self reflection in literature essay

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Ultimate guide to writing a reflective essay, carla johnson.

• June 14, 2023
• Essay Topics and Ideas , How to Guides

Writing about yourself is a powerful way to learn and grow as a person. It is a type of writing that makes you think about your thoughts, feelings, and experiences and how they have affected your personal and professional growth. A reflective essay is a type of writing that lets you talk about your own experiences, thoughts, and insights. In this article , we’ll tell you everything you need to know about writing a reflective essay, from how to define it and figure out what it’s for to how to do it well.

What You'll Learn

Definition of a Reflective Essay

A reflective essay is a type of writing in which you write about your own thoughts, feelings, and experiences. It is a type of personal writing that lets you talk about your own thoughts and experiences and share them with other people. Students are often asked to write reflective essays for school, but they can also be used for personal or professional growth.

Purpose of a Reflective Essay

The goal of a reflective essay is to get you to think about your life and how it has affected your personal and professional growth. Reflective essays can help you learn more about yourself and your experiences, as well as find places where you can grow and improve. They can also help you get better at writing and better at getting your ideas across.

Importance of Reflective Writing

Writing about yourself and your work is an important way to grow personally and professionally. It can help you learn more about yourself, figure out where you need to grow and change, and learn more about how you think and feel. Writing about yourself can also help you get better at critical thinking and analysis , and it can help you get your ideas across better. It is a useful tool for anyone who wants to grow personally and professionally, and it can be used in many different situations, from academic writing to keeping a personal journal.

Writing about yourself and your work is a powerful way to grow personally and professionally. Reflective essays give you a chance to think about your own life and how it has affected your personal and professional growth. By writing about your thoughts and feelings, you can learn more about them, find ways to grow and improve, and improve your writing and communication skills . In the next parts of this article, we’ll show you how to write a good reflective essay step by step, from choosing a topic and organizing your thoughts to writing and revising your essay.

Elements of a Reflective Essay

A reflective essay is a type of writing that allows you to reflect on your personal experiences, thoughts, and feelings. There are several essential elements that should be included in a reflective essay to ensure that it is effective in conveying your personal reflections and experiences.

Personal Reflection

The first essential element of a reflective essay is personal reflection. This involves exploring your own thoughts and feelings about the experience you are reflecting on. It is important to be honest and open about your thoughts and feelings, as this will make your essay more authentic and meaningful.

Description of the Experience

The second element of a reflective essay is a description of the experience that you are reflecting on. This includes providing details about the experience, such as where it took place, who was involved, and what happened. The description should be clear and concise, and should provide enough detail for the reader to understand the context of your reflection.

Analysis of the Experience

The third element of a reflective essay is analysis of the experience. This involves exploring the experience in more depth, and examining your thoughts and feelings about it. You should consider what you learned from the experience, and how it impacted your personal and professional growth .

Evaluation of the Experience

The fourth element of a reflective essay is evaluation of the experience. This involves examining the experience from different perspectives, and considering its strengths and weaknesses. You should reflect on what you would do differently if you were in the same situation again, and how you could improve your response or approach.

Identification of Key Learning

The fifth element of a reflective essay is identifying the key learning that you gained from the experience. This involves reflecting on the insights and lessons that you learned from the experience, and how these have impacted your personal and professional growth. This can include new skills, knowledge, or perspectives that you gained from the experience.

Planning for Future Action

The final element of a reflective essay is planning for future action. This involves considering how you can apply the lessons and insights gained from the experience to improve your future actions. You should reflect on how you can use what you learned to approach similar situations differently in the future.

How to Write a Reflective Essay

Writing a reflective essay can be a challenging task, but by following a few simple steps, you can write an effective and meaningful essay .

Steps for Writing a Reflective Essay:

1. Brainstorming and Selecting a Topic

Begin by brainstorming and selecting a topic for your reflective essay. Think about a personal experience or event that had a significant impact on your personal or professional growth.

2. Creating an Outline

Create an outline for your essay . This should include an introduction, body, and conclusion, as well as sections for each of the essential elements described above.

3. Writing the Introduction

Write the introduction for your essay . This should include a brief overview of the experience that you will be reflecting on, as well as the purpose and focus of your essay.

4. Writing the Body

Write the body of your essay, which should include the personal reflection, description of the experience, analysis of the experience, evaluation of the experience, identification of key learning, and planning for future action . Make sure to use specific examples and details to support your reflection.

5. Writing the Conclusion

Write the conclusion for your essay , which should summarize the key points of your reflection and provide closure for the reader. You can also include a final reflection on the experience and what it means to you.

6. Revising and Editing

Pay close attention to grammar, spelling, and sentence structure as you reread and edit your essay . Make sure your essay is easy to read and flows well. You might also want someone else to look over your essay and give you feedback and ideas.

If you follow these steps, you should be able to write a good reflective essay. Remember to be honest and open about your thoughts and feelings, and to support your reflection with specific examples and details. You can become a good reflective writer with practice , and you can use this skill to help your personal and professional growth.

Reflective Essay Topics

Reflective essays can be written on a wide range of topics, as they are based on personal experiences and reflections. Here are some common categories of reflective essay topics:

Personal Experiences

– A time when you overcame a personal challenge

– A difficult decision you had to make

– A significant event in your life that changed you

– A moment when you learned an important lesson

– A relationship that had a significant impact on you

Professional Experiences

– A challenging project or assignment at work

– A significant accomplishment or success in your career

– A time when you had to deal with a difficult colleague or boss

– A failure or setback in your career and what you learned from it

– A career change or transition that had a significant impact on you

Academic Experiences

– A challenging course or assignment in school

– A significant accomplishment or success in your academic career

– A time when you struggled with a particular subject or topic and how you overcame it

– A research project or paper that had a significant impact on you

– A teacher or mentor who had a significant impact on your academic career

Cultural Experiences

– A significant trip or travel experience

– A significant cultural event or celebration you participated in

– A time when you experienced culture shock

– A significant interaction with someone from a different culture

– A time when you learned something new about a different culture and how it impacted you

Social Issues

– A personal experience with discrimination or prejudice

– A time when you volunteered or worked for a social cause or organization

– A significant event or moment related to a social issue (e.g. protest, rally, community event)

– A time when you had to confront your own biases or privilege

– A social issue that you are passionate about and how it has impacted you personally

Reflective Essay Examples

Example 1: Reflecting on a Personal Challenge

In this reflective essay, the writer reflects on a personal challenge they faced and how they overcame it. They explore their thoughts, feelings, and actions during this time, and reflect on the lessons they learned from the experience.

Example 2: Reflecting on a Professional Experience

In this reflective essay, the writer reflects on a challenging project they worked on at work and how they overcame obstacles to successfully complete it. They explore their thoughts and feelings about the experience and reflect on the skills and knowledge they gained from it.

Example 3: Reflecting on an Academic Assignment

In this reflective essay, the writer reflects on a challenging academic assignment they completed and how they overcame difficulties to successfully complete it. They explore their thoughts and feelings about the experience and reflect on the skills and knowledge they gained from it.

Example 4: Reflecting on a Cultural Experience

In this reflective essay, the writer reflects on a significant cultural experience they had, such as traveling to a new country or participating in a cultural event. Theyexplore their thoughts and feelings about the experience, reflect on what they learned about the culture, and how it impacted them personally.

Example 5: Reflecting on a Social Issue

In this reflective essay, the writer reflects on their personal experiences with discrimination or prejudice and how it impacted them. They explore their thoughts and feelings about the experience, reflect on what they learned about themselves and the issue, and how they can take action to address it.

These examples demonstrate how reflective essays can be used to explore a wide range of personal experiences and reflections. By exploring your own thoughts and feelings about an experience, you can gain insights into your personal and professional growth and identify areas for further development . Reflective writing is a powerful tool for self-reflection and personal growth, and it can be used in many different contexts to help you gain a deeper understanding of yourself and the world around you.

Reflective Essay Outline

A reflective essay should follow a basic outline that includes an introduction, body, and conclusion. Here is a breakdown of each section:

Introduction: The introduction should provide an overview of the experience you will be reflecting on and a preview of the key points you will be discussing in your essay .

Body: The body of the essay should include several paragraphs that explore your personal reflection, description of the experience, analysis of the experience, evaluation of the experience, identification of key learning, and planning for future action.

Conclusion: The conclusion should summarize the key points of your reflection and provide closure for the reader.

Reflective Essay Thesis

A reflective essay thesis is a statement that summarizes the main points of your essay and provides a clear focus for your writing. A strong thesis statement is essential for a successful reflective essay, as it helps to guide your writing and ensure that your essay is focused and coherent.

Importance of a Strong Thesis Statement

A strong thesis statement is important for several reasons. First, it provides a clear focus for your writing, which helps to ensure that your essay is coherent and well-organized. Second, it helps to guide your writing and ensure that you stay on topic throughout your essay . Finally, it helps to engage your reader and provide them with a clear understanding of what your essay is about.

Tips for Writing a Thesis Statement

To write a strong thesis statement for your reflective essay, follow these tips:

– Be clear and concise: Yourthesis statement should clearly state the main focus and purpose of your essay in a concise manner.

– Use specific language: Use specific language to describe the experience you will be reflecting on and the key points you will be discussing in your essay .

– Make it arguable: A strong thesis statement should be arguable and provide some insight or perspective on the experience you are reflecting on.

– Reflect on the significance: Reflect on the significance of the experience you are reflecting on and why it is important to you.

Reflective Essay Structure

The structure of a reflective essay is important for ensuring that your essay is well-organized and easy to read. A clear structure helps to guide the reader through your thoughts and reflections, and it makes it easier for them to understand your main points.

The Importance of a Clear Structure

A clear structure is important for several reasons. First, it helps to ensure that your essay is well-organized and easy to read. Second, it helps to guide your writing and ensure that you stay on topic throughout your essay. Finally, it helps to engage your reader and provide them with a clear understanding of the key points you are making.

Tips for Structuring a Reflective Essay

To structure your reflective essay effectively, follow these tips:

– Start with an introduction that provides an overview of the experience you are reflecting on and a preview of the key points you will be discussing in your essay .

– Use body paragraphs to explore your personal reflection, description of the experience, analysisof the experience, evaluation of the experience, identification of key learning, and planning for future action. Ensure that each paragraph has a clear focus and supports your thesis statement .

– Use transition words and phrases to connect your paragraphs and make your essay flow smoothly.

– End your essay with a conclusion that summarizes the key points of your reflection and provides closure for the reader.

– Consider using subheadings to organize your essay and make it more structured and easy to read.

By following these tips, you can create a clear and well-structured reflective essay that effectively communicates your personal experiences and reflections. Remember to use specific examples and details to support your reflection, and to keep your focus on the main topic and thesis statement of your essay .

