Reflective Writing

by Kate Williams, Mary Woolliams, Jane Spiro

Packed with practical advice, this concise guide explains what reflective writing is and how to approach it. It equips students with all the key information and strategies they need to develop an appropriate reflective writing style, whatever their subject area. Annotated examples from a range of disciplines and contexts show students how to put these tips into practice. It concludes with a section on applying reflective practices to personal development and career planning. This handy guide is an indispensable resource for students of all disciplines and levels, who are required to develop and demonstrate reflective qualities in their work. It will be particularly useful to students writing reflective logs on placements. New to this Contains more content on the value and importance of reflection in other life contexts, so that students can appreciate its relevance from an early stage;- Features a short overview of academic writing genres, to help students make connections between reflective writing and other forms of academic writing with which they are already familiar- Covers alternative ways of capturing reflection, such as free-writing, blogs/vlogs and other technologies- Includes new examples which show how students have re-worked their initial drafts to produce a better, more appropriate response

Genres: Nonfiction, Research

143 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 4, 2012

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.

Reviews

[gly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fast read and clear instructions. Exactly what I needed to start my reflective essay writing!

[Selina · Rating 4 out of 5]

A clear and concise little book on reflective writing practices.

[Viet Dung Nguyen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reflection of “Reflective writing”
This book is about reflection. What is reflection? How can we reflect in a systematic way? Why is reflection important to anyone?
Reflect is to turn our thought back, to learn from the past and prepare for the future. The book targets students, therefore there are many sections are likely to serve learning purposes at the college or career planning for fresh graduates. However, even if we are employed, we can apply reflective frameworks that are appropriate to our situations.

WHY need to reflect? I can say that reflect is to transform ourselves from inside, to learn, see, and do things differently. Have you ever heard a quote stating that your biggest enemy is yourself? I now understand that to beat myself, the first thing I need to do is to reflect. Reflection helps me see weaknesses and strengths of my past person, then I will make a plan for the future. This is a powerful technique that I’m trying to apply on my job and especially in my teaching career. Fear of forgetting things haunts me for such a long time. I’m afraid I will forget my valuable experience, my knowledge, and my motivation. And I did. And I realize and fight my fear by reflection.
Reflection is time-consuming but necessary. You can try to reflect on your own or choose some reflective frameworks from the book to keep your refections systematic. For example, you can reflect what happened before, during and after action, or use the learning cycle of doing, reflecting, forming principles, planning then repeat.

I think I can apply reflection to any part of my life, but first, I’m apply it in my teaching job. I feel that teaching is more engaging and controllable. From my point of view, reflection and improvement connect strongly with the growth mindset.
Actually I’m trying to apply a reflective method to write a critical review now. The method says that I should use 25% of my review to summarize the book, 50% to evaluate and the rest of 25% to reflect. I think I failed to make that ratio, but I know my mistake, and I will improve it next time, because I am reflecting on my writing.

[Angela · Rating 3 out of 5]

Background reading for a course at work. A nice summary of reflective writing in an academic setting.

[Roy Sheehan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good introduction to reflective writing.

[Izzy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Read for uni (PY1LAL)