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Essay structure

Academic writing has a particular structure. This structure can be represented like a diamond. The diamond structure repeats on a small level in paragraphs and assignment tasks and on a larger level in the structure of an essay.

Your assignment for PYB007 includes a reflective section as its final component. This section needs to be written in the first person (using "I") and should be fully integrated into the assignment and referred to in the introduction and conclusion.

See below for more details:

QUT Cite/Write - Writing an essay

Reflective writing example

From the perspective of the medical model, disability is considered a personal tragedy and a physical deficit. When I cared for J.D., I focused more on functional limitations than her abilities to accomplish things. In the article on Disability and the Body, however, Hughes (1997) argues that disability should not be seen as a deficit but the ways in which social structures excludes and oppresses disabled people. By reading these articles, my view of disability has been changed. The medical model sees part of the problem, but the social model allows me to see the problem in a broader way. When working with children living with disabilities, I need to be aware of social barriers that are imposed on these children…She needs not just physical treatment but also psychosocial support, from her friends and from me as her nurse.

Adapted from Taylor, 2013, pp 177-178.

Taylor, D. B. (2013). Writing skills for nursing and midwifery students . SAGE Publications, Limited.

1st sentence : Topic sentence about how disability is considered within the medical model.

2nd sentence : Reflection (notice the use of I) and how the writer is thinking and observing her practice relating to this topic sentence.

3rd sentence : The writer now relates this reflection to theory.

4th & 5th sentences : The writer reflects on how this article changed her views of disability.

Last sentence : Represents what she is going to do with this new knowledge and how she will work with her client.

Reflective Writing is

• reporting and responding to a critical issue or experience;
• relating this issue or experience to your own knowledge in this field;
• reasoning about causes and effects of this issue/experience according to relevant theories or literature and/or similarities or differences with other experiences you've had; and
• reconstructing your thinking to plan new ways to approach the issue or engage in similar experiences in the future
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Tips for Writing Reflectively

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The video presentation for this session identifies some common models you can use as a framework to help guide your reflective writing in addition to walking you through an example of applying one of the models to write a sample reflection. In the Resources section, a downloadable exemplar of the sample reflection outlined in the video is provided in addition to some other great tools. A range of useful weblinks are also available to help you further develop your reflective writing and English language skills.

Below are links to three resources to assist you with the 4Rs Model of Reflective Thinking and tips for how to structure reflective writing. A downloadable, colour-coded exemplar is also provided which outlines the sample reflection outlined in the video presentation.

• Tips for Writing Reflectively - Colour-Coded Exemplar
• 4Rs Models of Reflective Thinking - QUT
• How does 4Rs Model Guide Deeper Reflection
• Structure of Reflective Writing - University of Western Sydney

Griffith University – Reflective Writing

La Trobe University – Reflective Writing

RMIT Learning Lab – Reflective Writing

Curtin University Study Skills – Reflective Writing

Griffith University - EnglishHELP Self-Help Resources

Griffith University - English Language Support

James Cook University - Develop Your English

RMIT Learning Lab - Academic Word List Tool

University of Adelaide - English as a Second Language Learning Resources

Curtin University Learning Centre - Better Grammar

Curtin University Learning Centre - Better Sentences

La Trobe - Achieve@Uni - Language

Manchester Academic Phrasebank

BBC - Learning English

Teaching and assessing reflective writing in a large undergraduate core substantive law unit

Cockburn, Tina & Ryan, Mary (2015) Teaching and assessing reflective writing in a large undergraduate core substantive law unit. In Ryan, M (Ed.) Teaching reflective learning in higher education: A systematic approach using pedagogic patterns. Springer International Publishing Switzerland, Switzerland, pp. 93-109.

