1.4 Reflective writing – types of reflective writing transcript
Journal entries
A journal is where we can document our experiences, thoughts and feelings for our future selves. For most people, journaling is a deeply personal activity and entries are intended only for the eyes of the writer. There is no ‘right’ way to write a journal entry. It can be in ordered paragraphs or freeform and unstructured, a list, or a collection of notes and quotes – anything else that works for the writer.
Some people make journaling a part of their daily routine, and others only write when there’s something weighing on their mind. The experience of writing down all your feelings can be cathartic and enlightening. Fundamentally, personal journals are a safe space to reflect and explore our thoughts and ideas.
Blog posts
A blog post is similar to an online journal entry, except that it is usually intended to be read by others. It is possible to keep private blogs, but they’re generally written for an audience, who might be a handful of friends and family or thousands of dedicated readers all around the world. There are even people who earn an income from this type of reflective writing because their blogs are so popular.
As blog posts are written to engage and inform an audience, they are more structured than a private journal. There are many bloggers who document their self-development journeys and write about what they’ve learnt from their challenges. Some people might reflect on why a family member’s recipe is important to them, and others on what they like or dislike about an overseas trip they’re on. These are all examples of reflective writing!
Reflective essays
Reflective essays are academic writing tasks that involve reflecting on an experience and documenting what was learnt from it. They are common assessment tasks and hurdle requirements in many disciplines and are an important part of most professional placements in education, psychology, nursing, and more.
Like a regular essay, a reflective essay should use formal language, follow a logical structure, and be written in paragraphs with topic sentences. But unlike other essays, which present factual information without any personal experiences as evidence, reflective essays require the writer to include their lived experiences and feelings, analyse them, and detail what they’ve learnt. In a reflective essay, it’s common to see phrases like “I was surprised to learn” and “I will take a different approach in future,” which would be out of place in an argumentative essay, for example.
Research reflections
When researchers are working on a project they will often think about the 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.
Reflective writing encourages researchers to critically analyse their experience and evaluate the effectiveness of their research process, by documenting their progress and challenges as they go. Keeping consistent research reflections can help researchers see what worked and what didn’t, and adapt their process for the next stage of their project. It also provides a body of documentation for future papers, projects, or collaboration.
Content has been adapted from “Reflective Practice Toolkit “ by Cambridge University Libraries is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0
Professional Placement Reflections
Professional experiences are an integral part of many higher education courses. Depending on the discipline and institution, they might be called a professional placement, an internship, practicum, or work-integrated learning (WIL). They involve working in the field you’re studying for a set amount of time to gain experience and insight.
Students taking part in professional placement often write reflective tasks as part of their assessment. You could, for example, be required to reflect on a lesson you have taught (education), a medical procedure you have seen carried out (medicine and nursing), a marketing pitch you have witnessed (business and marketing), or how you approached time management while writing multiple articles for a magazine (journalism). This documentation shows your mentors and educators that you are able to apply theoretical knowledge from your course successfully in a professional setting.
Peer Feedback
Peer feedback involves critically evaluating the academic or professional work of your peers, who could be your classmates or colleagues. This is done by carefully examining the work of a peer, while considering the objectives of the task they have completed. You will reflect on what your peer has done well, and where they’ve missed the mark and why. An important part of peer review is writing feedback for your peer to read and learn from, with comments which are justified and backed up with examples.
Peer feedback is delivered in many different ways, including comments on a shared document, an email or discussion board post following a set template, or notes entered into a digital feedback tool like Feedback Fruits. In the workplace, peer feedback might just be a few chat messages, or part of a formal process. Whatever the form in which it is delivered, written feedback requires reflective thought.
Job Applications
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 reflecting on the skills you have developed and how they might relate to the specific role. Writing an application involves expanding on what you have done and explaining what you have learnt and why this matters – key elements of reflective writing.
Many roles require a written response to key selection criteria (KSC). These criteria describe the specific qualifications, skills, abilities, and knowledge an applicant needs. Applicants need to reflect on their experiences to choose the best examples of how they successfully meet the criteria. It’s important for applicants to explain how they’ve succeeded in past situations, and if you’ve been using reflective practice, you’ll already have the insight and the answers.
Content has been adapted from “Reflective Practice Toolkit “ by Cambridge University Libraries is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0
Critical Incident Reflection
The structure and style of critical incident reports vary across disciplines, but many involve reflective writing. A placement student or practitioner will do this type of writing to document an incident, by evaluating a problematic situation, or something that has made them question their knowledge, actions or beliefs. In a clinical setting, this could include an unexpected medical outcome, an unpleasant interaction with a patient, or an ethical dilemma. At university, students might be asked to write critical incident reflections on situations which have occurred during their classes or professional placements.
The structure and style of critical incident reports vary across disciplines, but many involve reflective writing. A placement student or practitioner will do this type of writing to document an incident, by evaluating a problematic situation, or something that has made them question their knowledge, actions or beliefs. In a clinical setting, this could include an unexpected medical outcome, an unpleasant interaction with a patient, or an ethical dilemma. At university, students might be asked to write critical incident reflections on situations which have occurred during their classes or professional placements.
As these documents are generally written to be read by colleagues, mentors, and work supervisors, appropriate language and structure is important. A critical incident reflection will give the necessary amount of detail to describe the incident, but most of the task will focus on analysing and evaluating the incident.
Logbooks
Logbooks are like professional diaries. They’re records or journals kept in certain occupations to track incidents and notable happenings. They allow professionals to keep a consistent and chronological account of activities, events, and observations which can be referred to later on and used to support collaborative work. They don’t have a standardised structure, but they are usually sorted by date and are sometimes organised into categories.
Logbooks are commonly used in aviation as a place for pilots and trainees to record things like the weather, or departure and arrival times, and also reflective comments like what might have caused a delay, and how this could be prevented in future. Scientists also use logbooks to record their findings and data, as well as to reflect on their process and their feelings about their research.
Project Reflections
In most workplaces, a review is undertaken when a project is completed, and project members and management reflect on the project from start to finish. The information from this review is documented and generally includes the project’s objectives, its successes and challenges and what contributed to both of these factors, the project’s impact, and recommendations for future projects based on the findings of the review. This process provides valuable insights for future projects.
At university, you might need to write a project reflection after doing a group assessment. This might include information about how your group divided up the work and why, how collaborative sessions were carried out, and any communication or time management issues that arose. The most important part of this type of reflective writing is showing that you have learnt from this experience and that you will apply these learnings to future projects.