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

1. what is a reflective essay.

A reflective essay is a type of writing that allows you to reflect on your personal experiences, thoughts, and feelings. It involves exploring your own thoughts and feelings about an experience, and reflecting on what you learned from it.

2. What are the elements of a reflective essay?

The essential elements of a reflective essay include personal reflection, description of the experience, analysis of the experience, evaluation of the experience, identification of key learning, and planning for future action.

3. How do I choose a topic for a reflective essay?

To choose a topic for a reflective essay, think about a personal experience or event that had a significant impact on your personal or professional growth. You may also consider professional experiences, academic experiences, cultural experiences, or social issues that have impacted you personally.

Reflective writing is a powerful tool for personal and professional development. By exploring your own thoughts and feelings about an experience, you can gain insights into your personal and professional growth and identify areas for further development. To write an effective reflective essay, it is important to follow a clear structure, use specific examples and details to support your reflection, and stay focused on the main topic and thesis statement of your essay . By following these tips and guidelines, you can become a skilled reflective writer and use this tool to improve your personal and professional growth.

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Apr 16, 2023

How to Write a Reflection Essay | Outlines and Examples

Do you ever struggle to put your thoughts into words? If you've ever felt stumped by a reflective essay assignment, you're not alone. In this article, we'll explore some strategies for writing effective reflection essays that will help you communicate your ideas clearly and powerfully!

Reflective Essays take a look at a piece of writing or an experience in your life and write down how you feel about it. This strategy not only reveals fascinating insights about your perspective and personality, but it also makes for entertaining reading. Examining some model papers is a great way to hone your skills in outlining introspective essays.

What Is a Reflective Essay?

A reflective essay (also called a critical reflection) involves a deep examination of one's assumptions, beliefs, and reactions to knowledge, events, or experiences. This type of writing encourages the author to introspect and articulate their personal insights on various subjects, influenced by literature, experiences, or lectures. Unlike traditional academic essays, reflective essays focus on the writer's individual perspective, employing a more subjective and expressive language without the necessity for scholarly sources. Essentially, while maintaining the core criteria of effective essay writing, a reflective essay distinguishes itself by centering on the writer's internal dialogue and personal growth.

Reflection isn't something that comes naturally to everyone. Whether one is contemplating one's own life experiences or a piece of literature, it can be challenging to put one's thoughts into words and express them adequately. Because of this, utilising this ability effectively when writing is necessary. The more time you devote to contemplating and learning about a topic, the more straightforward and understandable it will become. This situation is more complex than it initially appears to be.

What is the Purpose of Reflective Writing?

Reflective writing is another way to convey both your growth and the feelings you've experienced. You can discover a lot about yourself and how you function by conducting an in-depth investigation of your interior workings. It is interesting to watch how they mature and change over time. The initial move is always the one that presents the greatest challenge. Because of this, developing a strategy for your reflective essay is a fantastic way to kick off the writing process.

How to Create a Reflective Essay Outline?

The first part of an essay, known as the introduction, is generally composed of three parts. On the other hand, as was stated earlier, a conventional formula might experience significant shifts when written down in this manner.

Introduction

The introduction needs to be so captivating to the reader that they feel compelled to keep going with the story. To achieve this, writers will often include ambiguities, sarcastic circumstances, and tense situations in their works. An outline can be used for any kind of essay, but it is especially helpful for introspective writing because it organizes your thoughts and makes it easier to read. The abstract, just like the remainder of the essay, should be broken up into three main sections that are presented in the same order as the rest of the essay. On the other hand, as was stated earlier, a conventional formula might experience significant shifts when written down in this manner.

An engaging and interesting opening statement will pique the interest of the audience and encourage them to continue reading. To achieve this, authors will often include ambiguities, irony, and conflict within their works. The expression "my first bachelor celebration" is a good example of this concept in action.

Reflection Essay Example:

This past weekend I attended my first college frat party thanks to some friends who invited me.

That one phrase perfectly exemplifies an attention-grabbing opening to a reflective essay. In just one phrase, you've hooked the reader and set the stage for what you'll be discussing. Your essay's opening should always provide a teaser for the more in-depth explanation that follows in the essay's body.

The conclusion of your reflective essay, which you'll write based on the most significant event, should be the last line of the introduction. This sentence effectively summarises the changes brought about by the catalytic event and their importance in the grand scheme of things. 

Body Paragraphs

The body of an introspective essay needs to expand on the topic presented in the essay's thesis. Students' first challenge in writing such essays is expressing their thoughts uninhibitedly. It's simple to get sidetracked and leap from one thought to the next. This leads us to a useful piece of advice: be consistent with the story arc you've established. If possible, create a distinct outline for the paragraphs in the main body.

You're free to include as many or as few body lines as you like. The text may have a one-sentence introduction and a secret closing, for instance, but the body will always be the largest section. Put your viewpoint on display as much as possible in the middle section. Put forth justifications to back up your claim or corroborating details to back up your statements. Examples, facts, occurrences of public life, events, real-life circumstances and experiences, scientific proof, references to scholars and scientists, etc., can all serve as argumentative points.

If you don't want to appear uncertain of your views, avoid giving too many examples. A personal reflective essay only needs one piece of proof. For reflective essays, interacting aspects of literary analysis, or speculative writing about a variety of phenomena, two examples will suffice. Overloading a free reflective essay with more than three examples of the facts to be discussed will be apparent.

For Example:

My weekend at a house party made it clear that the vast majority of my fellow college students have no tolerance for alcohol.

An effective introduction to a body paragraph is provided above. Your paragraph's subject sentence should tell the reader exactly what the paragraph is going to be about. The first line of each paragraph in the body of your writing should do what the introductory paragraph did: make the reader want to keep reading. Body paragraphs are where you can bring the essay to life with specific descriptions and examples.

In other terms, immerse the reader by providing relatable examples of circumstances and describing minor details with great care. A reader's excitement and interest will increase in proportion to the originality and literary charm of each phrase.

An independent closing paragraph is optional in reflective essays. If you choose an essay format that calls for a conclusion with supporting notes, keep it brief. The end must not be overly formal, however. The paragraphs in the body of the essay need to be supervised naturally by this section.

If you look for a model reflective essay online, you will most likely find one that has a complete, detailed conclusion. You could, of course, use them as models for your essays. However, if you want your viewers to be impressed and reflect deeper on your work, you shouldn't spoon-feed them your observations. Get your readers to ignore the surface-level explanations and focus on the meat of the text where your ideas and feelings are revealed.

As I reflect on my time spent at a college party, I realize that I can no longer advocate for the consumption of alcoholic beverages by minors.

As you probably know by now, the end of your essay is where you restate your thesis and discuss its significance. Then, using the details from the body paragraph, you should draw a conclusion in which you quickly restate how this experience changed you physically and/or mentally. Conclude by giving the reader your concluding thoughts on the subject.

What is the Format of a Reflective Essay?

There is a unique structure for reflective writing. In this form of writing, the author employs a specific style, such as the Modern Language Association (MLA) or the American Psychological Association (APA) .

There are a few things to keep in mind when writing in APA style:

Use Time New Roman Font 

Double-space your work and use a font height of 12 points.

The page number appears in the upper right-hand area.

The major sections of an essay are the introduction, the body, and the bibliography or list of sources.

Equally to APA, there are a few things to keep in mind when using MLA format:

Use Time New Roman Font

Select 12 as a font size

Make sure to center all of your essay's names.

Include your name, the course number, the instructor's name, and the date in the header of your work.

On the last page of the essay, include the cited work.

Some Tips on Writing the Reflective Essay

The essay's structure serves as the paper's framework. You can't write a winning essay without first crafting a plan. If you have to write a reflective essay, here are some tips to follow.

References should be listed on the final page of the writing.

In the essay, try to avoid using the same phrase multiple times.

Give your take on the topic in the writing.

Verify that you have explained everything that was previously unclear.

Connect your parts with appropriate transitional language.

Make sure your plan covers everything important.

Avoid using difficult language and provide an argument to support your position.

Learn to identify your best qualities and highlight them in the writing.

Before sending or publishing the essay, make sure it has been thoroughly proofread.

Writing a reflective essay can be challenging, but you can make your way through the process with the help of a good plan. Some pupils simply don't have enough time to complete all of the required essay writing assignments. They lack the time necessary to offer essay writing their full attention.

3 Reflective Essay Examples

Impact of social media on students

Social media has become an integral part of our lives in recent years. With the advent of smartphones and the internet, social media platforms have become more accessible to everyone, including students. Social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, TikTok, and others have had a profound impact on the way students interact with each other, access information, and learn.

Social media has created a platform for students to interact with their peers, teachers, and other individuals from different parts of the world. Social media platforms provide students with the opportunity to express their thoughts, share their experiences, and discuss topics that interest them. Through social media, students can participate in discussions, exchange ideas, and learn from others.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Social Media on Students’ Life

One of the primary benefits of social media is its ability to provide students with access to information. Social media platforms have become a significant source of news, information, and educational resources for students. Students can learn about various topics, including history, science, literature, and more, from different social media platforms. For instance, Twitter provides students with the latest news on various topics, while Facebook and LinkedIn provide them with access to professional networks and job opportunities.

However, the impact of social media on students is not all positive. Social media has become a distraction for students, and many students spend more time on social media than they do studying. Social media platforms are designed to be addictive, and many students find themselves spending hours scrolling through their feeds and interacting with their peers. As a result, many students experience a decline in their academic performance and find it difficult to focus on their studies.

Moreover, social media has also had a significant impact on the mental health of students. Social media platforms can be a breeding ground for cyberbullying and online harassment, which can have a profound impact on a student's mental health. Additionally, social media platforms have been linked to anxiety, depression, and other mental health issues in students. Many students feel pressured to present a perfect image of themselves on social media, which can lead to low self-esteem and feelings of inadequacy.

Furthermore, social media has also affected the way students interact with each other. Many students now prefer to communicate through social media rather than in person, which can lead to a lack of social skills and interpersonal communication skills. This can make it challenging for students to form meaningful relationships and communicate effectively in the workplace and other settings.

In conclusion, social media has had a significant impact on students, both positive and negative. While social media provides students with access to information and a platform to express themselves, it has also become a significant distraction and can hurt their mental health and social skills. Therefore, students need to use social media responsibly and balance their time between social media and other activities. Additionally, educators and parents can play a significant role in guiding students on how to use social media effectively and responsibly.

Taking a Hike Through Forest

Introduction:

Nature is a therapeutic and rejuvenating element in our lives. Walking through a forest is an excellent way to connect with nature, relieve stress, and experience a sense of calmness. A hike through the forest provides a sense of freedom, and the tranquillity of the trees helps to reconnect with oneself. In this essay, I will reflect on my experience of taking a hike through a forest.