Free-to-read version at publisher website

Description

The focus of higher education has shifted towards building students’ skills and self-awareness for future employment, in addition to developing substantive discipline knowledge. This means that there is an increasing need for embedding approaches to teaching and learning which provide a context for skills development and opportunities for students to prepare for the transition from legal education to professional practice. This chapter reports on a large (500-600 students) core undergraduate Equity law unit in an Australian University. ePortfolio has been embedded in Equity as a means of enabling students to document their reflections on their skill development in that unit. Students are taught, practice and are assessed on their teamwork and letter writing skills in the context of writing a letter of advice to a fictional client in response to a real world problem. Following submission of the team letter, students are asked to reflect on their skill development and document their reflections in ePortfolio. A scaffolded approach to teaching reflective writing is adopted using a blended model of delivery which combines face to face lectures and online resources, including an online module, facts sheets designed to guide students through the process of reflection by following the TARL model of reflection, and exemplars of reflective writing. Although students have engaged in the process of reflective writing in Equity for some years, in semester one 2011 assessment criteria were developed and the ePortfolio reflections were summatively assessed for the first time. The model of teaching and assessing reflective practice was evaluated in a range of ways by seeking feedback from students and academic staff responsible for implementing the model and asking them to reflect on their experiences. This chapter describes why skill development and reflective writing were embedded in the undergraduate law unit Equity; identify the teaching and learning approaches which were implemented to teach reflective writing to online and internal Equity students; explain the assessment processes; analyse the empirical evidence from evaluations; document the lessons learnt and discuss planned future improvements to the teaching and assessment strategies.

Impact and interest:

Citation counts are sourced monthly from Scopus and Web of Science® citation databases.

These databases contain citations from different subsets of available publications and different time periods and thus the citation count from each is usually different. Some works are not in either database and no count is displayed. Scopus includes citations from articles published in 1996 onwards, and Web of Science® generally from 1980 onwards.

Citations counts from the Google Scholar™ indexing service can be viewed at the linked Google Scholar™ search.

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• Writing Reflective Journals

The Problem

Unit coordinators may decide to incorporate some form of ongoing journal writing into a unit as a way of obtaining evidence of their students’ (developing) reflective practice. However, “journal writing” may mean different things to different people, both teaching staff and students. Therefore it is important to clarify the dimensions of the journal-writing component at the outset.

The Context

Journals provide a scaffold for students over time, thus preserving reflections that might otherwise be lost. However, in order for reflective journals to provide sufficient evidence of students’ developing understandings over a period of time, the requirements of journal entries, and the criteria for assessing the journal need to be made explicit before students begin. This is particularly the case where students are being asked to reflect when they are off campus (e.g. during internships, or field or service learning experiences). This pattern assumes that students are already familiar with the 4Rs reflective writing framework of reporting and responding; relating; reasoning; reconstructing.

The Pattern

• Will students use available online tools such as blogs to help structure their journal entries, or will this aspect be at the students’ own discretion?
• If online tools are used, will students’ journal entries be open to comment either by other students or by teaching staff, or will they be private?
• Will the cumulative entries be assessed on their quality (evidence of deep and critical thinking including higher levels of the reflective writing framework)? Note there may be marking workload implications to consider if going down this route.
• Alternatively, individual entries could be used as a source of data for a culminating reflective piece of writing which will be assessed. In this case, regularity of entries might be assessed rather than their content.
• Decide on the period of time for which the journal will be kept and how frequently you expect students to make journal entries over that time. (During internships or field experiences the period of time may be a given.)
• Discussion of the characteristics of journal writing together with practice in journal writing, for example by responding to a video or a specific question. (See Resources 2 & 3)
• Different prompting questions at different times for students to focus on specific aspects of their experience. (See Resource 4)

Related Patterns

Analysing Reflective Texts (ART) Reflective Blogs during Internship (RBI) Second Order Reflections (SOR)

• Additional comments on the criteria for evaluation
• Using the 4Rs to structure a journal entry (responding to a question) “power writing” for practice
• Responding to a video “power writing” for practice
• Guided questioning

Acknowledgments

This pattern draws on resources developed by Suzanne Carrington and Louise Mercer (Education) in preparing students to write a reflective journal during their Service Learning in EDB004.

reflective writing

Writing reflections in education.

