Although a reflective piece of writing is focused on personal experience, it’s important you draw on other sources to demonstrate your understanding of your experience from a theoretical perspective. It’ll show a level of analysis – and a standard of reliability in what you’re claiming – if you’re also able to validate your work against other perspectives that you find. Think about possible sources, like newspapers, surveys, books and even journal articles. Generally, the additional sources you decide to include in your work are highly dependent on your field of study. Analysing a wide range of sources, will show that you have read widely on your subject area, that you have nuanced insight into the available literature on the subject of your essay, and that you have considered the broader implications of the literature for your essay. The incorporation of other sources into your essay also helps to show that you are aware of the multi-dimensional nature of both the learning and problem-solving process.
It sounds obvious, but the reflective process forms the core of writing this type of essay, so it’s important you get it right from the outset. You need to really think about how the personal experience you have chosen to focus on impacted or changed you. Use your memories and feelings of the experience to determine the implications for you on a personal level.
– For every point you make about an experience or event, support it by describing how you were directly impacted, using specific as opposed to vague words to convey exactly how you felt.
As a starting point, you might want to think about some important experiences in your life that have really impacted you, either positively, negatively, or both. Some typical reflection essay topics include: a real-life experience, an imagined experience, a special object or place, a person who had an influence on you, or something you have watched or read. If you are writing a reflective essay as part of an academic exercise, chances are your tutor will ask you to focus on a particular episode – such as a time when you had to make an important decision – and reflect on what the outcomes were. Note also, that the aftermath of the experience is especially important in a reflective essay
A further tip – using wider sources
These signpost questions should help kick-start your reflective process. Remember, asking yourself lots of questions is key to ensuring that you think deeply and critically about your experiences – a skill that is at the heart of writing a great reflective essay.
Think of the outline as a map – you plan in advance the points you wish to navigate through and discuss in your writing. Your work will more likely have a clear through line of thought, making it easier for the reader to understand. It’ll also help you avoid missing out any key information, and having to go back at the end and try to fit it in.
Reflective essays are those sorts of essays that seem oh so easy, and yet oh so hard to write, all at the same time. To put it simply, reflective essays constitute a critical examination of a life experience and with the right guidance, they aren’t very difficult to put together. A reflective essay is akin to a diary entry, except that others will be reading it so it needs to have a great deal of coherence and a good structure. In that regard, a reflective essay is much like any other essay out there.
Try adopting a chronological approach. This means working through everything you want to touch upon as it happened in time. This kind of approach will ensure that your work is systematic and coherent. Keep in mind that a reflective essay doesn’t necessarily have to be linear, but working chronologically will prevent you from providing a haphazard recollection of your experience. Lay out the important elements of your experience in a timeline – this will then help you clearly see how to piece your narrative together.
Speaking of my first analysis paper, “Discrimination: Intolerance Towards Tolerance” was ultimately the first major milestone of my English class progress—I never considered anything I wrote in English I to be of any importance. I knew all of my knowledge of my past mistakes and the basics Mrs. Mastrobattisto taught me in the first couple of weeks would guide me into succeeding with the first of the grueling tasks of English II. The main things I learned in order to make this paper a success were two things: relevant quotations and drafts. Relevant quotations were a must in this paper, as there were many meaningful quotes in To Kill a Mockingbird, yet only a handful of relevant ones that could be used to support my ideas.
When I first entered English II, I was extremely unconfident of what was to become of myself and my progress in the next level of the subject. I had left English last year reaching an “A-“ after climbing strenuously up the “grade ladder” from a “C-“. I knew English to me was a shaky subject, and the more challenging obstacles of English II had not failed to seem rather intimidating. The obstacles to which I had to face were not only academic but also social. Do not think that I am the kind of person who clings to people or depends on needing to be with specific people in order to succeed.
Arthur Miller set a heavy emphasis on John Proctor’s integrity, pushing the importance onto the readers or audience. Integrity is not instilled into each and every person and it is very apparent that today’s society is filled with integrity violators. Today, people with no sense of integrity can run for president, be president, and fail to be prosecuted for excessive integrity violation. Reading The Crucible during this point in time sheds extreme concern for society as a whole. In 1692 integrity was treated in a more serious matter than it is today, and it shows completely. Arthur Miller’s life lesson here is, have integral pride, and do not be afraid, to tell the truth.
She was a 14-year old teenager who ran away from her poor ethnically iron-handed parents after she was being disciplined and almost killed by her hot-tempered and alcoholic father. Turned out to be that she was just like her parents, except on being alcoholic of course. Long umbrellas, thick rubber slippers, her favorite hard plastic hangers, and anything she sees possible, these were the classics used by my grandmother to hit, spank or throw at me whenever I did something against her moral values.
Example #3
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In Author Miller’s book The Crucible, there are many passages of literature that can teach us valuable life lessons. The characters portrayed in this novel all seem to have their own interpersonal issues, but one character seems to stand out. John Proctor is a troubled character and continues to contribute toward his own downfall. It isn’t until the last play when John Proctor finally regained his self-respect and paid the ultimate sacrifice. Proctor’s character sheds knowledge and life lessons on his audience such as the importance of self-reflection, taking responsibility for one’s own mistakes, and the power of integrity.
