Reflective writing catches people out because it breaks the rule they have spent years learning. Every other assignment tells you to keep yourself out of it. This one asks you to put yourself in, and most students either write a diary entry or retreat into the impersonal style they are comfortable with.
This guide covers how to write a reflective essay that is genuinely personal and still analytical, which is what the marking criteria are asking for.
What markers are looking for
Not what happened. What you made of it.
A reflective essay is assessed on the quality of your thinking about an experience, not on the experience itself. Two students can describe the same placement shift and receive very different marks, because one narrated it and the other interrogated it.
The practical consequence is that description should take up perhaps a fifth of your essay. If your draft is mostly an account of events, it will not pass however well written it is. This is the single most common reason reflective work is returned.
Gibbs’ Reflective Cycle
Most UK and Australian courses teach Gibbs, particularly in nursing, midwifery, social work, teaching and allied health. It has six stages, and it is popular because it forces you past description into analysis.
Description
What happened, factually and briefly. Who was involved, what you did, what the outcome was. No interpretation yet.
Feelings
What you were thinking and feeling at the time, and afterwards. Be honest. Writing that you felt confident throughout, when the point of the assignment is that something went wrong, reads as evasion. Markers reward candour here.
Evaluation
What went well and what did not. Both, even when the experience was difficult. An evaluation that finds nothing positive is as unbalanced as one that finds no fault.
Analysis
Why did it happen that way? This is the stage that carries the marks, and the stage students most often skip. It is where theory enters: what does the literature say about situations like this, and does it explain what you observed?
Conclusion
What else could you have done? Consider the alternatives you did not take, and be specific about why they might have produced a different outcome.
Action plan
What will you do differently next time? Concrete and achievable. “I will communicate better” is not an action plan. “I will confirm my understanding of a handover by summarising it back before the colleague leaves” is.
Other models you may be given
Kolb’s Experiential Learning Cycle has four stages and suits reflection on learning rather than on incidents. Rolfe’s framework reduces the whole thing to three questions: what, so what, now what. It is deceptively simple and works well for shorter pieces. Driscoll uses the same three questions in a slightly expanded form.
Use whichever your handbook specifies. If none is specified, Gibbs is the safe default because markers recognise it and its stages map neatly onto most criteria.
Writing in the first person
You are expected to use “I”, and this is one of the few academic contexts where avoiding it is a fault rather than a virtue. “It was felt that the intervention was unsuccessful” hides exactly the thing the assignment is assessing. Write “I felt the intervention had not worked, and I was uncertain whether to raise it.”
First person does not mean informal. Keep the register academic, keep the tenses consistent, and avoid slang. You are being personal, not casual.
Reflective writing still needs references
This surprises students, and it is where a mid-range essay becomes a strong one.
Your analysis section should draw on the literature. If you are reflecting on a communication breakdown, cite the communication theory that explains it. If you are reflecting on a clinical decision, cite the relevant guideline. Reflection without theory is an anecdote; reflection with theory is scholarship.
Expect to cite the reflective model you are using, plus perhaps six to twelve sources for a 1,500 word essay, most of them in the analysis.
Confidentiality
If you are writing about placement, practice or anyone other than yourself, anonymise. No patient names, no colleague names, no identifying detail about the setting. In the UK this follows from professional standards such as the NMC and HCPC codes, and breaching it can affect your registration as well as your mark.
Use a pseudonym and say you have done so, or refer to “the patient” and “my mentor”. Where your department provides a confidentiality statement to include, use it.
A structure you can follow
For a 1,500 word reflective essay using Gibbs:
- Introduction — the experience in a sentence, the model you are using, what the essay will cover. Around 150 words.
- Description — what happened. Around 250 words.
- Feelings — honest, brief. Around 150 words.
- Evaluation — what worked and what did not. Around 200 words.
- Analysis — why, with theory. Around 450 words, and the longest section by design.
- Conclusion — alternatives you might have taken. Around 200 words.
- Action plan — specific and achievable. Around 100 words.
Whether you use the stage names as subheadings depends on your brief. Many tutors prefer them; some want continuous prose. Ask if it is not stated.
Common questions
Can I write about something that went badly?
Yes, and it is usually the better choice. An experience where everything went smoothly gives you very little to analyse. Markers are assessing your insight, not your competence on the day.
How personal is too personal?
Include emotion where it is relevant to the professional judgement you are examining. Leave out anything about your private life that does not bear on the incident. If you would be uncomfortable with your practice supervisor reading it, reconsider.
Do I need an introduction and conclusion as well as the cycle?
Yes. The cycle structures the body. You still need a short introduction that sets up the essay and a brief closing that draws the reflection together, which is separate from the Conclusion stage of Gibbs itself.
What tense should I write in?
Past tense for the description and feelings, present for analysis, future for the action plan. Shifting between them is expected and correct.
If your reflective essay keeps coming back as too descriptive
The fix is almost always the same: cut the description in half and spend what you save on the analysis stage, with references. Reflective marking criteria weight analysis heavily, and most failing drafts are failing on that one section.
Our essay writing help covers reflective assignments, including restructuring a draft that has stalled at description, and our proofreading and editing service will check your referencing and consistency before you submit.