How to Write a Reflection Essay That Will Move Your Reader

I spoke to some professional tutors from our essay writing service about how to write a reflection essay. There was a wealth of information going around. Here’s a reflection of what I learned.

Internship students can be required to write a reflective essay reporting their experiences at a given occupation. A reflection essay is also used in different academic courses. Whenever you are writing this type of essay, you’ll be required to look back at what you learned and recount the moments.

Perhaps you’ve written a different type of academic essay? If yes, you’d love to know that writing a reflection essay is not any different. If it helps, you can visit our resource center to see a reflection essay example.

Let’s dig into the subject a little to learn more.

What is a Reflection Essay?

A reflection essay refers to a piece of writing where the author covers their personal life experiences with the aim of either teaching a lesson or giving life advice. 

In most cases, a writer will start from a particular point before progressing through the use of details from the event. They will then bring out the conclusion to end the story. 

The main task of the author will be to explain the impact of the life experience on their lives. A reflective essay will help express how event progression did influence one’s feelings and thoughts concerning particular life events and the lessons they learned. 

Ensure you also check our archives for a reflection essay example. You can also learn more about how to come up with an excellent reflection essay outline. 

How to Start a Reflection Essay?

Since you already know what a reflective essay is, it is now time to figure out how to write a great one. Most people tend to ignore this part with the assumption that they can write a good reflection essay as they already know what it is. 

Knowing who to write a reflection essay correctly will help you learn how you can connect all the reflective paragraphs. It means you will need a decent plan to help you develop your essay. You will enjoy lots of benefits and offer you with a clear view to further develop your literature work. We will be providing you with a decent structure that will help you write your story step by step. 

Reflection Essay Outline

Ensure you correctly outline each part of your essay to enable you to write it fast and efficiently. You need to consider the following:

• Choosing a topic
• Collecting Information 
• Refine information resources
• Write a draft 
• Write the projects’ main parts 
• Makin references

What Should I Write About?

When thinking about the essay content, you must keep in mind a self reflection essay is very personal and is aimed at engaging the target audience or reader. There is more to the reflective essay than just having to recount a story. You should be in a position of reflecting on the experiences you encountered by revealing how it affected the subsequent behaviors and how it changed your life. 

To start you off, you might be interested in thinking about some great experiences in your life which have impacted you either negatively or positively or both. 

Reflection Essay Format

The writer will be examining his or her life experiences in the reflection essay. 

It explains why the term ‘reflective’ was used. The primary purpose of this essay is to help provide the author with a platform where he or she will not only recount specific life experiences but will also explore how he or she managed to learn or transform from the lessons. 

You can present reflective essays in different formats. In most cases, you will always see it in a diary entry format or a learning log format. Daily entries are used to convey how the thoughts of the author have grown and transformed over some time. 

Reflection essay format can change the target audience. They can be academic or can have a full feature as a portion of writing for the magazine. 

Although the format of the presentation can vary for class assignments, the primary purpose will always remain to be the same. The tutors will always strive to inspire their students to think deeply concerning a particular experience. Below are some reflection essay example formats you might encounter. 

Personal Growth 

Personal growth is a reflective essay type which is generally used by tutors. They use it as a tool to assist students learns how they can analyze their own life experiences to help promote emotional development and growth. This self reflection essay will provide students with a better understanding of their behaviors and themselves. 

Literature 

Literature is a type of reflective essay that will require students to come up with a literature summary. It will, after that, be applied to the life experiences of the student. 

How to Write a Great Reflection Essay

Ensure the essay reveals your primary purpose. You should ensure the following:

• Describe a definite change, experience, or event.
• Be clear in your message; you don’t want readers to get bored.
• Include one top example which will help make the picture fuller.
• Show the consequences, effects, the impact of some events on you, and the experiences they gave you. 

Structure of a Reflection Essay

The outline of your reflective paper should have three parts:

1. Introduction 

2. Body 

3. Conclusion 

Introduction

Just like all the other essays, the reflective essay must also start with an opening having a hook and a thesis statement. The hook will enable you to grab the audience’s attention right from the start. You need to portray the significant story aspects in this first paragraph to help you attract the readers’ interest. 

