Free Reflective Essay Examples & Samples [MS Word]

Reflective essay examples are the types of written works that examine the writer’s life experience. During writing a reflective essay, you can share your own experiences, state how you have changed, and established because of those experiences. The format of this type of essay depends on the target audience.

What is a reflective essay?

A reflective essay is a type of essay that reflects your own life experience. So, you already have a topic to write about because it’s about yourself. Readers expect you to elaborate a specific part of your life. Thus, you have to reflect on emotions, memories, and feelings that you have experienced at that time. Since you are writing about yourself, it should be interesting and exciting. This is crucial to engage your readers with what you’ve written. This type of essay is very special and personal. During writing, you need to reflect, think, and demonstrate.

In this essay, you can explain your feelings and emotions that you have left in the past. These statements make your easy more attractive for the readers. In this way, readers start visualizing what you have written in their minds. These essays contain your painful experiences and are very honest, personal, and emotional. You should also check Essay Outline Templates.

The purpose of reflective writing:

It is an academic writing assignment that includes details regarding your identity. The main purpose of reflective writing is to analyze and conclude what you have heard and seen. It makes you able to build connections between the text and yourself. The reflective writing is written according to your point of view. Also, it assists you in identifying your interest.

Format of reflective essay:

Reflective essay examples don’t have standard format. As aforementioned, their format depends on the target audience. Besides the format, you have to think first about the life experience you want to share. Keep in mind that it is not a personal journal or diary. But it should be written with good structure and coherence.

You should examine your own life experiences during writing a reflective essay. The main objective of this essay is to provide your most meaningful life experiences with other people. Furthermore, you have to state that how your experiences have changed you as a person.

However, you can write it in different formats. Usually, people use a learning log or a diary entry format. You can also use other formats but you have to ensure that your essay has a good flow and easily understand by the readers. You can make an academic, a general, or an informal reflective essay. In order to write the essay for a class assignment follows the format given by your teacher. You can write an essay which;

Pay attention to your personal growth:

This type of essay teaches you how to assess and identify the experiences you have had in your personal life. It assists in promoting emotional development and growth. You can also understand yourself and your behaviors better by writing such an essay.

Pay attention to literature:

Here you have to provide references to literature and then apply them to your own life experiences. These types of essays are generally given to the students in school.

How to create outline of reflective essay examples?

Firstly, you have to create an outline before writing your essay. By creating outline, you can give structure to your essay to act as a reference for what you want to write about. It doesn’t matter for what you are writing essay for either for school, for a magazine, or for any other person, drafting an outline is the very first step. Your essay will flow from one paragraph to the next all the way to the conclusion with an effective outline.

Additionally, keep the outline of reflective essay organized. Below is some run-down steps involved in the reflective essay process;

• Select a topic that you want to write about
• Collect information
• Create an outline
• Write a draft
• Finalize your essay

How to write a reflection paper?

Include your initial emotions and thoughts in case you are writing a reflection on a certain text. If you are creating a reflection paper about yourself or an event in your life then make a table that contains three columns name them as past experiences, descriptions, and reflections. With the help of this table, you can effectively brainstorm and structure the introduction and body of your essay.

How to write a reflective essay?

Follow the below tips for writing a reflective essay;

Reflection:

The reflective process is the most important part of writing your reflective essay. Focus on the personal experience you want to write about. Think about what occurred, how this experience made you feel, and how it affected your life. For this part of the process, explore your memories and emotions. Take a lot of notes during recalling and reflecting on your life experience. Try to write down all the details you remember. You should be as clear and as detailed as you possibly can. Furthermore, close your eyes to remember those experiences. After recalling all of the details of your life experience, write your essay.

Planning:

When you have reflected on your life experience, let’s start planning your essay. In the beginning, you may think that you are not adequately prepared even after a lot of reflection. Don’t be overwhelmed, this is a normal feeling. To get rid of your anxiety and doubt, make up a well-rounded and comprehensive plan. You can do this effectively via an outline. With the help of an outline, you can draft an essay that’s more coherent and which has a clear structure.

For reflective essay, planning is very important. As you’re writing about an emotionally-charged topic you may seem you are getting “lost” along the way. This is true especially if you are describing a painful experience which still affects you. To keep your thought organized, outline acts as a map. Ensure to develop all of the fundamental details in your outline that you want to include in your essay. By doing this, you can remove any superfluous information so that it becomes easier to read and understand.

In addition, with the help of an outline, you can prevent yourself from missing out any fundamental information. Also, your writing becomes more clearer. The readers can follow your line of thoughts. Hence, you can save a lot of time by planning your essay. You may also like Thesis Statement Templates.

The significance of a reflective essay:

Writing a reflective essay is of great importance as it is a platform where you can present the things that rarely encounter in our day-to-day activities. Nowadays, we have become unappreciative of the abstract things because for us material things are mattered most. We can’t express love, mercy, and compassion by using electronic gadgets that keep us busy.

Conclusion:

In conclusion, the content of your reflective essay example must be engaging to readers. For this, you have to share your experiences. Write down your most significant experiences you had in your life. However, these types of essays are very personal, honest, and emotional. You must create an outline for your reflective essay to give structure to your essay.

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