I woke up early one morning, feeling the need to get out of the city and spend some time in nature. I packed my bag with essentials and set off on a drive to a nearby forest. Upon arriving, I took a deep breath and took in the fresh air, which filled my lungs with a sense of peace.

The path was lined with tall trees, and the forest floor was soft and covered with leaves. As I walked, I could hear the rustling of leaves and the chirping of birds. The serenity of the forest made me forget about the outside world and its pressures.

I kept walking deeper into the forest, and soon enough, I came across a stream. The sound of the water flowing over the rocks was soothing, and I sat down by the bank to take it all in. The quietness of the forest made me feel like I was in a different world altogether, away from the hustle and bustle of everyday life.

As I continued my hike, I came across a clearing, and there, I saw a herd of deer grazing. I stood there, frozen, watching the beauty of nature unfold in front of my eyes. It was a moment of pure bliss, and I felt grateful for the opportunity to witness it.

I reached a hilltop, and from there, I could see the entire forest. The view was breathtaking, and it made me realize how small we are in the grand scheme of things. It also made me appreciate the beauty of the earth and the environment around us.

Conclusion:

Taking a hike through the forest was a humbling and rejuvenating experience for me. The calmness of the trees, the sound of the water, and the sight of the animals made me feel connected to nature. It reminded me that we are all a part of this beautiful planet and that it's our responsibility to take care of it. The forest gave me the space to reflect and connect with myself, and it was a reminder that sometimes, the best therapy is found in nature.

The role of Friendship in my Life

Friendship is one of the most essential aspects of human life. It is an integral part of our social fabric, as it provides a sense of belonging, support, and joy. Friendship is not just about having someone to talk to or hang out with; it is about having a deep and meaningful connection with someone who accepts and loves us for who we are. In my life, friendship has played a crucial role in shaping my personality and helping me navigate through different phases of life. This essay aims to explore the role of friendship in my life, its significance, and how it has impacted me.

The significance of friendship:

Friendship is essential for our well-being and mental health. It is a bond that helps us feel connected and loved , even in the most challenging times. A good friend can help us navigate through difficult situations, offer us a fresh perspective on our problems, and provide us with emotional support. Friends also provide us with a sense of belonging, a feeling that we are part of something greater than ourselves. The sense of community and companionship that comes with friendship can help us develop a positive outlook toward life and a strong sense of self-esteem.

Friendship in my life:

In my life, friendship has played a vital role in shaping my personality and helping me grow as an individual. Growing up, I was a shy and introverted child who struggled to make friends. However, I was fortunate enough to find a group of friends who accepted me for who I was and helped me come out of my shell. They encouraged me to pursue my passions and interests and supported me through the ups and downs of life.

As I grew older, I realized the true value of friendship. I have made many friends over the years, and each one of them has played a unique role in my life. Some have been there for me through thick and thin, while others have helped me discover new interests and passions. Some have challenged me to step out of my comfort zone, while others have offered me a shoulder to cry on. Regardless of the role they played, all my friends have helped me grow as a person and provided me with a sense of belonging.

Impact of friendship on my life:

The impact of friendship on my life has been profound. My friends have helped me develop a positive outlook toward life and have taught me to appreciate the little things. They have taught me to be more empathetic, kind, and compassionate toward others, and have helped me develop a strong sense of self-worth. They have been a source of strength and inspiration, and have helped me navigate through difficult times.

In conclusion, friendship is an essential aspect of human life. It provides us with a sense of belonging, support, and joy, and helps us grow as individuals. In my life, friendship has played a vital role in shaping my personality and helping me navigate through different phases of life. My friends have been there for me through thick and thin, and have taught me valuable life lessons. I am grateful for their presence in my life, and I believe that everyone should have a good friend or a group of friends who accept and love them for who they are.

Final Words

In conclusion, writing a reflection essay is a powerful tool for gaining self-awareness and insight into our experiences. By following a few simple steps, such as choosing a meaningful experience to reflect on, asking yourself critical questions, and structuring your thoughts into a clear and organized essay, you can effectively convey your thoughts and emotions to your reader. Essay topics like composing a reflective essay are a great opportunity to delve deeper into your own thoughts and feelings, and to connect with your readers on a deeper level.

However, we understand that the process of writing can sometimes be challenging, and that's where Jenni.ai comes in. Our AI-powered software can help you streamline the writing process, with features such as autocomplete and citation assistance that make it easier to create high-quality content efficiently.

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Writing reflectively is essential to many academic programmes and also to completing applications for employment. This page considers what reflective writing is and how to do it. 

What is reflection?

Reflection is something that we do everyday as part of being human. We plan and undertake actions, then think about whether each was successful or not, and how we might improve next time. We can also feel reflection as emotions, such as satisfaction and regret, or as a need to talk over happenings with friends. See below for an introduction to reflection as a concept. 

Reflection in everyday life [Google Slides]

What is reflective writing?

Reflective writing should be thought of as recording reflective thinking. This can be done in an everyday diary entry, or instruction in a recipe book to change a cooking method next time. In academic courses, reflective is more complex and focussed. This section considers the main features of reflective writing. 

Reflective writing for employability

When applying for jobs, or further academic study, students are required to think through what they have done in their degrees and translate it into evaluative writing that fulfils the criteria of job descriptions and person specifications. This is a different style of writing, the resource below will enable you to think about how to begin this transition. 

There are also lots of resources available through the university's careers service and elsewhere on the Skills Guides. The links below are to pages that can offer further support and guidance. 

• Careers and Placements Service resources Lots of resources that relate to all aspects of job applications, including tailored writing styles and techniques.

The language of reflective writing

Reflective academic writing is: 

• almost always written in the first person.
• evaluative - you are judging something.
• partly personal, partly based on criteria.
• analytical - you are usually categorising actions and events.
• formal - it is for an academic audience.
• carefully constructed. 

Look at the sections below to see specific vocabulary types and sentence constructions that can be useful when writing reflectively. 

Language for exploring outcomes

A key element of writing reflectively is being able to explain to the reader what the results of your actions were. This requires careful grading of language to ensure that what you write reflects the evidence of what happened and to convey clearly what you achieved or did not achieve. 

Below are some ideas and prompts of how you can write reflectively about outcomes, using clarity and graded language. 

Expressing uncertainty when writing about outcomes:

• It is not yet clear that…
• I do not yet (fully) understand...
• It is unclear...
• It is not yet fully clear...
• It is not yet (fully?) known… 
• It appears to be the case that…
• It is too soon to tell....

Often, in academic learning, the uncertainty in the outcomes is a key part of the learning and development that you undertake. It is vital therefore that you explain this clearly to the reader using careful choices in your language. 

Writing about how the outcome relates to you:

• I gained (xxxx) skills… 
• I developed… 
• The experience/task/process taught me… 
• I achieved…
• I learned that…
• I found that… 

In each case you can add in words like, ‘significantly’, ‘greatly’, ‘less importantly’ etc. The use of evaluative adjectives enables you to express to the reader the importance and significance of your learning in terms of the outcomes achieved. 

Describing how you reached your outcomes:

• Having read....
• Having completed (xxxx)...
• I analysed…
• I applied… 
• I learned…
• I experienced… 
• Having reflected…

This gives the reader an idea of the nature of the reflection they are reading. How and why you reach the conclusions and learning that you express in your reflective writing is important so the reader can assess the validity and strength of your reflections. 

Projecting your outcomes into the future:

• If I completed a similar task in the future I would…
• Having learned through this process I would… 
• Next time I will…
• I will need to develop…. (in light of the outcomes)
• Next time my responses would be different....

When showing the reader how you will use your learning in the future, it is important to be specific and again, to use accurate graded language to show how and why what you choose to highlight matters. Check carefully against task instructions to see what you are expected to reflect into the future about. 

When reflecting in academic writing on outcomes, this can mean either the results of the task you have completed, for example, the accuracy of a titration in a Chemistry lab session, or what you have learned/developed within the task, for example, ensuring that an interview question is written clearly enough to produce a response that reflects what you wished to find out. 

Language choices are important in ensuring the reader can see what you think in relation to the reflection you have done. 

Language for interpretation

When you interpret something you are telling the reader how important it is, or what meaning is attached to it. 

You may wish to indicate the value of something:

• superfluous
• non-essential

E.g. 'the accuracy of the transcription was essential to the accuracy of the eventual coding and analysis of the interviews undertaken. The training I undertook was critical to enabling me to transcribe quickly and accurately' 

You may wish to show how ideas, actions or some other aspect developed over time:

• Initially 
• subsequently
• in sequence 

E.g. 'Before we could produce the final version of the presentation, we had to complete both the research and produce a plan. This was achieved later than expected, leading to subsequent rushing of creating slides, and this contributed to a lower grade'. 

You may wish to show your viewpoint or that of others:

• did not think
• articulated
• did/did not do something

Each of these could be preceded by 'we' or 'I'.

E.g. 'I noticed that the model of the bridge was sagging. I expressed this to the group, and as I did so I noticed that two members did not seem to grasp how serious the problem was. I proposed a break and a meeting, during which I intervened to show the results of inaction.'

There is a huge range of language that can be used for interpretation, the most important thing is to remember your reader and be clear with them about what your interpretation is, so they can see your thinking and agree or disagree with you. 

Language for analysis

When reflecting, it is important to show the reader that you have analysed the tasks, outcomes, learning and all other aspects that you are writing about. In most cases, you are using categories to provide structure to your reflection. Some suggestions of language to use when analysing in reflective writing are below:

Signposting that you are breaking down a task or learning into categories:

• An aspect of…
• An element of…
• An example of…
• A key feature of the task was... (e.g. teamwork)
• The task was multifaceted… (then go on to list or describe the facets)
• There were several experiences…
• ‘X’ is related to ‘y’

There may be specific categories that you should consider in your reflection. In teamwork, it could be individual and team performance, in lab work it could be accuracy and the reliability of results. It is important that the reader can see the categories you have used for your analysis. 

Analysis by chronology:

• Subsequently
• Consequently
• Stage 1 (or other)

In many tasks the order in which they were completed matters. This can be a key part of your reflection, as it is possible that you may learn to do things in a different order next time or that the chronology influenced the outcomes. 

Analysis by perspective:

• I considered

These language choices show that you are analysing purely by your own personal perspective. You may provide evidence to support your thinking, but it is your viewpoint that matters. 

• What I expected from the reading did not happen…
• The Theory did not appear in our results…
• The predictions made were not fulfilled…
• The outcome was surprising because… (and link to what was expected)

These language choices show that you are analysing by making reference to academic learning (from an academic perspective). This means you have read or otherwise learned something and used it to form expectations, ideas and/or predictions. You can then reflect on what you found vs what you expected. The reader needs to know what has informed our reflections. 