During your course you’ll be expected to complete a range of written assessments. Most people are familiar with essays and reports but writing a reflection for the first time can be a challenge. Reflective writing requires you to draw connections between theory and experience or learning in order to create new understanding.

This sequence of activities from Monash University provides useful explanations of the characteristics of reflective writing for students in the Education discipline.

The process of reflection

This short video from the University of Hull explains the differences between descriptive and reflective writing, and points out the benefits of hindsight in improving future experiences.

Source:   https://youtu.be/b1eEPp5VSIY

• Writing well
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• How to write an annotated bibliography
• How to write a case study response
• How to write a critique
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• How to write an essay
• How to write a literature review
• How to write a reflective task
• How to write a report
• Finishing well

If you have followed the Starting well steps, you should now understand the task, have a clear, logical plan of what you want to write for your reader and have research to support your ideas. You are ready to write.

Have realistic expectations

First focus on your ideas, writing in the expected way, writing academically, planning your structure, writing an introduction, writing the body, writing a conclusion.

Have realistic expectations. No writer writes a perfect first draft. Be prepared and allow time to possibly reorganise your ideas, delete some writing, go back and/or find some more research. The important thing is to keep going and keep writing. Each change is likely to be an improvement but save versions of your draft, just in case you change your mind.

It can be a challenge to concentrate on communicating your ideas and writing well at the same time. First focus on writing your ideas clearly and credibly (your research helps with this).

Other thoughts may pop into your head while you are writing and what you do with them is important. You can make a note or ignore. For example:

• I’m sure there was something about this in an article I found (helpful)
• I wonder if other students have finished this essay (ignore)
• What’s that delicious smell? (ignore)
• This sentence doesn’t feel quite right (helpful).

Any helpful thoughts can be noted for later (you can use the comment function or a different colour font) but do not act on them until you finish writing that section. The notes can be a good way to get back into the writing mood next time you sit down with your draft.

An important consideration is the genre, or type of writing . The genre should be clear from your task sheet and if you have any questions, ask your teacher, tutor or lecturer. This table gives information on common genres, and you should always compare these descriptions to the expectation set out in your task.

No matter what genre you are writing, it is likely to have all or most of the characteristics listed in this Writing Well section .

Academic writing has a typical style with some variations depending on the genre, task and audience. Common characteristics of academic writing are:

• It is concise. Everything you write should relate directly to the task. Communicate your ideas as concisely as possible. Each word should contribute to the content and/or correctness of your writing. This is good for your reader and word count. Use grammar and vocabulary wisely to help with concise, clear writing. You can include the terminology of the topic/your field and that is used in your course and the literature.
• It is formal. Avoid contractions (won’t) and text or slang language (IMHO, heaps of research). Write in complete sentences that create paragraphs and write in third person (they/he/she) unless your task instructs you otherwise.
• It is objective. Use a neutral, impersonal tone. Focus on facts, ideas supported by evidence rather than opinion.
• It is inclusive. Your language should be inclusive. That means using language that does not discriminate based on age, race, gender, sexual orientation, disability, religion or beliefs. Be careful not to portray one group as superior to another as this can interfere with your main message.
• It is tentative. Unless something is proven, you should use tentative language in your writing. Being tentative is common in academic writing because data can be interpreted in different ways, all evidence may not have been read, and new discoveries can mean understanding changes. Tentative language can also show your level of confidence and the strength of your evidence in your writing. Use of verbs such as suggest, appear; modals such as may, could; and adverbs such as likely.

These characteristics of academic writing are important to focus on when writing as they are often not picked up by grammar checking programs.

You are now ready to write. Before you put your fingers to the keyboard, review your task and marking criteria to make sure you have stayed on topic.

Start by making a note of your main points and organise the research that supports them . Each of your main points is likely to become a paragraph and the order of these depends on what your research has found, the genre and your overall response to the task.

Don’t be afraid to try different ways of organising your work. It is important that your writing has a logical flow for your reader. This means it is always clear to the reader what you are writing, why it is important and how it relates to the task.

