Effective Tips to Help You Organize a Reflective Essay in a Proper Way

A reflective essay is all about you. It is your impression of some incident in your life, or perhaps a book you read, which left a lasting impression on you. This is a subjective composition which still has to follow certain academic rules. Here are some suggestions on how to organize the work.

  • Do Some Brainstorming First. You should be able to identify a theme before you get started. It requires you to do some thinking about what has influenced your life up to this point. Jot down a few notes, create some alternative themes, and then you decide which will be the one you concentrate your efforts on.
  • Develop Some Probing Questions. These are the kind which go underneath the surface. You have identified your theme and now you have to explain why there was an impact. The questions will guide you through the process of explanation.
  • Did you have any Expectations Beforehand? This question can start off the essay. You would show what you thought would be the end consequence of the entire experience or the reading.
  • Remember How Important Objectivity Will Be. This means a bit of distance from the theme. You ought to be somewhat unemotional as you describe the experience to your reading audience.
  • Logical Sequence Helps with Structure. Reflection should not be scattered but follow a rational flow from start to finish. Anything else will only confuse the reader.
  • Prepare to be Brief. You are not writing the Great American Novel but an essay on your impressions. This will no doubt be less than 1000 words in length.
  • Do not hesitate to Review and Revise the Text. Reflection can be difficult and may take some time. As you are writing think of other lessons learned from the experience. This is why you want to go paragraph by paragraph in a revision of the essay. Do not worry about it because this is all part of writing.

Writing your reflections is a thought-provoking process. You’re giving word to the feelings and emotions that surfaced at the time of the experience, or in the reading of the text. This type of assignment is a way of helping you learn how to express yourself. As you are doing this you may discover a lot more about yourself than you knew before. It makes writing this kind of an asset even more value as a learning instrument. You discover how things affect and most important you can explain why.