The introduction should be:

• Catchy 
• Informative 
• Brief

A thesis statement refers to the summary of the essay focus, which is an experience than managed to influence you. 

Do not forget to write a quick overview of your experience. You do not have to give lots of information as that might make the reader bored. 

Having a decent start will increase your chances of being successful.

Body 

The next phase is planning the essay body. Most people consider it the most challenging part of reflective essay writing. It is easy to repeat and waffle yourself while coming up with the plan or when writing a self-reflection essay. 

Did you, at one point, try recounting a story to a colleague only for them to request you to cut a long story short? You need to put lots of emphasis on planning the essay body. 

Here are two tips that will help you have a great body:

a) Consider taking a chronological approach

It means you have to work through all you want to cover as it happened. This approach will ensure you have a coherent and systematic work. Remember, a personal reflection essay does not have to be linear. When you work chronologically, you will avoid giving haphazard recollection of your experience. Ensure you list the essential elements of your experience in the timeline as it will enable you to have an idea on how to bring your narrative together. 

b) Ensure the body contains right reflection, critique and is well focused

Apart from the body summarizing your experience, it should also explore the impact that particular experience had on your life together with the lessons you have managed to learn. The point of focus should be on reflection and not of summation. Having a reflective posture will offer the readers some insight into your experience and help in highlighting your personality and the ability to deal with or adapt to given situations. 

Conclusion

You need to prioritize bringing the piece together by offering a summary of the points you made in the body and what you learned. Include a few aspects of how and why your behaviors and attitudes changed. Also, consider in what ways your skills and character have been affected. 

For instance, what can you conclude regarding your skills in problem-solving? What conclusion can you draw concerning your type of approach in particular situations? What things will you have to do when you are in a similar position soon? What measures have you taken to help you consolidate all you have learned from the experience? Remember that the tutor will be on the lookout for reflection evidence. 

You now have all that is needed to enable you to come up with an accurate and thorough plan that will place you in a good position in coming up with a great reflective essay. You can consider reading through previous reflection essay samples to provide you with a hint on how to go about your essay. 

A reasonable conclusion should:

• Retell the story in other words
• Have the main points highlighted
• Be very precise and clear.  Do not play around with the words. 
• Bring the research to a conclusion

Tips for a Successful Reflection Essay

These tips will enable you to have a successful reflection essay:

• Never drag someone else into your essay. Always write about actions but not individuals. Ensure you formulate a conclusion according to the activity influence. 
• Never write your reflection paper from a first-person. However, ensure you do not forget to provide evidence supporting your feelings and opinions. 
• Avoid the use of slang words in your essay. A reflection essay is a formal paper, so in case you intend to bring some humor, ensure you bring the whole text as an essay for the readers but never turn the piece into a personal journal. 
• Make use of transitional phrases when introducing details. Include phrases like, for example, the opposite point view is, as a result of it, etc. 
• Always keep your work bright and short. In most cases, the essay should be about 700 words. 
• Ensure you revise your work and fix all the logical and grammar errors when you are through with your work. This will make it look professional.

Proofread and Correct Mistakes 

When you are done writing your reflective essay, you should read through it, fixing any grammatical and logical errors to give it a professional look. Never be in a rush as it can be you deliver your essay with some silly grammatical errors making you lose the scholarship opportunity.  You do not have to proofread your work immediately since your eyes and mind will be tired. 

You can consider taking a break for several hours or some days. It will enable you to see your work when your eyes are refreshed. It will ensure the chances of missing mistakes are less. Never shy off from using different vocabularies. It will enable you to define the meaning of the words. You can consider using online services to help you check grammatical errors in your work.

Need Assignment Help Writing a Reflection Essay?

That’s as much information as I could gather on how to write a reflection essay from the best and brightest in one of the leading custom writing services around. Aren’t you glad you stuck around? If you still need more inspiration, we have a huge collection of reflection essay examples in our resource center. Be sure to give them a glance. 

If you’re overwhelmed at the moment, custom writing bee can provide assignment help on any type of academic writing project. If you want a custom essay on how to write a reflection essay, order right now.