You may find it helpful to develop an essay plan with a topic for each paragraph and dot points for each of the supporting ideas and research. This plan then becomes the starting point for the next steps in finishing your work.

The purpose of an introduction is to orientate your reader to the topic, your position and what will be covered in the essay . The form of introductions may change according to genre but the need to orientate your reader is always necessary.

You can use dot points to record your ideas and then write your full introduction after the body, making sure they match. A good introduction does all these things and motivates the audience to continue reading.

The body of your writing is where you develop your argument. Each paragraph in the body should have a main point that is explained, supported by evidence and linked to your overall argument. All together your paragraphs should complete the picture of what you want to say to the reader.

The typical structure of a paragraph is a topic sentence that introduces the main point of the paragraph and how this is relevant to your overall argument. Your following evidence and points will typically shift from general to more specific. To show your understanding of, and engagement with, the topic it is important that each paragraph has a mix of research and your own analysis of how the evidence is relevant to your argument. Evidence can be relevant because it supports, contradicts or provides another perspective and as the writer you need to make these relationships clear. Remember by paraphrasing and citing the ideas of others shows a deeper understanding of the source than a direct quote. A paragraph will usually finish with a concluding and/or linking sentence that summarises the point of the paragraph and, if appropriate, links to the next paragraph.

The number of body paragraphs that you write will vary depending on the length of your assessment. As you write continue to check if each paragraph makes a clear point, the order of all your paragraphs is logical as well as reflecting the genre and your argument.

Your conclusion should do more than the introduction. Both your introduction and conclusion make the topic and your position clear with a summary of the points and evidence you have included. Your conclusion may also write about how this specific topic is related to bigger issues, and/or mention limitations, related issues, predictions or suggestions for future research.

Remember your conclusion leaves a final impression on your reader so take care to write in a way that shows you have engaged with the topic and can see its relevance to your studies.

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Reflective Writing

“Reflection is a mode of inquiry: a deliberate way of systematically recalling writing experiences to reframe the current writing situation. It allows writers to recognize what they are doing in that particular moment (cognition), as well as to consider why they made the rhetorical choices they did (metacognition). The combination of cognition and metacognition, accessed through reflection, helps writers begin assessing themselves as writers, recognizing and building on their prior knowledge about writing.” —Kara Taczak, “Reflection is Critical for Writers’ Development” (78) Naming What We Know: Threshold Concepts of Writing Studies

Reflective writing assignments are common across the university. You may be asked to reflect on your learning, your writing, your personal experiences in relation to a theory or text, or your personal experiences in an internship or other type of experience in relation to course readings. These are assignments, as Kara Taczak notes, that offer opportunities to solidify knowledge about our experiences and how they might relate to others’ experiences and existing research. Moreso, reflection can lead to more informed understandings of our own experiences and course content in ways that may make that knowledge more useful in future classes and practice. However, often  reflective writing  is not taught as an explicit writing skill and can be problematically treated as a less rigorous form of writing. Below are some broad writing tips that can help not only your reflective writing to be stronger, but also the reflective inquiry to be more meaningful.

Collect relevant evidence before you start writing.

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 papers that showcase growth.

Be specific.

It’s really easy to see reflective writing as more informal or casual, and thus, as requiring less attention to details; however, strong reflective writing is very precise and specific. Some examples of statements that are too vague and meaningless include, “I learned a lot about writing this semester.” Or, “I feel like my experiences are exactly as Author B says in this quote.” Neither of these statements tells us much–they are a bit devoid of content. Instead, try to name exactly what you learned about writing or exactly how your experiences are related to the quote. For example, you might reflect, “At the beginning of the semester, unsure of how to summarize a text well, I was just describing the main the idea of the text. However, after learning about Harris’ concept of capturing a writer’s “project,” I believe I have become better at really explaining a text as a whole. Specifically, in my last essay, I was able to provide a fully developed explanation of Author A’s argument and purpose for the essay as well as their materials and methods (that is, how they made the argument). For example, in this quote from my last essay,...”

Focus on a small moment from your experiences.

