Rhetorical Functions in Academic Writing: Reflecting

In academic writing, it is often necessary to reflect on your writing or study.

Reflective Writing

Carrying out the correct study process is essential, but in order to benefit more from this, you are often asked to reflect on this process.

You are often asked to provide a record of what you did plus a reflection of how you did it and how you are using what you are taught in your classes and any practical experience you are gaining to do this.

Reflective writing gives you the chance think about what you are doing more deeply and to learn from your experience. You have the opportunity to discover how what you are taught in class helps you with your real-world or academic tasks. Writing your thoughts down makes it easier for you to think about them and make connections between what you are thinking, what you are being taught and what you are doing. Your written reflection will also serve as a source of reference and evidence in the future.

The purpose of reflective writing is to help you learn from a particular practical experience. It will help you to make connections between what you are taught in theory and what you need to do in practice. You reflect so that you can learn. Reflective writing is particularly useful to help you improve your practice, to help you use what you learn in a practical way

In reflective writing, you are trying to write down some of the thinking that you have been through while carrying out a particular practical activity, such as writing an essay, teaching a class or selling a product. Through reflection, you should be able to make sense of what you did and why and perhaps help yourself to do it better next time.

"It is not sufficient simply to have an experience in order to learn. Without reflecting upon this experience it may quickly be forgotten, or its learning potential lost. It is from the feelings and thoughts emerging from this reflection that generalisations or concepts can be generated. And it is generalisations that allow new situations to be tackled effectively." (Gibbs, 1988, p. 9)

You might reflect for many reasons in many ways, for example, in a diary or personal log.

You might want to or be asked to reflect on:

• how to choose a subject for your dissertation,
• how to approach your dissertation,
• what your essay title means,
• how you are going to approach the essay,
• how well you wrote a piece of work,
• how you prepared for a lecture,
• how you listened to a lecture,
• how you undertook a reading assignment,
• how you performed in a recent examination,
• how you contributed to some group work,
• how others reacted,
• how you did in a practical situation,
• what experiences you gained in some part-time or voluntary work you did,
• how you solved a particular problem,
• how you can improve your study,
• ....

In your reflection, you could write about:

• what you did and why you did it,
• what was good and bad about it,
• why you found it good or bad,
• what you found easy or difficult,
• why you found it easy or difficult,
• what you liked about what you did,
• why you felt like that,
• how you might want to follow it up,
• what other people did and why they did it,
• how did you feel about what others did,
• how you used what you have been taught in class,
• what other information do you need,
• what you are going to do differently in this type of situation next time,
• what steps you are going to take on the basis of what you have learned,
• what you are going to do next.
• ....

Reflective writing often involves an action plan in which you should write about:

• what you are going to do differently in this type of situation next time
• what steps you are going to take on the basis of what you have learned .

Kolb's (1984) experiential learning cycle is useful here:

In this case Concrete Experience is the activity - what you did. Reflective Observation is thinking about how you did it, how you felt and how you might have done it differently. Abstract Conceptualisation is thinking about what you were taught in class, what you have read about how to do this stage and why. Active Experimentation is thinking about what you learned from your reflection and conceptualisation and planning how you might do it differently next time.

If you need to, for example, reflect on something that you have done in class.

• Concrete experience
  • You will probably start by describing what you did.
  • You might then want to write about how you did the activity, what methods you used.
• Reflective observation
  • You might then want to evaluate your performance. What happened and why? How well did you do?
• Abstract conceptualisation
  • In order to do this, you need to consider what you have been taught. You might want to describe what the experts say.
  • You may then to consider your reactions. How did you/do you feel?
  • You then need to consider in what other ways you could have done the activity.
• Active experimentation.
  • You might finish by considering how you would do it next time.

Based on Kolb's work, Gibbs (1988, p. 47) suggests the following stages to encourage deeper reflection:

Language

Reflective writing should include both descriptions, analysis and thoughts about what you have experienced.

Unlike other academic writing, reflective writing is usually written in the first person and should definitely include your thoughts and opinions e.g. "I read the handout before the lecture. This is often recommended. I was therefore well-prepared for the lecture and understood it well. I will continue to read the handouts before the lecture".