• Organisation X should therefore…
• A key recommendation is… 
• I now know that organisation x is… 
• Theory A can be applied to organisation X

These language choices show that analysis is being completed from a systems perspective. You are telling the reader how your learning links into the bigger picture of systems, for example, what an organisation or entity might do in response to what you have learned. 

Analysing is a key element of being reflective. You must think through the task, ideas, or learning you are reflecting on and use categories to provide structure to your thought. This then translates into structure and language choices in your writing, so your reader can see clearly how you have used analysis to provide sense and structure to your reflections. 

Language for evaluation

Reflecting is fundamentally an evaluative activity. Writing about reflection is therefore replete with evaluative language. A skillful reflective writer is able to grade their language to match the thinking it is expressing to the reader. 

Language to show how significant something is:

• Most importantly
• Significantly 
• The principal lesson was… 
• Consequential
• Fundamental
• Insignificant
• In each case the language is quantifying the significance of the element you are describing, telling the reader the product of your evaluative thought. 

For example, ‘when team working I initially thought that we would succeed by setting out a plan and then working independently, but in fact, constant communication and collaboration were crucial to success. This was the most significant thing I learned.’ 

Language to show the strength of relationships:

• X is strongly associated with Y
• A is a consequence of B
• There is a probable relationship between… 
• C does not cause D
• A may influence B
• I learn most strongly when doing A

In each case the language used can show how significant and strong the relationship between two factors are. 

For example, ‘I learned, as part of my research methods module, that the accuracy of the data gained through surveys is directly related to the quality of the questions. Quality can be improved by reading widely and looking at surveys in existing academic papers to inform making your own questions’

Language to evaluate your viewpoint:

• I was convinced...
• I have developed significantly…
• I learned that...
• The most significant thing that I learned was…
• Next time, I would definitely…
• I am unclear about… 
• I was uncertain about… 

These language choices show that you are attaching a level of significance to your reflection. This enables the reader to see what you think about the learning you achieved and the level of significance you attach to each reflection. 

For example, ‘when using systematic sampling of a mixed woodland, I was convinced that method A would be most effective, but in reality, it was clear that method B produced the most accurate results. I learned that assumptions based on reading previous research can lead to inaccurate predictions. This is very important for me as I will be planning a similar sampling activity as part of my fourth year project’ 

Evaluating is the main element of reflecting. You need to evaluate the outcomes of the activities you have done, your part in them, the learning you achieved and the process/methods you used in your learning, among many other things. It is important that you carefully use language to show the evaluative thinking you have completed to the reader.

Varieties of reflective writing in academic studies

There are a huge variety of reflective writing tasks, which differ between programmes and modules. Some are required by the nature of the subject, like in Education, where reflection is a required standard in teaching.

Some are required by the industry area graduates are training for, such as 'Human Resources Management', where the industry accreditation body require evidence of reflective capabilities in graduates.

In some cases, reflection is about the 'learning to learn' element of degree studies, to help you to become a more effective learner. Below, some of the main reflective writing tasks found in University of York degrees are explored. In each case the advice, guidance and materials do not substitute for those provided within your modules. 

Reflective essay writing

Reflective essay tasks vary greatly in what they require of you. The most important thing to do is to read the assessment brief carefully, attend any sessions and read any materials provided as guidance and to allocate time to ensure you can do the task well.

Reflective learning statements

Reflective learning statements are often attached to dissertations and projects, as well as practical activities. They are an opportunity to think about and tell the reader what you have learned, how you will use the learning, what you can do better next time and to link to other areas, such as your intended career. 

Making a judgement about academic performance

Think of this type of writing as producing your own feedback. How did you do? Why? What could you improve next time? These activities may be a part of modules, they could be attached to a bigger piece of work like a dissertation or essay, or could be just a part of your module learning. 

The four main questions to ask yourself when reflecting on your academic performance. 

• Why exactly did you achieve the grade you have been awarded? Look at your feedback, the instructions, the marking scheme and talk to your tutors to find out if you don't know. 
• How did your learning behaviours affect your academic performance? This covers aspects such as attendance, reading for lectures/seminars, asking questions, working with peers... the list goes on. 
• How did your performance compare to others? Can you identify when others did better or worse? Can you talk to your peers to find out if they are doing something you are not or being more/less effective?
• What can you do differently to improve your performance? In each case, how will you ensure you can do it? Do you need training? Do you need a guide book or resources? 

When writing about each of the above, you need to keep in mind the context of how you are being asked to judge your performance and ensure the reader gains the detail they need (and as this is usually a marker, this means they can give you a high grade!). 

Writing a learning diary/blog/record

A learning diary or blog has become a very common method of assessing and supporting learning in many degree programmes. The aim is to help you to think through your day-to-day learning and identify what you have and have not learned, why that is and what you can improve as you go along. You are also encouraged to link your learning to bigger thinking, like future careers or your overall degree. 

Other support for reflective writing

Online resources.

The general writing pages of this site offer guidance that can be applied to all types of writing, including reflective writing. Also check your department's guidance and VLE sites for tailored resources.

Other useful resources for reflective writing:

Appointments and workshops 

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Reflective Essays

What is a reflective essay? Typically, you write a reflective essay in response to a text you have read, an event you have attended, or another experience you have had. The essay focuses on describing the event, text, or other experience, discussing what you learned from it, and speculating on how you could apply what you learned.

Reflective essays are designed to stimulate your learning by asking you to think about (“reflect on”) what you learned from a particular text, event, or experience. The process of thinking consciously about your learning deepens and reinforces that learning. 

Setting Yourself Up to Reflect

If you know in advance that you will be reflecting on a text or experience, take some time beforehand to set yourself up to reflect on it afterwards. Write down some notes about your expectations, as suggested by the questions below: 

• What expectations do you have about the text, event, or experience? What do you expect it to be like? What do you expect to learn from it? 
• Are there any questions you have at the outset? 
• Is there any aspect of this text or experience that you expect to be challenging for you?

You can refer to these notes later, when you compose the reflection.

Engaging with the Text, Event, or Experience

As you are reading the text or participating in the experience, ask yourself these questions:

• Is it similar to or different from what you expected?
• How is it answering the questions you had at the outset?
• Is there anything you find to be challenging about this text, event, or experience?
• Are you engaged by the text, event, or experience? If so, what is engaging to you?
• What, if anything, do you think you are learning from this text, event, or experience?

In other words, think consciously about how the text, event, or experience meets your expectations, raises or answers questions, poses challenges, or provides an opportunity to learn.

Writing the Reflection

Now it’s time to write down your reflections. Remember that reflective essays are meant to deepen your thinking about a particular assignment or experience, so your own thoughts, feelings, and insights matter here. 

A reflection can be divided into four phases, each of which can be a section of your essay:

• Describe: What was the text, event, or experience? If it was a text: who wrote it, and what was it about? If it was an event or experience: when did it occur; who was there; what went on? 
• Interpret: How did the text, event, or experience meet your expectations (or not)? What questions did it raise for you? Was there anything you found to be particularly surprising, meaningful or challenging? If so, what was it? 
• Evaluate: What did you learn from this text, event, or experience? 
• Plan: How do you think you can use what you learned during this text, event, or experience in the future?  In what situations could you use what you learned?

Style, Tone, Length

• A reflection is an essay, so provide full, thoughtful responses to the questions in your instructor’s prompt.
•  The style and tone of your reflective essay should match the purpose of the overall assignment. This is a personal essay meant to showcase what you learned from the text, event, or experience that you are writing about. You can use the pronouns “I,” “me,” and “mine.”
• Describe the text, event, or experience fully, using plenty of descriptive words. Include enough detail for your audience to understand that you were engaged with the text, event, or experience that you are reflecting on; the reader should come away with the understanding that you learned something from the text, event, or experience you are writing about.
• Citations are only necessary if you are referring to a specific text, and even then, your citations are not the focus of the reflection. For a reflective essay, you are the main source of evidence. Always check with your instructor about what citation style to use, if relevant.
• The length of your reflection will depend on your instructor’s instructions for the assignment.
• The best source of information on length is your professor, so find out what the word or page-count is from them.

References  

RMIT University Library Learning Lab. (n.d.). Writing an academic reflection. https://emedia.rmit.edu.au/learninglab/content/writing-academic-reflection

University of Birmingham. (2015). A short guide to reflective writing. https://intranet.birmingham.ac.uk/as/libraryservices/library/asc/documents/public/short-guide-reflective-writing.pdf

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Reflective writing: Reflective essays

• What is reflection? Why do it?
• What does reflection involve?
• Reflective questioning
• Reflective writing for academic assessment
• Types of reflective assignments
• Differences between discursive and reflective writing
• Sources of evidence for reflective writing assignments
• Linking theory to experience
• Reflective essays
• Portfolios and learning journals, logs and diaries
• Examples of reflective writing
• Video summary
• Bibliography

On this page:

“Try making the conscious effort to reflect on the link between your experience and the theory, policies or studies you are reading” Williams et al., Reflective Writing

Writing a reflective essay

When you are asked to write a reflective essay, you should closely examine both the question and the marking criteria. This will help you to understand what you are being asked to do. Once you have examined the question you should start to plan and develop your essay by considering the following:

• What experience(s) and/or event(s) are you going to reflect on?
• How can you present these experience(s) to ensure anonymity (particularly important for anyone in medical professions)?
• How can you present the experience(s) with enough context for readers to understand?
• What learning can you identify from the experience(s)?
• What theories, models, strategies and academic literature can be used in your reflection?
• How this experience will inform your future practice

When structuring your reflection, you can present it in chronological order (start to finish) or in reverse order (finish to start). In some cases, it may be more appropriate for you to structure it around a series of flashbacks or themes, relating to relevant parts of the experience.

Example Essay Structure

This is an example structure for a reflective essay focusing on a single experience or event:

When you are writing a reflective assessment, it is important you keep your description to a minimum. This is because the description is not actually reflection and it often counts for only a small number of marks. This is not to suggest the description is not important. You must provide enough description and background for your readers to understand the context.

You need to ensure you discuss your feelings, reflections, responses, reactions, conclusions, and future learning. You should also look at positives and negatives across each aspect of your reflection and ensure you summarise any learning points for the future.

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How to Write a Reflective Essay?

07 August, 2020

17 minutes read

Author:  Elizabeth Brown

A reflective essay is a personal perspective on an issue or topic. This article will look at how to write an excellent reflexive account of your experience, provide you with reflexive essay framework to help you plan and organize your essay and give you a good grounding of what good reflective writing looks like.

What is a Reflective Essay?

A reflective essay requires the writer to examine his experiences and explore how these experiences have helped him develop and shaped him as a person.  It is essentially an analysis of your own experience focusing on what you’ve learned.

