When it comes to writing up your reflection the key thing to remember is that it should not be a story. You are not going to just describe what happened.

You are going to demonstrate your critical thinking and guide your reader through your open-minded questioning of the situation, the new knowledge you have gained, and how you will use this new understanding in the future.

As such there are a few ideas and suggestions for reflective writing below:

• Demonstrate your familiarity with the literature
  • read widely about the topic or the key elements of your reflection
  • make connections between the literature and your experience
  • understand how aspects of your practice are relevant to the literature
• Create meaning - within your writing, you need to answer questions like 'why?', 'how?', 'what if?', 'so what?' to ensure that you are explaining and analysing how the things you have read and reflected on have offered insight. As opposed to just describing what happened and some research that is relevant.
• Show your ability to think critically and evaluate the existing literature - like any other academic writing, you will need to critically evaluate the sources you use, acknowledge limitations and strengths, highlight gaps in the literature etc.
• Value your experience and learn from it
  • explain to your marker how all of this fantastic critical reflection will help to improve your practice in the future
  • make recommendations about your own future actions
  • identify steps you will need to take to develop a skill or action a recommendation.

Have a go at the game below to test your knowledge of reflection at university level. 

Finding the right wording for your reflection can be tricky.  Thankfully, there are lots of resources available to help with wording and word choice for reflection. Take a look at the links below, but before you do check with your lecturer whether you will be writing your reflection in the first or third person. 

• The University of Edinburgh reflection toolkit.
• Manchester Academic Phrasebank.
• Canterbury University's guide to language for reflective writing. 

Students may receive feedback that their reflections are too descriptive or too narrative. Take a look at the examples below see if you can identify which are just descriptions of the event and which are reflective.  

The Thinglink below highlights the two descriptive passages from the task above and identifies what could be done to ensure that they are more reflective.

Canterbury Christ Church University (no date) Language for reflective writing. Available at: https://www.canterbury.ac.uk/learning-skills-hub/introduction-to-reflection/language-in-reflective-writing (Accessed: 28 May 2024).

 Plymouth University (no date) Reflection. Available at: https://learnhigher.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/Reflection1.pdf (Accessed: 28 May 2024).