Some useful language is:

Description

Report what you did.

Time Yesterday, ... In the morning, ... Before the class, ... After the meeting, ...

Sequence First, ... First of all, ... To begin with, ... Next, ... Then, ... After that, ... Finally

Action The first thing I did was ... I'd already ... I went ... I needed to ... I had to ...

* For more information, see: Writing descriptions; Narrating and reporting; Describing processes; Giving reasons

Feelings

Describe how you felt.

I felt (very) pleased with ... I was (really) delighted ... I was quite satisfied. It wasn't very nice. I didn't (really) like ... I wasn't (very) happy with ... I didn't like ... I (really) hated ... I was (very) annoyed ... I was (really) angry ... I was (extremely) irritated/exasperated/displeased/unhappy/angry.	+ ▲ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ ▼ -
On the one hand, ... On the other hand, ...

* For more information, see: Expressing feelings

Evaluation

Describe what was good and bad about it.

I was (very) pleased with ... It was fantastic/marvelous/excellent. It was very good I was quite satisfied. It was OK. I wasn't (really) satisfied. I wasn't (very) happy with ... It wasn't very good. I was (really) disappointed ... It was (very) disappointing. It was very bad.	+ ▲ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ ▼ -
The trouble was, ... The problem was, ... The real problem was ... The point was ...
On the one hand, ... On the other hand, ...

Give reasons.

I honestly feel ... I'm convinced that ... The main reason was that ... This was owing to the fact that ... This was caused by ... This was because of ... The reason was probably that ... That was probably due to ... I'd say ... The problem, I think, was the fact that ... This might have been because ... It could have been ... Perhaps it's ... It's difficult to say, but I'd guess ...	+ ▲ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ ▼ -
Because of that, ... For that reason, ... As a consequence, ... As a result, ...
One effect of this was ... One result of this was ... One consequence of this was .
On the other hand, ... Alternatively, it might have been due to .. The other reason was that ... Besides that, ... And on top of that, ... What's more ... And another thing ... Plus that fact that, ...

* For more information, see: Evaluating; Expressing reasons and explanations; Expressing degrees of certainty; Generalising

Analysis

Describe what you know from your reading and teaching about what other people have done.
Explain why they did it and what conclusions they came to.

Some people Many people X	say(s) argue(s) believe(s) claim(s) point(s) out is/are of the opinion seem(s) to believe	that	…
I've read
According to X,

They He She X This

is/are may be seem(s) to be would seem to be

mistaken. wrong.

I disagree with X when he

writes says

that …

* For more information, see: Reporting, Arguing and discussing; Analysis

Compare what you did and the conclusions you came to with what they did.

But in fact, ... But actually, ... That's a good idea, but, ... That may be so, but ... That's probably true but, ... I'm not so sure about that, ... I think that's debatable.

* For more information, see: Comparing & contrasting

Conclusions

Evaluate your knowledge & practice on the basis of this.

In thinking back... On reflection, ... I should have ... It would have been better to ... I could have ...

Discuss what knowledge and skills you lack.

I can't ... I don't ... My --- isn't good enough. I need to ....

Conclude.

It is

generally widely

accepted argued held believed

that ....

Therefore, Thus, On this basis, Given this,

we I

can may

be

conclude deduce

that... .

In conclusion, Finally

we/may say it can/may be said

that ....

* For more information, see: Writing conclusions

Action Plans

Explain what you are going to do next and justify it.

I'm going to ... I feel it is necessary for me to ... I've decided to ... I now intend to ... It's my intention to ... I fully intend to ... I'm going to make sure I ... I plan to ... I should now ... I ought to ... I'm planning to ... I'll make the effort to ... I'll see if I can ... I'll do what I can to ... I'm thinking of ... I might ... I'd prefer ... I'd rather ... It would be better to ... I'll probably won't ... I'm not keen on ... I'd rather not ...

+ ▲ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ ▼ -

The main reason is that ... This is because of ...

Because of that, ... For that reason, ... As a consequence, ... As a result, ...

One effect of this will be ... One result of this might be...

* For more information, see: Action plans

Example/Exercise

Read this example. Can you recognise the sections and language identified above.

Press this button to check your answer:

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