Don’t confuse reflexive analysis with the rhetorical one. If you need assistance figuring out how to write a rhetorical analysis , give our guide a read!

Based on the reflective essay definition, this paper will follow a logical and thought-through plan . It will be a discussion that centers around a topic or issue. The essay should strive to achieve a balance between description and personal feelings.

It requires a clear line of thought, evidence, and examples to help you discuss your reflections. Moreover, a proper paper requires an analytical approach . There are three main types of a reflective essay: theory-based, a case study or an essay based on one’s personal experience.

Unlike most academic forms of writing, this writing is based on personal experiences and thoughts. As such, first-person writing position where the writer can refer to his own thoughts and feelings is essential. If the writer talks about psychology or medicine, it is best to use the first-person reference as little as possible to keep the tone objective and science-backed.

To write this paper, you need to recollect and share personal experience . However, there is still a chance that you’ll be asked to talk about a more complex topic.

By the way, if you are looking for good ideas on how to choose a good argumentative essay topic , check out our latest guide to help you out!

The Criteria for a Good Reflective Essay

The convention of an academic reflective essay writing will vary slightly depending on your area of study. A good reflective essay will be written geared towards its intended audience. These are the general criteria that form the core of a well-written piece:

• A developed perspective and line of reasoning on the subject.
• A well-informed discussion that is based on literature and sources relevant to your reflection.
• An understanding of the complex nuance of situations and the tributary effects that prevent them from being simple and clear-cut.
• Ability to stand back and analyze your own decision-making process to see if there is a better solution to the problem.
• A clear understanding of h ow the experience has influenced you.
• A good understanding of the principles and theories of your subject area.
• Ability to frame a problem before implementing a solution.

These seven criteria form the principles of writing an excellent reflective essay.

Still need help with your essay? Handmade Writing is here to assist you!

What is the Purpose of Writing a Reflective Essay?

The purpose of a reflective essay is for a writer to reflect upon experience and learn from it . Reflection is a useful process that helps you make sense of things and gain valuable lessons from your experience. Reflective essay writing allows you to demonstrate that you can think critically about your own skills or practice strategies implementations to learn and improve without outside guidance.

Another purpose is to analyze the event or topic you are describing and emphasize how you’ll apply what you’ve learned.

How to Create a Reflective Essay Outline

• Analyze the task you’ve received
• Read through and understand the marking criteria
• Keep a reflective journal during the experience
• Use a reflective framework (Schon, Driscoll, Gibbs, and Kolb) to help you analyze the experience
• Create a referencing system to keep institutions and people anonymous to avoid breaking their confidentiality
• Set the scene by using the five W’s (What, Where, When, Who and Why) to describe it
• Choose the events or the experiences you’re going to reflect on
• Identify the issues of the event or experience you want to focus on
• Use literature and documents to help you discuss these issues in a wider context
• Reflect on how these issues changed your position regarding the issue
• Compare and contrast theory with practice
• Identify and discuss your learning needs both professionally and personally

Don’t forget to adjust the formatting of your essay. There are four main format styles of any academic piece. Discover all of them from our essay format guide!

Related Posts: Essay outline | Essay format Guide

Using Reflective Frameworks

A good way to develop a reflective essay plan is by using a framework that exists. A framework will let help you break the experience down logical and make the answer easier to organize. Popular frameworks include: Schon’s (1983) Reflection in action and reflection on action .

Schon wrote ‘The Reflective Practitioner’ in 1983 in which he describes reflection-in-action and reflection-on-action as tools for learning how to meet challenges that do not conform to formulas learned in school through improvisation.  He mentioned two types of reflection : one during and one after. By being aware of these processes while on a work-experience trail or clinical assignment you have to write a reflective account for, you get to understand the process better. So good questions to ask in a reflective journal could be:

<td “200”>Reflection-pre-action <td “200”>Reflection-in-action <td “200”>Reflection-on-Action<td “200”>What might happen? <td “200”>What is happening in the situation? <td “200”>What were your insights after?<td “200”>What possible challenges will you face? <td “200”>Is it working out as you expected? <td “200”>How did it go in retrospect?<td “200”>How will you prepare for the situation? <td “200”>What are the challenges you are dealing with? <td “200”>What did you value and why?<td “200”>  <td “200”>What can you do to make the experience a successful one? <td “200”>What would you do differently before or during a similar situation?<td “200”>  <td “200”>What are you learning? <td “200”>What have you learned?

This will give you a good frame for your paper and help you analyze your experience.

Kolb’s (1984) Learning Cycle

Kolb’s reflective framework works in four stages:

• Concrete experience. This is an event or experience
• Reflective observation. This is reflecting upon the experience. What you did and why.
• Abstract conceptualization. This is the process of drawing conclusions from the experience. Did it confirm a theory or falsify something? And if so, what can you conclude from that?
• Active experimentation. Planning and trying out the thing you have learned from this interaction.

Gibb’s (1988) Reflection Cycle

Gibbs model is an extension of Kolb’s. Gibb’s reflection cycle is a popular model used in reflective writing. There are six stages in the cycle.

• Description. What happened? Describe the experience you are reflecting on and who is involved.
• Feelings. What were you thinking and feeling at the time? What were your thoughts and feelings afterward?
• Evaluation. What was good and bad about the experience? How did you react to the situation? How did other people react? Was the situation resolved? Why and how was it resolved or why wasn’t it resolved? Could the resolution have been better?
• Analysis. What sense can you make of the situation? What helped or hindered during the event? How does this compare to the literature on the subject?
• Conclusion. What else could you have done? What have you learned from the experience? Could you have responded differently? How would improve or repeat success? How can you avoid failure?
• Action plan. If it arose again what would you do? How can you better prepare yourself for next time?

Driscoll’s Method (1994) and Rolfe et al (2001) Reflexive Learning

The Driscoll Method break the process down into three questions. What (Description), So What (Analysis) and Now What (Proposed action). Rolf et al 2001 extended the model further by giving more in-depth and reflexive questions.

• What is the problem/ difficulty/reason for being stuck/reason for feeling bad?
• What was my role in the situation?
• What was I trying to achieve?
• What actions did I take?
• What was the response of others?
• What were the consequences for the patient / for myself / for others?
• What feeling did it evoke in the patient / in myself / in others?
• What was good and bad about the experience?
• So, what were your feelings at the time?
• So, what are your feelings now? Are there any differences? Why?
• So, what were the effects of what you did or did not do?
• So, what good emerged from the situation for yourself and others? Does anything trouble you about the experience or event?
• So, what were your experiences like in comparison to colleagues, patients, visitors, and others?
• So, what are the main reasons for feeling differently from your colleagues?
• Now, what are the implications for you, your colleagues and the patients?
• Now, what needs to happen to alter the situation?
• Now, what are you going to do about the situation?
• Now, what happens if you decide not to alter anything?
• Now, what will you do differently if faced with a similar situation?
• Now, what information would you need to deal with the situation again?
• Now, what methods would you use to go about getting that information?

This model is mostly used for clinical experiences in degrees related to medicine such as nursing or genetic counseling. It helps to get students comfortable thinking over each experience and adapting to situations.

This is just a selection of basic models of this type of writing. And there are more in-depth models out there if you’re writing a very advanced reflective essay. These models are good for beginner level essays. Each model has its strengths and weaknesses. So, it is best to use one that allows you to answer the set question fully.

This written piece can follow many different structures depending on the subject area . So, check your assignment to make sure you don’t have a specifically assigned structural breakdown. For example, an essay that follows Gibbs plan directly with six labeled paragraphs is typical in nursing assignments. A more typical piece will follow a standard structure of an introduction, main body, and conclusion. Now, let’s look into details on how to craft each of these essay parts.

How to Write an Introduction?

There are several good ways to start a reflective essay . Remember that an introduction to a reflective essay differs depending on upon what kind of reflection is involved. A science-based introduction should be brief and direct introducing the issue you plan on discussing and its context.

Related post: How to write an Essay Introduction

For example, a nursing student might want to discuss the overreliance on medical journals in the industry and why peer-reviewed journals led to mistaken information. In this case, one good way how to start a reflective essay introduction is by introducing a thesis statement. Help the reader see the real value of your work.

Do you need help with your thesis statement? Take a look at our recent guide explaining what is a thesis statement .

Let’s look at some reflective essay examples.

‘During my first month working at Hospital X, I became aware just how many doctors treated peer-views journal articles as a gospel act. This is a dangerous practice that because of (a), (b) and (c) could impact patients negatively.’

The reflective essay on English class would begin differently. In fact, it should be more personal and sound less bookish .

How to Write the Main Body Paragraphs?

The main body of the essay should focus on specific examples of the issue in question. A short description should be used for the opener. Each paragraph of this piece should begin with an argument supporting the thesis statement.

The most part of each paragraph should be a reflexive analysis of the situation and evaluation . Each paragraph should end with a concluding sentence that caps the argument. In a science-based essay, it is important to use theories, other studies from journals and source-based material to argue and support your position in an objective manner.

How to Write the Conclusion?

A conclusion should provide a summary of the issues explored, remind the reader of the purpose of the essay and suggest an appropriate course of action in relation to the needs identified in the body of the essay.

This is mostly an action plan for the future. However, if appropriate a writer can call readers to action or ask questions. Make sure that the conclusion is powerful enough for readers to remember it. In most cases, an introduction and a conclusion is the only thing your audience will remember.

Reflective Essay Topics

Here are some good topics for a reflective essay. We’ve decided to categorize them to help you find good titles for reflective essays that fit your requirement.

Medicine-related topics:

• Write a reflective essay on leadership in nursing
• How did a disease of your loved ones (or your own) change you?
• Write a reflection essay on infection control
• How dealing with peer-reviewed journals interrupts medical procedures?
• Write a reflection essay about community service
• Write a reflective essay on leadership and management in nursing

Topics on teamwork:

• Write a reflective essay on the group presentation
• What makes you a good team player and what stays in the way of improvement?
• Write a reflective essay on the presentation
• Write about the last lesson you learned from working in a team
• A reflective essay on career development: How teamwork can help you succeed in your career?

Topics on personal experiences:

• Write a reflective essay on the pursuit of happiness: what it means to you and how you’re pursuing it?
• Write a reflective essay on human sexuality: it is overrated today? And are you a victim of stereotypes in this area?
• Write a reflective essay on growing up
• Reflective essay on death: How did losing a loved one change your world?
• Write a reflective essay about a choice you regret
• Write a reflective essay on the counseling session

Academic topics:

• A reflective essay on the writing process: How does writing help you process your emotions and learn from experiences?
• Write a reflective essay on language learning: How learning a new language changes your worldview
• A reflective essay about a choice I regret

Related Posts: Research Paper topics | Compare&Contrast Essay topics

Reflective Essay Example

Tips on writing a good reflective essay.

