Reflective Writing guidelines

What is reflective writing?

Reflection is an ongoing process of thinking about your development in relation to your work.
Reflective writing is both a record (description) and a review (analysis and evaluation) of your work.
Reflective practice is a "sorting out/clarifying process" (Moon 2004) giving you new perspectives on yourself and your work.
On your course, you may be asked to produce a learning journal/log and a reflective statement. You will need to make a summary of the journal in order to complete the final reflective statement.

Your reflective writing should include the following:

a description of events, experiences and processes
an indication of your feelings about these events
both positive and negative experiences
self-questioning about these experiences
analysis of your work and evaluation of your progress
suggestions for future practice
an honest appraisal of your experience
links to your coursework and theories
extensive use of the first person (I) in your writing

Moon, J (2004) A Handbook of Reflective and Experiential Learning. London: Routledge Falmer

Why is it important

Reflective practice allows you to stand back and assess your work in a more detached light.
Examining both your positive and negative experiences can help you understand why you tend to approach things in certain ways and avoid others.
Solving problems can become easier if you regularly reflect upon your practice.
Reflective writing allows your tutors to see how you have developed your practice and ideas.
Reflection is an essential skill for your future working life.

Topics for reflection

A piece of reflective writing can be about anything you have done on your course. For example, you may wish to write about:

the process of research
the process of a design you've been working on
how you developed a new skill
your work experience
what you've learnt from a particular essay, theorist, lecture, designer, artist or from other students
your influences
your motivations
how you work in a group / on your own
how you feel / behave in crits
things other people have said about your work

How do I start?

In order to complete a reflective statement at the end of an assignment, you'll need to keep a reflective journal / diary throughout the process.
Making time to "pause, record and reflect" on a regular basis will allow you to get the most out of your journal.
The journal can take many forms: it may be a small notebook, a bound or loose-leaved scrapbook, on lined or blank paper.
You may choose to record events on one side of the page only, so that you can add your thoughts later, on the other side.
Alternatively, you may decide to use a blog or send yourself emails.
A mixture of words and visuals can be used to record ideas.
It may be useful to think of your reflective journal as a journey. It won't necessarily take you in a straight line, and you could find yourself in a dead end on occasion. What is important is what you learn from this journey.
The "useful questions" section has further ideas on how to get started.

Adapted from Pat Francis and Sarah le Marquand (2007) Not Bolt On - an integrated approach to the delivery of writing in the learning environment of the studio. Workshop held at CLTAD, University of the Arts, London, March 19th.

Useful questions

The following questions may help to guide you in your reflective writing:

What happened? This is a description of events, experiences, or a process you have been through
What did I find inspiring in doing this project?
What "critical incidents" should I focus on? (Critical incidents are experiences that stand out as having had a big impact on your approach / thinking)
How do I feel about what happened?
What was good about this experience?
What did I learn from this experience? What new techniques, skills, abilities have I acquired?
What was bad about it?
What would I like to change and why?
How can I explain this situation?
What action could I have realistically taken to change the situation?
What else could I do / have done?
If I attempted something different, did the revised approach work?
If so, is there a general principle here I could use again?
If not, what could I try next, and why?

The final piece

You'll need to select what to include from your reflective journal when writing up the final reflective statement.
You may find it helpful to draw your journey through the work. Once you've done this, you can add words to it. An LSD approach can be useful in guiding you:
- Look through the entries in your journal
- Select those that you want to incorporate into the final piece
- Deepen your initial thoughts, as by this stage you will have had the benefit of hindsight to guide you.
Quotes are useful for illustrating key points. These may be quotes from yourself, about things that you've said earlier in the year, or things your tutors and friends have said about your work.

Some common problems

There are no rules about how to write and structure a reflective evaluation; however, there are a number of things you'll need to avoid:

Your writing is too descriptive and does not offer much analysis
It reads like a diary i.e. a list of events, or it's too personal and not really about your work
Your final statement does not capture anything meaningful because you've written it at the last minute, and not used a journal throughout the term/year
Your writing provides a general overview of events, and does not highlight any critical incidents
There is little or nothing said about things that did not go well for you - only positive events are discussed
In cases where a problem is identified, you do not take ownership of the situation, and see others as responsible
There's no detailed discussion about what you've learnt, and how things could be done differently in the future