Determining our own identities is possible if we acknowledge the factors that affect them, may it be from culture and society we grew up with, gender identity, or ethnicity. But seeing the picture sometimes leads to confusion, but as time goes by we will learn to choose the factors that we most valued for. Eventually, those values would be instinctively reflected in our actions.
In most self-assessment papers, the outline serves as an introduction, which is why you can give a little description to each section that will also serve as an introduction to each part for the reader.
There are many written assignments a student will encounter throughout their education journey, but few of them will be as challenging as a self-assessment paper. Find out why exactly it is not easy to write a self-assessment essay and how to succeed in this challenge.
You may be perfectly happy with what you’ve achieved so far, but if you don’t have any goals, you’re coming off as an unambitious person. Talk in detail about what you want to achieve in the nearest or even distant future and which of your personal qualities and past experiences will help you get to where you want.
Even though a self-assessment paper is not like any other written assignment you’ve ever encountered, a correct structure of the paper is an essential requirement for the success of your work. Prior to writing an outline, think about the content you want to include into your paper.
2. Describe your performance on recent projects
The self-assessment essay has a very clear goal: by taking a deep look at yourself, you can see how far along you’ve come, how much you have achieved, and what you can do to achieve even more. The self-assessment paper helps you realize what you’ve done right and wrong on your journey and the changes you can make to your personality and work to enjoy plenty of future accomplishments.
This type of work is often used by scholars, but students can also benefit from researching their personality and achievements. You can write a self-assessment essay even when you haven’t been assigned to do it by your professor: whenever you’re having doubts about your self-worth or wondering what has gone wrong when you couldn’t achieve what you wanted, a self-assessment paper will serve as an insight into your journey so far, where everything you accomplished and failed to accomplish is perfectly visible.
What makes a self-assessment paper different from any other written assignment is that in order to write this paper, you don’t need to do any scholarly research. The content of your paper will be fully based on your personality, your strengths and weaknesses, your accomplishments and failures. Pro tip: we recommend you to use write my paper services in order to secure an A+ self-assessment paper for yourself!
An honest evaluation of your strengths and weaknesses is an essential part of any self-assessment essay. Talk about your strong sides and weaknesses without a connection to the recent projects, but also mention how those qualities help you complete those challenges. Here you can talk about the past events that helped shape you as a person
Another important factor to remember is that even though you may have a lot of achievements, talents and accomplishments, be humble about them. It is all right to talk about them in the essay but always use a humble tone and language.
Writing an essay about yourself can sometimes be awkward. But these types of essays are required for autobiographical writings, personal essays, cover letters, etc. In this article, we’ll be talking about the basic style and content of an essay about oneself.
Prompts are often provided for these types of essays. Some common prompts for personal essays include overcoming obstacles, greatest achievements, and challenges you have faced.
Since you are talking about yourself in this essay, it is more appropriate to give more specific and personal details about few interests or talents than stating a list of talents and interests. For example, instead of saying that you like sports, describe what particular sports you like and why you like it. Try to relate your personal experience to it.
Personal Essay
Sometimes, you may have to write an introductory essay about yourself. You might find it confusing and even embarrassing to talk about yourself in an essay. Or you may not be sure what information should be included in the essay. Remember that the main purpose of a self-introductory essay is introducing yourself. So imagine that you are introducing yourself to a stranger. What do you want them to know about yourself?
Think about the answers to these questions. Make a short list of your talents and interests. Try to narrow down your topic. If you pick one narrow topic, you can describe it in detail to introduce yourself.
A personal essay is also an essay about yourself
When you are writing a personal essay, you should always stay focused on a single theme. For example, talk about a specific incident in your life and how it changed your life.
There are many great courses on Udemy that can help you learn how to come up with great ideas. Consider checking one out if you regularly find yourself blocked creativity, or if you find that your ideas are a bit on the bland side. One tip that might help you is to discard the first five ideas you may come up with – if they’re the first thing you think of, they are likely the first thing others have thought of as well. After all, if you really want to stand out amongst a sea of essays, you don’t want to be writing on the same topics.
- “My name is Jane…”
- “When I was born…”
- “The happiest time in my life was when…”
For many people, the only thing harder than beginning a personal essay is ending one. After all, the story of your life isn’t over. So where do you say, “The End?” There are a few tips to keep in mind to properly end this kind of essay.
A good place to start with any kind of essay is this paragraph and essay writing course on Udemy. It will walk you through the basic skills that you need to know as well as give you more advanced tips and tricks for writing great essays. However, there is still more that you need to know for this particular type of essay. Let’s start with the very beginning – coming up with an idea.
Ideas for Personal Essays
“I have to write an essay about myself, but I don’t know where to start.” Does this sound like you? If so, rest assured that you are not alone. Writing about yourself can be one of the hardest things that you have to do, whether you’re writing a personal essay for a school project or for admission to a college or university. There are a lot of things to take into consideration when writing a personal essay, from which details are the most intriguing to potential readers to developing your own personal experiences into a story and knowing how to write sensitively about subjects and people in your life without causing offense.
Your personal essay is essentially the story of your life – or at least, the story of one important moment or journey you have made in your life. Therefore, you should try as much as possible to think of your essay as if it were a story. Let’s take a look at some of the worst possible beginnings for a personal essay:
You may also consider an ending that mirrors the beginning of your essay. If you started with the story of being bullied, you may end your essay by talking about how you helped another person who was being bullied.