Some good general tips include the following:

As long as you use tips by HandMade Writing, you’ll end up having a great piece. Just stick to our recommendations. And should you need the help of a pro essay writer service, remember that we’re here to help!

A life lesson in Romeo and Juliet taught by death

Due to human nature, we draw conclusions only when life gives us a lesson since the experience of others is not so effective and powerful. Therefore, when analyzing and sorting out common problems we face, we may trace a parallel with well-known book characters or real historical figures. Moreover, we often compare our situations with […]

Ethical Research Paper Topics

Writing a research paper on ethics is not an easy task, especially if you do not possess excellent writing skills and do not like to contemplate controversial questions. But an ethics course is obligatory in all higher education institutions, and students have to look for a way out and be creative. When you find an […]

Art Research Paper Topics

Students obtaining degrees in fine art and art & design programs most commonly need to write a paper on art topics. However, this subject is becoming more popular in educational institutions for expanding students’ horizons. Thus, both groups of receivers of education: those who are into arts and those who only get acquainted with art […]

Literary Theory and Criticism

Home › Literature › Self-Reflexive Novels and Novelists

Self-Reflexive Novels and Novelists

By NASRULLAH MAMBROL on March 19, 2019 • ( 0 )

After a few minutes of reading stories that are not selfreflexive, readers sometimes forget what they are doing and feel transported into the world of the book. Considering this experience naïve, authors of self-reflexive fictions thwart it by such devices as commenting on their own composition and focusing on storytellers as characters. To some extent, literary self-awareness has existed at least since Gilgamesh (c. 3000 b.c.e.), which mentions its being recorded on stone, but that single reference is not enough to make it very self-reflexive.

Truly self-reflexive fictions fall roughly into four levels of introspection: misguided self-consciousness, in which narrators examine their own words, seeking an elusive self-understanding; the Künstlerroman (artist’s novel), a novel about the education of a writer or some other analogous artist; “self-begetting” fiction, about its own creation; and extended Midrash, which focuses on its position within literature by combining narrative with literary criticism.

Self-reflexive authors tend to use language that is surprisingly contrived or casual, or to deviate from convention in countless other ways; this deviation highlights the text itself, thus making its portrayal of the world seem less real. This effect, called metafiction, is common to all self-reflexive works, though it is usually more extreme in each successive level.

J. D. Salinger

Misguided Self-consciousness

The malice-devoured narrator of Notes from the Underground by Fyodor Dostoevski, set a pattern for misguided self-consciousness in twentieth century fiction: A narrator analyzes his or her own text, indeed is often a would-be artist, but lacks sufficient insight. Irony thus divides author and narrator. For example, Humbert Humbert, the protagonist of Lolita (1955), by Vladimir Nabokov , wishes to immortalize statutory rape as serious literature; however, his account is classified in the preface as a psychological case, and the novel is ultimately darkly comic, ridiculing Humbert Humbert.

Comparably, The Great American Novel (1938), by Clyde Brion Davis, purports to be the diaries of a journalist who spends his whole obtuse life planning a never-written novel. The first-person voice in Grendel (1971), by John Gardner , becomes fascinated with a narrative poet but ultimately rejects art, morality, and any other order. In fictions primarily about misguided selfconsciousness, the monstrous or moronic narrator is an artist manqué.

The Künstlerroman

Near the start of Metamorphoses (second century c.e.; The Golden Ass , 1566), the author, Lucius Apuleius, predicts that its protagonist will have adventures worthy of being in a book. Although Apuleius writes the book, he declares his belief that the adventures themselves take precedence over the authorship of the story. Only with the nineteenth century did writers reach such a status that a genre arose to extol them—the Künstlerroman. Some of these works include Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship (1824), and Novalis’s Henry of Ofterdingen (1842).

Like many imitations of this type, Thomas Wolfe’s Look Homeward, Angel (1929), Of Time and the River (1935), The Web and the Rock (1939), and You Can’t Go Home Again (1940) are disguised autobiography, depicting an artist’s disaffection from contemporary society. More original are books that try to refresh the formula, such as Hermann Hesse’s Steppenwolf (1929). At first it seems to be a novel of misguided self-consciousness, the ravings of a mad diarist, but Hesse portrays outpourings of the unconscious as an artist’s proper education. Another variant of the formula is to counterpoise the perspectives of many writer characters, as in Aldous Huxley’s Point Counter Point (1928), André Gide’s The Counterfeiters (1927), or Lawrence Durrell’s The Alexandria Quartet (1962).

In the United States, authors frequently labor to keep self-reflection from turning into preciosity. Consequently, a popular variant of the formula is to disguise it as masculine adventure, as in Orson Scott Card’s Ender novels. The first, Ender’s Game (1985), seems to be about a prepubescent military leader, although his siblings become famous writers. In the second volume, Speaker for the Dead (1986), his education is shown to have prepared him to write the scriptures for a new religion. By the later volumes in the series, including Shadow of the Giant (2005), his powers as author have reached a magical dimension such that he can make characters literally live merely by imagining them. In the Künstlerroman, being a writer is deemed the ultimate expression of a person’s potential, whereas the following level, the self-begetting novel, celebrates the author’s godlike creation of a whole world.

The Self-begetting Novel

In an attempt to define all self-reflexive long fiction, Steven G. Kellman devised the term “self-begetting novel,” by which he means a work that appears to have been written by a character within that work. Although he admits that this is actually not the focus of all selfreflexive works, his phrase does suit those fictions that suggest self-enclosure by, for example, ending with references to their beginning.

Kellman sees self-begetting fiction as predominantly French, stemming from Marcel Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past (1922-1931, 1981). Henry Miller, in Tropic of Cancer (1934) and Tropic of Capricorn (1939), models his writer-protagonist’s resistance to devouring time on Proust’s work. Comparably, Jean-Paul Sartre ’s Nausea (1949) concludes with its main character, Antoine Roquentin, wishing to write a novel so that people might one day revere him the way he does a singer on a repeatedly heard record. As Kellman observes, the waitress who plays the record is named Madeleine, an allusion to Proust’s madeleine cake, whose taste triggered the protagonist’s paranormal, vivid recollection of his past. Significantly, Michel Butor, famous for his A Change of Heart (1958), and Samuel Beckett, author of Malone Dies ( 1956), and The Unnamable ( 1958), have written not only self-begetting fictions but also major essays on Proust .

The aforementioned Proust-like narratives are increasingly constricted and dissatisfied with life. Miller’s world is designedly more tawdry and sordid than that of Proust. Sartre ventures further still into squalor, inspiring the “nausea” of Roquentin. Two decades later, rather than being by class a writer-intellectual like Roquentin, the protagonist of A Change of Heart works for a typewriter company, and Beckett’s fictions concern barely human authors in nightmarish worlds. Kellman argues that Beckett’s parodies of the tradition bring it to a close.

Anne Rice’s best-selling The Tale of the Body Thief (1992), however, combines elements of this French tradition (such as slow movement, world-weariness, and prestigious allusion) with American self-begetting narrative (adventure, youthful perspective, and uncouth diction, as in J. D. Salinger ’s 1951 novel The Catcher in the Rye ). Rice’s French American protagonist Lestat alternates between poetic monologues about his centuries-long self-disgust and slang-filled expressions of his immortal youth. As epigraph, Rice quotes William Butler Yeats’s poem “Sailing to Byzantium,” about the need to leave the transience of life for the eternity of art or of the supernatural. Lestat achieves both: He writes the book and chooses a vampiric identity, which seems the next step beyond Beckett’s almost dead narrators. In Sophie’s World (1996) by Jostein Gaarder, the protagonist is a woman who fears that she might be only a character in a book, a worry shared by Lenore Stonecipher Beadsman in David Foster Wallace’s The Broom of the System (1987).

More purely American is the deliberate vulgarity of Kurt Vonnegut ’s Slaughterhouse-Five: Or, The Children’s Crusade , a Duty-Dance with Death (1969), a fictionalized autobiography prefaced and repeatedly interrupted by the author’s discussion of its composition. To emphasize circularity, he begins the story by accurately predicting that the final word will be a bird’s song endlessly reheard by Billy Pilgrim, the time-shifting protagonist. ‘

A frequent metaphor in American self-begetting novels (including Rice’s) compares the self-begetting to physically sterile but psychologically productive sexual adventures. Two groundbreaking works of this sort are Philip Roth’s Portnoy’s Complaint (1969) and Erica Jong’s Fear of Flying (1973). These forays are fraught with shame and angst. Roth’s persona ends by wondering if he has allowed the irrational to govern his writings, and Jong’s protagonist at least once dreads being caught in her own book. Sexual explicitness brought Fear of Flying its notoriety; nonetheless, it has much in common with more restrained, feminist, self-begetting novels such as Doris Lessing’s masterpiece The Golden Notebook (1962).

In The Golden Notebook , the protagonist writes a series of notebooks culminating in the novel itself. This shows the closeness of the notebook form and selfbegetting fiction. For example, Rainer Maria Rilke’s The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge , also known as The Journal of My Other Self (1930), although not precisely circular, frequently doubles back on itself, as Brigge keeps referring to earlier sections. His final discussion of the Prodigal Son involves the idea of cyclic return.

Comparably, the diarylike structure of Kfbf Abe’s The Box Man (1974) is possibly solipsistic and pervaded by metaphoric use of the box as an emblem of self-containment. Despite the form’s fascination with autonomy, throughout the world variants of selfbegetting fiction take on local color, as N. Scott Momaday’s House Made of Dawn (1968) does from the Native American chant that begins and ends it, making the whole into the eternally repeating song of its protagonist.

Kurt Vonnegut

Extended Midrash

Because of its use by such critics as Harold Bloom, the term “Midrash” has come to denote literary interpretation in narrative form. Before there was a critical term for it, extended Midrash became fashionable through James Joyce ’s Ulysses (1922), based on a massive analogy between itself and Homer’s Odyssey (c. 800 b.c.e.), though it links itself to a vast number of other works as well. For example, its character Stephen Dedalus (protagonist of Joyce’s serialized Künstlerroman of 1914- 1915 [1916 book], A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man ) spends a long chapter discussing William Shakespeare’s Hamlet in a manner applicable to Ulysses itself.

In the same year that Joyce published the even more metafictional Finnegans Wake (1939), Flann O’Brien issued the almost equally experimental At Swim-Two- Birds , a parody of Irish literary tradition. The appearance of these works did not mark the opening of floodgates, since Ulysses —like extended Midrash—requires readers who are able to comprehend a vertiginous play of allusions. Consequently, works of this sort are hardly plentiful. Even the most erudite readers do not always esteem them. In Remembrance of Things Past , for example, Proust’s narrator condemned theorizing about art within a novel, likening it to leaving a price tag on a purchase.

