How to Write a Reflective Essay Essay

This type of essay is aimed to reflect a personal event or experience of the essay author. The main condition is that it has to be a certain personal experience on which the author has his very own perception. This experience or even is revealed in the essay in order to demonstrate its importance for understanding social relations and the essence of people. It may be said that a reflective essay possess the traits of a philosophical analysis of different experiences we face in our everyday life. This type of essay reveals the creativity of the students and their ability to change standard perception to a unique one, to their own unique perception of social issues. Writing a Reflective essay In order to produce an excellent reflective essay it is vital to remember that the reflective is to have a personal character and to relate to certain philosophic categories. This implies a wide range of possible understanding of the topic of the essay. One of the widespread topics for a reflective essay is â€Å"What is love?† in which the author shares his own reflective of this term through the prism of his experience and the common attitude to this social phenomenon. The majority of the questions in such essays are rhetoric Reflective essay structure Reflective essay do not have a certain structure because cannot be written according to a standard essay scheme. This is due to the fact that the thesis statements and the conclusions of reflective essays are often blurry. Here is a probable scheme of a reflective essay: * The aim of the opening paragraph is to get the reader involved in the author’s story including interesting details, personal experiences. The style must be very vivid and therefore to appeal to the reader as if it was a tete-a-tete conversation on the meaning of life or love. * The middle part reveals a good variety of the author’s ideas on the topic. * The concluding sentences summarize the main ideas and experiences of the essay. The author makes a reflective of his general perception of the given topic. Reflective essays topics and ideas. Reflective essays can be written on many different topics which base on the reflection of a personal event or experience of the essay author. Delicate approach to the choice of a topic or keen understanding of the one topic is the key element of good essay writing. If you hesitate either on choosing the essay topic or the idea for Reflective essay please feel free to contact us and we gladly help you any time you need assistance. What is a reflective essay? Think of the word â€Å"reflection†. It means to look back upon a situation and present your findings. It is all about your perspective, post-experience. Whether you are writing a reflective essay about an event in your life, or you are reflecting on a poem that you were assigned to read for your high school english class, reflective essay writing is all about composing your thoughts on the subject. It is different than an informative essay, for which you may research a topic, or have to come up with ways to support your conclusions. Instead, reflective essay writing is unique to the individual. There is really no wrong answer. In fact, this is the kind of essay in which your teacher wants you to explore your creative thoughts and really think outside of the box. What is the format for writing a reflective essay? If you are writing a reflective essay as a school assignment, your teacher may have provided specific guidelines as to how it should be constructed. Before you get started writing, it is important to make sure you read over any information your teacher has provided about the assignment. In general, reflective essay writing should follow the typical format of introduction, body, and conclusion. It is important to keep up the technical aspects of your writing when constructing a reflective essay because it is so easy to ramble and get off topic. The introduction should give the reader an idea of what your essay is about as well as hint at the conclusion. Brainstorming and prewriting This is a very important step that often goes overlooked when writing a reflective essay. Because of the nature of the assignment, it is often not very hard to gather thoughts and begin writing. However, one of the biggest mistakes that writers often make is feeling confident about an assignment and therefore skipping the prewriting and brainstorming process. Prewriting is not just designed to help you come up with things to write about- it is also plays a very important part in providing structure and framework so that your great thoughts are well connected. Choosing a great prewriting activity depends on your personal style as writer. Some prefer bubble maps to connect thoughts, while others enjoy creating an entire first draft and going back in to edit. Whatever your style, prewriting for a reflective essay should be all about finding structure and creating a backbone for your assignment. Some questions to consider If you are having trouble reflecting on a particular event or literary work, here are some questions that will be helpful in getting you going. Remember, do not be afraid to be bold and have confidence in your thoughts. 1. How did this make me feel? What emotions were evoked? (happy, sad, scared, excited) 2. What did this remind me of? Something in my past? Another story Ive read? 3. How was it different from what I thought it would be? Did I have any ideas going into it? Did it live up to my expectations? 4. How could it have gone differently?