How to Write a Reflective Essay

A reflective essay helps students use personal experiences and thoughts to further explore a topic. The idea includes presenting your findings to help create new provoking thoughts for your reading audience. The subject topic can be anything from trending news topics, personal experience, or fact. When it comes to preparing content for this type of writing, writers may learn it takes more time and effort to get details in line in a unique manner.

• Know what parts are included in an essay of this nature. This may include an opening paragraph and other pertinent details such as experience and other categories you want to mention in your essay. If you have been presented with guidelines to follow by your instructor, refer to those as you are writing.
• Your opening paragraph show help pull readers into the essay. Your thesis may also be in this section which helps pull your general ideas together and give readers an idea of reflecting thoughts yet to come.
• Brainstorm on thoughts you want to present in the essay. You can help breakup your thoughts into categories to get a better idea on how you can include it during your writing. Maybe this includes experiences or facts. Note your feelings and thoughts associated with them. Any facts that are not personal, you may need to fact-check it through a reputable source, especially if you are writing about a historic event.
• Have an outline for your essay assignment. This helps you get an idea of what you need to include and where it should appear in the written context. You should be able to present your data in a logical format, making it easier for readers to follow your thoughts. When you include personal experiences make them brief to keep readers focused.
• Using your outline as your guide, begin writing the essay. Your experiences, facts and points should come together to make cohesive structured paragraphs easy to read. A reflection or experience mentioned can be limited to one per paragraph to help readers follow through.
• Create your conclusion paragraph last to sum up your content. Mention what you have learned or what has left a lasting impression on your personal thoughts.
• Read and revise your draft. How well do your thoughts and concepts come through for your readers? Do your paragraphs transition well from one to the next? Try to limit repetitive sentences or words you may use over and over. Evaluate what you have written and ask yourself does it present a new interesting thought for the reading audience.