Midrash first developed as an ancient form of Jewish biblical criticism. Some modern fictions continue applying Midrash to scriptures. For example, biblical hermeneutics are repeatedly foregrounded in Thomas Mann’s multivolume Joseph and His Brothers (1934) also known as The Tales of Jacob ), thereby underlining the fact that his retelling of Genesis is a speculation or even a fantasy. Its protagonist is himself both storyteller and dream interpreter, analogous to Mann himself. Comparably, Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses (1988) contains a Midrash-like dream about a character named Salman who finds that the Quran is imperfect, destroying Salman’s belief in everything. This sense of unreality spreads into the dreamer’s life, eventually causing him to kill himself. He has been an actor in religious roles, a part of the public’s collective dreams, which mingle with their interpretation of scriptures. Caught in their pious fantasies, for much of the book he is transformed into an angel with a halo, a stereotyping that contributes to his suicidal depression.

Although stories about scriptures, myths, and fairy tales are the most common varieties of extended Midrash, authors’ involvement with academia has resulted in other uses. For example, to his college class, Vladimir Nabokov presented an analysis of an apartment’s structure in Franz Kafka’s story The Metamorphosis (1936). This analysis found its way into a poem, on which a crazed exegete then expatiates, in Nabokov’s novel Pale Fire (1962). From an even more abstract source—a structuralist conference—Italo Calvino gleaned the idea of arranging tarot cards at random. The narrators of his The Castle of Crossed Destinies (1976) connect these arrangements simultaneously to characters in the novel and to ones from world literature. Calvino’s If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler (1981) takes the selfreflectivity one step further: It is a novel about a reader trying to read a novel named If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler . In Julian Barnes’s Flaubert’s Parrot (1984), the narrator’s obsessions with love and with scholarship on Gustave Flaubert converge.

Samuel R. Delany’ s series of fantasies, beginning with Tales of Nevèrÿon (1979), wanders among his personal concerns as a gay African American, the Conan parody he is writing, and the literary theories (particularly deconstruction) that inspire the narrative. In extended Midrash, nonfiction (criticism, autobiography) and fiction converge ambiguously, creating a feeling of uncertainty that life often gives as well.

Because of its ambiguities, ironies, and complexities, extended Midrash cannot be treated as if it were a simple statement of an author’s opinions. Milan Kundera, for example, objects vociferously when critics treat the essays within his fictions as if they were his own views. Rather, he insists that their function is to reveal how he invents his characters. For example, as he reveals in The Art of the Novel (1988), his ruminations on the Romantic tradition led to his devising an imaginary member of it, the character Jaromil of Life Is Elsewhere (1974). In that novel, Kundera’s remarks about Romanticism are meant to create this character from the outside rather than through the devices of psychological fiction. His practice has its roots in eighteenth century characterization through recognizable types. Nonetheless, Kundera’s version is significantly different from this conventional stereotyping. He not only breaks the illusion of reality by spending much of his novels explaining how he devises characters, but also, through meditations on language and literature, constructs new types and narratives about them. Certain words and scenes thus repeat as motifs.

Some comparable repetition pervades all self-reflexive fiction. As Ulysses and Finnegans Wake prove, despite this iteration, self-reflexive fiction can have great length without being necessarily tedious. Nonetheless, as Robert Scholes observes, self-reflexive fiction more commonly presents its complexity within the limits of the short novel, novella, or even short story, as in the metaphysical fictions of Jorge Luis Borges. Consequently, it tends toward unconventional, multilayered, integrated condensation reminiscent of experimental poetry.

Bibliography Currie, Mark, ed. Metafiction. New York: Longman, 1995. Doody, Margaret Anne. The True Story of the Novel. NewBrunswick, N.J.: RutgersUniversity Press, 1996. Hutcheon, Linda. Narcissistic Narrative: The Metafictional Paradox. New ed. New York: Methuen, 1984. Kawin, Bruce. The Mind of the Novel: Reflexive Fiction and the Ineffable. 1982.Newed. Normal, Ill.: Dalkey Archive Press, 2006. Kellman, Steven G. The Self-Begetting Novel. New York: Columbia University Press, 1980. Scholes, Robert. Fabulation and Metafiction. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1979. Waugh, Patricia. Metafiction: The Theory and Practice of Self-Conscious Fiction. New York: Routledge, 2003.

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Categories: Literature , Novel Analysis , Self-Reflexive Novels

Tags: Anne Rice , Antoine Roquentin , Clyde Brion Davis , David Foster Wallace , Erica Jong , Experimental Novels in Postmodernism , Fear of Flying , Finnegans Wake , Flaubert’s Parrot , Fyodor Dostoevski , Henry Miller , Henry of Ofterdingen , Hermann Hesse , House Made of Dawn , Italo Calvino , J. D. Salinger , James Joyce , Johann Wolfgang von Goethe , John Gardner , Julian Barnes , Künstlerroman , Kfbf Abe’s The Box Man , Kurt Vonnegut , Lenore Stonecipher Beadsman , Life Is Elsewhere , Literary Criticism , Literary Theory , Lolita , Look Homeward Angel , Lucius Apuleius , Midrash , Milan Kundera , N. Scott Momaday , Notes from the Underground , Of Time and the River , Orson Scott Card , Point Counter Point , Postmodern Self-Reflexive Novels , Postmodernism , Prodigal Son , Rainer Maria Rilke , Remembrance of Things Past , Samuel R. Delany , Self-Reflexive Long Fiction A , Self-Reflexive Novelists , Self-Reflexive Novels and Novelists , Sophie’s World , Steppenwolf , Steven G. Kellman , The Alexandria Quartet , The Art of the Novel , The Broom of the System , The Castle of Crossed Destinies , The Catcher in the Rye , The Experimental Novel , The Great American Novel , The Künstlerroman , The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge , The Self-begetting Novel , The Web and the Rock , Thomas Wolfe , Tropic of Cancer , Tropic of Capricorn , Ulysses , Vladimir Nabokov , Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship , You Can’t Go Home Again

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Reader and Text

English Majors Practising Criticism

Reflection on Studying Literature

My last English teacher in high school did a great job in making sure I would be able to read and write at a college level. He essentially taught me two things: how to understand a story thoroughly and the way in which a proper essay is constructed. He explained that in order to fully grasp something intellectually, one must go from concept to context. This methodology allowed me to enjoy works like Hamlet and Heart of Darkness because I was never lost in the plot and never felt confused about the characters. There was a clear focus on esteemable western works. It was because I was able to recognize the true meaning and beauty behind the aforementioned pieces, as well as others, that I fell in love with Literature. However, if one could just read all day, that would be a job.

I must learn how to write effectively, for that is where success in this field of study lies. Yet, this is where things become difficult for me. I read famous works of literature by people infinitely smarter than me and I became discouraged. Indeed, this is something that many scholars must go through at some point. Acknowledging that I am at the beginning of my literary career helped me move past this mental barrier. People like Harold Bloom and Albert Camus have dedicated their lives to pursuing knowledge, and that probably explains their insights. I digress. The idea of writing academically can be intimidating, and that’s why my teacher did everything he could to show how writing an essay is “moronically simple.” Ladies and gentlemen, the point, evidence, synthesis model! In short, this is a highly effective way to structure an essay. By planning out the ideas you have and their relationship with each other before writing, one can theoretically be allowed to focus on the pizzazz elements of a piece such as diction, syntax, and punctuation. I nailed this process down because I saw it as the magic pill that could solve all my future writing problems. My only objection to this class as a whole is that it was all very straightforward. There was no real opportunity to develop your own interpretation of works, as the teacher settled that problem for us ahead of time.

And so, I arrive at college enrolled in English 203 thinking it is going to be easy. After all, I knew how to write an essay. During the first days of class, many things caught me off-guard. For instance, I picked up on the informality of the setting right away. Every day, we would either get into small groups or one huge circle. This setup strengthened my connections with my peers by encouraging personal and meaningful discussions. It also helped me improve my ability to communicate. Such a capacity helped me to be involved in a group blog post . The academic conversations that were had gave me an opportunity I never really had before, a time to share my ideas. The class felt as if it was run by the students and Professor McCoy was just directing us. She would always have a direct goal for the day such as discovering the meaning or meanings of a new word, analyzing a film, or even interpreting a picture. If I had to give a metaphor to convey what I mean, the best one I can think of is the relationship between a bull and the bullfighter. Specifically, the typical scene in which the man is holding out a red flag to entice the bull to charge forward. We, the students, are the bull waiting to capitalize on our potential. That red flag symbolizes the next step for us as writers (usually the concept of unpacking), and Professor McCoy tries to manipulate our intellectual energy into feverishly going after improvement. Undoubtedly, I grew as a scholar as a result of this dynamic which encouraged collaboration and creating your own insightful interpretations. Looking back on it, the people in this class always seemed happy to be there. Moreover, we understood each other better since we shared a passion for learning and embraced the idea of having a growth mindset.

Another thing that initially surprised me was the literature we were covering. We concentrated on the works of Percival Everett. He is someone who defies categorization and carries an aura of vagueness. I say that because he rarely seems to unpack, leaving the reader thinking. Regardless, both Frenzy and I Am Not Sidney Poitier had a focus on such topics as race and sexuality that I was not expecting. I found the change exciting. Subjects of that nature are rarely looked at with an intellectual eye, at least in my experience. My excitement may have gone too far, as is evident by the first version of my first blog post . There was a sentence in there where I compared Onondaga to one huge bacchanal. It was basically my attempt to test the waters. Even though I knew it was not in good taste, I still wrote it. Perhaps it was a reflection of my idea of college before I came, or maybe I just wanted to use the word “bacchanal”. Regardless, It was an amateur mistake. Upon looking at the feedback on that post from Professor McCoy, I actually sent her an apology email. Of course, she said that it was no big deal but I still felt embarrassed. Embracing the social cognitive theory, I learned what to say and how to act in class over time. This perspective allowed me to create a few introspective blog posts throughout my time here. Among these are “ Be Your Own Vlepo! ”, “ The Soul and Sex ”, and “ The Importance of Being Present ”. My fifth blog post titled “Dropping the Beads” also fits within this category. It was themed on the class activity where we had to string beads together. This process resembles how one must string body paragraphs in an essay along the main idea. As I was physically stringing the beads along, I dropped them twice. It was a powerful moment for me because it reinforced the idea that I am not good enough to be here. I submitted the post not expecting much and that was that. To my amazement, Professor McCoy gave it a hundred. She said that it was “insightful and honest” and revealed how reflection on failure can be an opportunity for growth. This feedback made me feel better about the course and my place in it. I was inspired again, and that helped me be involved in discussions again and complete assignments. This is an example of how writing can help your psyche. I never really explored this before coming to college as I felt my ideas were stupid or invalid. That is really what I liked about this class, it was such a supportive and constructive environment.

