Language for reflective writing

• Use the 1st person (“I”, “my” and other personal pronouns) when describing yourself and your responses. Reflections are centred on your experiences.
• Use the 3rd person (“he”, “she”, “it”) when describing others’ roles and responses to events.
• Use proper nouns (names) and 3rd person (Diaz, “the researchers”, “the author”, “he”, “she”) when evaluating and including evidence from the literature. This is the same as a traditional essay.
• Use the 3rd person when evaluating literature e.g. “evidence suggests that my experience was typical of...” rather than “I think this is normal because I’ve read the same story...”
• Use discipline-specific terminology and language that is suitable for discussing your subject with sufficient academic rigour.

• Use clear and precise language. Be specific as often as possible e.g. “3 young men aged around 14 to 16 came in the front door” rather than “a group of youths entered the building”.
• Remain as objective as possible, and resist using language that implies bias e.g. “patient X held the nurse’s look for a few seconds” rather than “patient X glared at the nurse”. It may have felt as though the patient was glaring, but was that their intention? Was that how the nurse received the look? Learn to separate description of actions from the feelings they evoke. Feelings should be expressed separately and explicitly from the description of events.
• Be concise.
• Use the past tense (usually).
• Use temporal indicators and transitional language. E.g. yesterday, last week, then, subsequently, lastly, etc.

Helpful phrases are “I saw…”, “I noticed…”, “I/they said…”, "I had…", "I/they did…", "I heard…"

• Use thinking and sensing verbs. For example, "I believe…", "I think…", "My opinion is…", "I feel…", "I understand…", "I was happy/angry/…" etc. For a comprehensive list of Feelings words, see here.
• Be cautious not to use "feel" to hide judgement or opinion. For instance "I felt they were wrong", or "my feeling was that it was a good choice". Both of these sentences use feelings as a way to pass judgement. The latter of the examples can be rewritten as "I felt confident while making the choice, because…"
• Be aware of tense. Sometimes you are remembering feelings you had at the time of the event, which should be written in past tense. Sometimes you are talking about current and persistent feelings. Use present tense for feelings you have at the time of writing.
• Feelings should already be processed. For academic reflection you should not write in the heat of the moment. The feelings presented should aid the reader’s understanding of the situation and help you to make connections to future actions.

• Use comparative/contrasting language. For instance, "similarly", "unlike", "just as", "in contrast to".
• Use causal language to show connection and conclusion. For instance, "as a result of", "due to", "therefore", "because".
• Here is a flow diagram of useful language for analysing, interpreting, and evaluating events as a part of your academic reflection.

• Sum up/highlight the most crucial learning outcomes.
• Use future-tense verbs to indicate future actions or practice. For instance: "intend to", "will", "may", "should", etc.
• Here is a flow diagram of useful language for writing the conclusion and planning aspect of your academic reflections.

From: McCabe, G. and Thejll-Madsen, T. (2018) “Language of Academic Reflections”. Reflection Toolkit. Available at: https://www.ed.ac.uk/reflection/reflectors-toolkit/producing-reflections/academic-reflections/language (Accessed: 16th March 2022)

Ryan, M. (2011) "Improving reflective writing in higher education: a social semiotic perspective." Teaching in Higher Education, 16(1). Pp. 99-111.

University of Portsmouth, Department for Curriculum and Quality Enhancement (no date). Reflective Writing: a basic introduction [online]. Portsmouth: University of Portsmouth. Available at: https://capstone.unst.pdx.edu/sites/default/files/Reflective-writing---a-basic-intro_0.pdf. (Accessed: 22nd March 2022)

Queen Margaret University, Effective Learning Service (no date). Reflection. [online]. Edinburgh: Queen Margaret University. Available at: https://www.qmu.ac.uk/study-here/student-services/effective-learning-service-els/reflection/. (Accessed: 22nd March 2022)

For academic reflection it’s important to identify areas of your experiences that connect to theory you’ve learned on your course or from your further reading. This type of academic reflection is similar to writing a case study, where a specific experience becomes the framework for more generalised learning.

Firstly, identify elements of the experience that may have been experienced by other people before, e.g. nerves on your first day of placement.

Consider how you might find literature about different aspects of this experience e.g. by searching for “placement anxiety” on LibrarySearch

Reading around the subject will help you discover whether this phenomenon has been researched and whether there are relevant theories that can offer a different perspective on the original experience.

When you come to write your reflection, you need to integrate personal experience with impersonal theory and draw conclusions. There are 2 main ways to do this:

Experience > Link > Theory

Theory > Link > Experience

This example relates to a memory of joining a school sports team as a 10 year old.

Roger’s (1983) theory of the Unitary Human relates to my experience …

Insight into the challenges I experienced can be gained from Roger’s (1983) Unitary Human theory...

Judy’s case can be analysed using Leininger’s (1985) Culture Care theory…

Leininger’s work in transcultural nursing, particularly her Culture Care theory, can help explain Judy’s experiences...