Structure of reflective writing
Reflective writing can seem unstructured, such as a personal diary. In
reflective writing assignments your lecturers normally expect to see
carefully-structured writing.
Reflective writing can be broken down into three parts: description,
interpretation and outcome.
1. Description
What happened?
What is being examined?
2. Interpretation
What is most important/interesting/relevant about the experience,
thing or idea?
How can it be explained and how is it similar or different?
3. Outcome
What have I learned?
What does this mean?
This is one way of structuring reflective writing. There are many others
however, try to remember the four key points:
1. Reflection is not just a description – it involves exploring and
explaining an experience.
2. Reflection often involves finding the mistakes and weakness as well
as the success and strengths
3. Reflection is often just the essential or significant features of the
experience.
4. It is important to reflect into the future as well as into the past.
Torrens University Language Centre, Learning and Academic Skills Unit
2016.1
The Language of reflective writing
Reflective writing is very personal and the words and you often write with
a very individual style. The following are just a few suggestions for words
and phrases that might be useful in reflective writing.
Description
Describing an idea, you should use the present tense
e.g. ‘teamwork theory recognises…’ (Not ‘recognised’).
Describing an event, you should usually use the past tense
e.g. ‘when I arranged the meeting….’ (Not ‘arrange’)
Interpretation
This is the most important section of your reflective writing.
Example:
I found the most
Previously thought (did not think)…
At the time felt (did not feel)…
At first knew (did not know)…
Initially noticed (did not notice)…
Subsequently questioned (did not)…
Later, realised (did not)…
meaningful
significant
important
relevant
aspect(s)
element(s)
experience(s)
issue(s)
idea(s)
was(were)
arose from
happened when
resulted from
I
Torrens University Language Centre, Learning and Academic Skills Unit
2016.1
might be because of…
Equally, is perhaps due to…
Alternatively, could be explained by…
is probably related to…
This is similar to… because…
is unlike…
Outcome
read… feel…
experienced… think…
applied… realise…
Having discussed… I now wonder…
analysed… question…
learned… know…
Additionally,
Furthermore, I have learned that…
Most importantly,
this
Torrens University Language Centre, Learning and Academic Skills Unit
2016.1
did not…
will now need to…
have not yet…
Because I am not yet certain about…
am not yet confident about…
do not yet know…
do not yet understand…
As a next step, I need to…
This vocabulary is presented as an example of the three-part analysis that
is modelled on the previous page of this handout.
Torrens University Language Centre, Learning and Academic Skills Unit
2016.1
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