It’s hard to not want to recap our entire childhood or the full summer before something happened for context when sharing a personal story. However, it’s usually more effective to select a very specific moment in time and try to accurately describe what happened, who was involved, and how it made you feel and react. When writing about a moment, try to place readers there with you–help readers to understand what happened, who was involved, where it happened, why it happened, and what the results were. If this is a more creative assignment, you might even include some sensory descriptions to make the moment more of an experience for readers.

Fully explain the quote or focus of each point.

In reflective writing, you are usually asked to share your experiences in relation to something–a perspective in a text, learning about writing, the first-year experience, a summer internship, etc. When introducing this focal point, make sure you fully explain it. That is, explain what you think the quote means and provide a little summary for context. Or, if you’re reflecting on writing skills learned, before you jump to your learning and growth, stop to explain how you understand the writing skill itself–”what is analysis?,” for example. Usually, you want to fully explain the focus, explain your personal experiences with it, and then return to the significance of your experiences.

Use “I” when appropriate.

Often, in high schools, students are taught to abandon the first-person subject altogether in order to avoid over-use. However, reflective writing requires some use of “I.” You can’t talk about your experiences without using “I”! That being said, we’ve saved this advice for the bottom of the list because, as we hope the above tips suggest, there are a lot of important things that likely need explaining in addition to your personal experiences. That means you want to use “I” when appropriate, balancing your use of “I” with your explanation of the theory, quote, or situation you were in, for example.

Reflection conclusions can look forward to the future.

In the conclusion, you may want to ask and answer questions like:

• What is the significance of my experiences with X?
• What did I learn from reflecting on my experiences with Y?
• How might this reflective work inform future decisions?
• What specific tools or strategies did this activity use that might be employed in the future? When and why?

Write the reflection introduction last.

We always recommend writing introductions after you’ve drafted your entire essay–this allows you to actually introduce the specific essay you’ve already written (it’s easier to do and more likely to be strong). Reflective introductions have a little bit more flexibility. You do want to introduce the focus of your essay right away–and you might do that by naming it, by sharing a related anecdote, by naming a previously held idea/belief that has changed through learning happening during this course, or by explaining a reading or class discussion that make you curious about the focus you selected.

A Link to a PDF Handout of this Writing Guide

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Study Skills

Reflective practice toolkit, introduction.

• What is reflective practice?
• Everyday reflection
• Models of reflection
• Barriers to reflection
• Free writing
• Reflective writing exercise
• Bibliography

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.

What is reflective writing?

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...

Reflective writing is...

• Written in the first person
• Free flowing
• A tool to challenge assumptions
• A time investment

Reflective writing isn't...

• Written in the third person
• Descriptive
• What you think you should write
• A tool to ignore assumptions
• A waste of time

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

• Hull reflective writing video transcript (Word)
• Hull reflective writing video transcript (PDF)

Where might you use reflective writing?

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:

1. Job applications

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.

2. Appraisals

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.

3. Written feedback

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.

4. Blogging

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.

5. During the research process

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.

6. In academic 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 ... When you reflect

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!

Reflective terminology

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:

• The most important thing was...
• At the time I felt...
• This was likely due to...
• After thinking about it...
• I learned that...
• I need to know more about...
• Later I realised...
• This was because...
• This was like...
• I wonder what would happen if...
• I'm still unsure about...
• My next steps are...

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.

Using reflective writing in your academic work

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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• Last Updated: Jun 21, 2023 3:24 PM
• URL: https://libguides.cam.ac.uk/reflectivepracticetoolkit

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QUT cite|write

QUT cite|write is the University's official guide to referencing, so should be your go-to guide to work out how to cite and reference correctly. It includes guidance for the following styles:

QUT cite|write is an invaluable tool to check how to reference a particular item. It gives you guidance on how to construct a reference exactly to the specifications of a particular referencing style - for all different source types, from YouTube videos to Government reports. So first, check with your Unit Coordinator or Tutor as to which referencing style is expected in your Unit and then use QUT cite|write for the specifics on how to do it.

Activity - Construct a citation

Activity - format the citation.