Essay writing could be the most interesting or most boring task. It is sort of a bipolar task. It completely depends on the topic and type of the essay. There are multiple types of essays which students are supposed to write during their college years. One of those is the reflective essay. Furthermore, a reflective essay is usually the most enjoyed essay as well. It is interesting for both the writer and the readers.

What is a Reflective Essay?

In a reflective essay, the writer is supposed to analyze his life events and experiences from which he has been able to extract something effective ad helpful. After that he needs to discuss and talk about the experiences in the essay and explore all the changes those events and experiences have brought in the writer’s life. Basically, the writer needs to reflect on his life and analyze in the light of discoveries and new learning which have made him a changed person.

Steps to Structure the Essay

To properly write a reflective essay you need to follow a few basic steps so that the essay can be aptly structured. Following are the steps to follow to make the proper structure.

• Thoroughly read the essay question and understand it properly. This is the base of your essay so you need to be clear about it.
• Read and understand the grading criteria.
• Think of your life events and identify the one you will be talking about in the reflective essay.
• If there is a third person involved in the situation, make sure to maintain full confidentiality and privacy of them.
• Make sure you have the answers to what, why, who, when, where and how so that the scene is perfectly described and discussed.
• Align the lessons or outcomes of the experience and events that you are planning to mention.
• Identify the ways in which the experiences would be correlated with the literature/topic.
• Note down every understanding of yours regarding the experience which includes compare and contrast, insights, causes, and effects.
• Also note down the things which you further need to learn and improve in your personality and professional abilities.

How to write it?

Once you have aligned and sorted everything, get to the writing phase. Writing a reflective essay is not much of a difficult task. If you know the experience that you want to discuss in the essay, then you are good to go and compose an exceptional reflective essay. Furthermore, reflective essay is written on the standard essay format. However, following is a simple guide to help the students understand what should be written exactly in every section.

Introduction

In the introduction paragraph, you are supposed to introduce the entire essay to the readers in a short paragraph. By reading the introduction paragraph, the reader should immediately get the idea of what is discussed in the following content. There are four main things which you need to address to the readers to make your introduction apt.

• What exactly is the essay about?
• The focal point of the essay.
• Importance of the issue/event being discussed.
• The formation of the event.

If you manage to clearly give answers to these four questions in your introduction then it is time to move to the second section the essay which is the body paragraphs.

Body

Body paragraphs are the actual reflection of you as a person. The entire focus of the readers is here and therefore, the body paragraphs always have the most number of marks assigned for it. Make sure that your body paragraphs are properly written.

Start with extensive describing the event and how were you feeling in that very moment. After that, evaluate the entire event or experience. In the evaluation, you are supposed to discuss about the good and bad things attached to the experience or event. Finally, in the end of the body paragraphs, analyze the experience and discuss the insights which include the causes and effects, and compare and contrast for a better reflection.

Conclusion

In the conclusion part of the essay, you are supposed to summarize all the issues that have been explored in the body. After that, remind the reader the purpose of the essay and in the end, talk about the proper actions that can be taken in relation with the incidents and events discussed.

Reflective essay is more of a personal essay and does not require much research on the internet rather just exploration of your mind and past. However, it is an interesting task and writers enjoy it thoroughly. If you still get suck anywhere in the process of writing a reflective essay then reach out to us and our expert essay writers will explain you further with proper samples and details.