?
Evaluation What was good and bad about the experience?
Reflective writing for an assignment Writing reflectively for the purposes of an assignment should not involve merely describing something that happened. Nor does it mean pouring out everything you think and feel in
a totally unstructured way. Reflective writing requires a clear line of thought, use of evidence or examples to illustrate your reflections, and an analytical approach.
You are aiming to strike a balance between your personal perspective, and the requirements of good academic practice and rigorous thinking. This means:
developing a perspective, or line of reasoning
demonstrating that you are
well informed, have read relevant literature and reflected on its relevance to your own development
showing that you recognise that situations are rarely simple and clear-cut
writing about the link between your experiences/practice and your reading
writing in an appropriate style.
As an example, consider the extract below, which is from a nursing student’s reflective essay. Consider how the writer develops a line
of reasoning based on their own thoughts and experiences, and then links it to wider reading.
Please remember: different disciplines have different requirements and styles. This is an example of just one approach.
Example Extract
During term one I found myself inwardly questioning the reliability and validity of scientific journals, as I came across conflicting studies
and contradictory data in our weekly research and feedback sessions.
I was surprised at how other members of the group appeared to automatically trust the content of peer-reviewed journals and
I sometimes felt that what was presented back to the group was accepted as factual as long as there was a reference attached.
This prompted me to read into what I now realise is referred to as publication bias and has been
widely documented in recent years. For example, Dawes (2005) argues that, although reputable journals adopt a robust peer review process, articles still get published with significant flaws:
‘Journals have to publish to survive and they want to publish articles that deal with topical important issues of the day. Sometimes this imperative overrides the critical review process.’ (Dawes 2005:6)
Furthermore, Brooks (1997:46) highlights the fact that statistical significance increases the likelihood of a researcher’s work being published, which might tempt some researchers to tamper with the data.
I did not want to appear cynical to the rest of the group and kept these concerns to myself, which on reflection I perhaps could have
volunteered for discussion. Instead I felt that in order to construct an accurate care plan at the end of each scenario I had to adopt a more robust approach in selecting appropriate journal texts.
After these realisations, I found it more helpful to employ the use of meta-analyses and systematic reviews for assessing research. I
found that using systematic reviews saved time searching through numerous journals, and I found the Cochrane Library a useful electronic information source.
Conclusion
Reflection is a useful process even if you have not been set a specific reflective assignment. It helps you to make sense of and learn from your experiences.
Many degrees involve assessed reflective writing. This is to allow you to demonstrate that you can think critically about your own skills or practice, in order to improve and learn. It is important to analyse rather than just describe the things you are reflecting on, and to emphasise how you will apply what you have learned.
Library Services
Further reading and references
Books:
Gibbs, G (1988). Learning by doing: a guide to teaching and learning methods. Oxford: Further Education Unit, Oxford
Polytechnic.
Honey, P and Mumford, A (1986). In Mumford, A, Effective Learning. London: IPD.
Schön, D (1983). The reflective practitioner: how professionals think in action. New York: Basic Books.
Williams, K, Woolliams, M and Spiro, J (2012). Reflective Writing. Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan.
Online resources:
Open University, Skills for OU Study. Be aware of your habits. [online]. Available at:
www2.open.ac.uk/students/skillsforstudy/ be-aware-of-your-habits.php
[Accessed 5 July 2012]
Plymouth University, Learning Development. (2010) Reflection [online]. Available at:
www.learningdevelopment.plymouth.ac.uk/ LDstudyguides/pdf/11Reflection.pdf [Accessed 5 July 2012]
Academic Skills Centre. May 2014
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