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Reflective writing is a way to help others get to know you. It usually involves writing a personal response to your learning, life events, experiences, or circumstances.
Reflective writing is a useful skill for...
- Cover letters for jobs.
- Classroom assignments.
- Applications and internships.
- And more!
Reflection is not...
- A summary of course notes.
- Just information or descriptions of events and experiences.
- A simple deicision about whether something is good or bad, right or wrong.
Reflective writing tips for:
school work resumes internships
What is Reflective Writing?
How do I start?
Begin by examining the prompt or the question you’re responding to.
Here’s an example prompt for a personal essay or job application:
In a reflective writing prompt, certain phrases will tell you to provide a personal response. Here, the phrases are bolded because they ask for a description about what has changed for you or what you’ve learned.
Reflective writing tips for:
school work resumes internships
“Describe a major challenge that you have had to face and the steps you took to overcome the challenge. How has that experience made you a better person, student, or employee?”
Gibbs’ Reflective Cycle
is a tool for revisiting your experiences, examining your thoughts and actions, and describing what you’ve learned.
Reflective writing tips for:
school work resumes internships
- FEELINGS What were you thinking or feeling as it happened?
- EVALUATION What was good and bad about the experience?
- ACTION PLAN If it were to happen again, what would you do?
- CONCLUSION What else could you have done?
- DESCRIPTION What happened?
- ANALYSIS What sense can you make of the situation?
Reflective writing tips for:
school work resumes internships
Planning Your Essay
Once you have reflected on the experience or information requested by the prompt, you can start to create sentences for your essay!
Reflection, like any skill, gets easier with practice. However, using particular reflective phrases can help emphasize the significance of your experiences, what you learned, and how you plan on using that knowledge moving forward!
The following sections provide some examples of how you might build reflective phrases in the introduction, body, and conclusion paragraphs of your essay.
Reflective writing tips for:
school work resumes internships
Your body paragraphs elaborate on the ideas you bring up in your introduction:
Reflective Body Paragraphs
I have + improved + my ability to ___=
“I have improved my ability to communicate.”
Having learned ___, I now realize ___=
“Having learned how to organize files, I now realize I enjoy it.”
I developed my knowledge of ___ =
“I have developed my knowledge of how an office runs.”
Reflective writing tips for:
school work resumes internships
Reflective Conclusion
Your conclusion is a chance to sum up your reflective essay:
I am grateful for _____, and for my experiences in _____. =
“I am grateful for my internship at the animal shelter and for my experiences in an office setting.“
Now that I have completed _____, I have new ____ skills.
“Now that I have completed my summer internship, I have new office skills.”