I was expecting the course to be black and white, not gray. Before I was a student here, I was always told upfront what a story meant and what the author’s purpose in writing it was. Through engaging in this class, I have come to realize that studying Literature relies heavily on your ability to interpret the story and justify that interpretation. However, one must be able to effectively unpack their reasoning behind their beliefs. I recognized the importance of this idea immediately. This is evident by two of my blog posts that are titled, “ Pushing the Envelope ” and “ How Should We Judge Art? ”. Far too often, people say and do things without thinking deeply about them. Incorporating the concept of unpacking my ideas into my life and writing was challenging at first, but I soon became better at it. I found a sense of confidence through my ability to think as a result of this class, which is what I came to college for. This course gave me a new perspective on how to study English.

I feel it is important to establish that I am hoping to become an English teacher. That being said, two methods of teaching this subject were revealed to me as a result of taking both my high school English class and English 203. One in which I assign relatively famous works and hold my students’ hands, guiding them through their interpretations or one where I let my students develop their own abilities to critique literature that focuses on raunchy subjects and modern-day issues. Both are sound and credible processes, but I feel like the latter puts the students at the forefront of the class, not the actual literature. Undoubtedly, this is the ideal method as criticizing literature should promote unique understandings and genuine human connection. It should encourage meaningful personal growth through intellectual leaps of faith. This class helped me gain the courage to create, and that is the service I want to provide for my future students.

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On Self-Reflection, Stories, and and What Mirrors Really Tell Us

“the narrative of your present is crafted by the past.”.

I can recall the moment I realized the girl staring back at me in the mirror was already past, that the reality reflected in the glass was of a time already gone.

As a child I retreated to the restroom to read when I should have been getting ready for bed, the room full of echoes: the steady faucet drip, the gentle ring of bubble bath around the tub, my parents murmuring from the living room. Climbing to the sink, I would seek myself in the mirror above the counter.

One evening when I was five or six, my reflection became a question. I knew it was me, but the longer I stared, the more fully my image became a stranger.

The odd feeling that I existed both in and out of that reflection was unsettling, for neither was fully real. She was girl and ghost, and the contradiction of duality weighed heavy in my stomach as I began to float. I could not tell where or when or even if I began.

Holding my face close to the mirror, I studied the image closely, so convinced it could not be me at the same time I knew it to be true, that I scarcely noticed that my breath fogged the glass, barely heard my mother from the other room calling me back.

Created in 1970 by American psychologist Gordon Gallup Jr., the mirror test is designed to determine whether an animal is capable of self-recognition. The test is simple—animals are anesthetized and marked with a spot of red paint or a sticker on a part of their body they can’t normally see. When they wake, they are placed in front of a mirror. If the animal investigates the new mark, they are considered capable of self-awareness.

Most animals fail the test. Only humans, a few apes, a single Asiatic elephant, dolphins, orcas, the Eurasian magpie, and cleaner wrasse fish have passed—and scientists disagree on the majority of these successes. Most animals simply gaze in the mirror.

Humans don’t pass the test until they are toddlers, and this often occurs after extensive coaxing where the toddlers learn to mirror the adults around them. Recently, rhesus monkeys and small fish have learned to pass the test, indicating that they are latently aware of the self, or, at the very least, capable of learning new cognitive skills.

For many years, it was assumed that animals who passed the test were capable of reflecting on their being and identity, and, by extension, potentially understanding that other animals have distinct selves and minds. But this is assumption, abstraction based on what we observe when watching animals watch themselves.

In 2011, photographer James Geddes captured the image of an eagle standing on frozen ice, staring down at its reflection. The photo seems quintessentially American—the symbol of freedom pensive at its likeness, a national self-reflection captured a few years after Obama took office and began to write a narrative of hope and the country responded by beginning to unravel.

The eagle’s reflection is crisp and sharp, the bird craning its neck forward to peer closer. It is easy to read the image as one of contemplation: the eagle considering its place in a changing world, assessing the apparent stability of ground even as the water rushes underneath.

The world is always leaving.

I realized this young. My body was a vehicle, time a stretch of road. There was no choice but to move forward, try to stay in the careful lines to avoid a collision. If I did stray, the car would rumble, the road designed to keep me in, to startle me back in position if I tried to leave or simply drifted unaware.

From my position in the passenger seat, I witnessed how the reality of the road in front of me could become a memory fading behind. We were always heading to the future, even if the destination was a museum that celebrated the past: polished silver cups or obsidian knives glinting under the lights, my gape-mouthed reflection in the glass. The beach was full of waves retreating forward and back, and I tried to capture that blurring sense of time on my tiny camera, though mostly I strained my eye to find the mirror inside. I tried to capture my kitten growing bigger each day, the way the window reflected sunlight on my lap, rainbows through the air, my own face looking in a mirror so I could see both versions of myself at once.

Objects in mirror are closer than they appear , read the rear-view mirror. I did not understand, for perceptions of depth and time have always made me dizzy. I like the unreality of compressing time, past and present not so different, or looking down from a tall building, stomach drooping into my temple.

Caution , my parents explained. It meant that when you’ve left something behind it can sneak up on you, that you are never as far ahead of something as you believe. That the narrative of your present is crafted by the past.

Invented in 1903, the two-way mirror is not a mirror of binaries, of doubles. The mirror is actually referred to as a one-way , the name a trick, much like the device.

A mirror is made by applying a thick layer of reflective material to the back of a sheet of glass in order to make it opaque. When we gaze into the mirror, the layer of silvering reflects our image back at us. In a one-way mirror, however, the silvering is applied by half, so that the glass is not opaque, but translucent, ethereal. Half the light striking the glass passes through it, the other half reflects.

This mirror is often used to mislead, to interrogate. Those gazing at the mirror from a brightly-lit room see themselves reflected, while those on the other side in a room dimly-lit are obscured. The mirror is deception, a play of light and shadow, expectation and ego.

Turn the lighting up on both sides and the reflection disappears, the mirror simply glass, images free to float between the veil.

At the start of 2020, I have not looked into a mirror for over four years. I do not know when my childhood fascination with the self—the certainty of its mutability—shifted into grief. I only know that at some point I grew wary of the reflection, not my likeness but my living.

The last time I can recall looking into the mirror without dread was when the world was on the cusp of dismantling. There was a new president, a new climate, a new decade approaching, time gone fast and slow all at once. Trump took office as I reluctantly claimed a new job and thus a new home, neither of which I wanted, though I knew I was lucky.

In my early twenties I’d watched eagerly as California faded from the rear-view mirror, a new home in Nebraska on the horizon, but nearly a decade later as Nebraska faded from sight and Massachusetts came into focus, I felt only disappointment. The life, the home, the country were nothing like I’d expected, nothing I’d written for myself.

Within days of arriving, I caught sight of my face in the mirror, saw my mouth pinched into a straight line like the horizon behind me, eyes glazed like a museum specimen frozen in the past. The image was a ghost of who I had been before, and for months I stood before her, tried to fake-smile at the me in the mirror the way I did with people at work, though there was no one I wanted to smile at, or at strangers in the street, though Massachusetts seemed full of resentments bitter as the cold and I missed the quiet comfort of Nebraska and the golden beaches of my California youth.

Soon I was haunting my own life, caught in the present while longing for the past. I was nostalgic for my father’s classic rock buzzing through the radio while we dipped low into a backroad, or peeling the skin of a California acorn to reveal the mealy flesh beneath. I missed the way the ocean wind made me forget precision, hair whipping in my mouth, nose running, and the way the summer heat pooled in the parts of my body I would otherwise forget, mingling with the smell of sunscreen and BBQ.

I wanted the messy freedom of my girlhood, where time stretched long into the afternoon and abandoned walls were for bouncing balls against, rocks for gathering heavy in your pocket and flinging from high vistas or across a still lake. I missed the promise of a few years past, sipping wine with friends late into the night, knowing I might never see them again, which was what made our stories more compelling long after the candles had spilled their wax across the table to pool like amorphous phantoms.

I was nostalgic for the environment of my childhood too, the country a place that grew more fractured. I didn’t recognize the images of my country just as I didn’t recognize the images of myself. The television showed children in cages and women crying for their lost families, soldiers on the Capitol steps and Nazi flags. The news reported storms ravaging the coastlines, leaving countries in the dark, washing away cities, tornadoes snaking through the South, hurricanes hovering over the East, the West Coast black and burning each year. Online, friends and family argued over two seemingly-different worlds, each inhabiting their own side of the mirror, unable or unwilling to turn on the light to see the other. It was as though the image of the world and those within it had been smashed, the country’s reflection reduced to jagged shards.

What was reality and what was perception melted before me, politicians reporting everything was fine just as I reported the same to those who asked how I was doing, though I could no longer look in the mirror without weeping or seizing up in panic. Once, I caught sight of myself in a restaurant mirror and lost my appetite, so sad I was for that lonely, lost woman.

It was unsettling to see the images of my reality reflected back at me—a country that seemed to be, like the climate itself, on the verge of extinction, each home I’d known under attack, fires threatening to burn my childhood California to rubble, tornadoes winding themselves like a noose around Nebraska, snow threatening to bury Massachusetts, leaving us as dark and dead as I felt most days. The forward momentum of my childhood proved incorrect—I’d driven forward, but now there was nowhere else to go, only ocean at this other end of the continent. And the danger in the rearview mirror was much closer than it appeared. So I simply stopped looking.

To be clear, I didn’t disdain my appearance as much as mourn for the woman trapped as if behind glass in a place and position she never wanted to claim. Though I loved my childhood in the golden light of small-town California, from my vantage point many miles and years away, I realized it had written a narrative of sameness on me—one that defined my gender, sexuality, and speaking in a way that sought to silence.

Though I loved my husband, our marriage after nearly a decade seemed stifling and prescriptive and felt, the longer I was in the role of wife, like it was closing in all around. Though I loved my work, I took a job I did not particularly want because there are few in my field and we are told to be grateful, and after I arrived, the photo filters were removed one by one until all that remained was the grainy image of my new reality. I’d sought movement for many years, thrilled by the images whirring out the window, my face reflected over them in the glass, but I realized now it was the other way around, that my image was the one upon which the world had been superimposed.

The longer time went on, the more blurred and faint the image of myself, my home, my country seemed. Everything felt lost, disappeared by a power beyond our control. It pained me to see what I had become without my permission so I simply stopped looking at myself at all, stopped taking photos so as not to mark this passage of time.

I spent so much time longing for the past that at a certain point I felt nearly dead, as though I were a ghost haunting my own life. Nostalgia and haunting are not so very different, after all—we are only nostalgic for things that are gone, we are only haunted by the things we once loved.

I used to read beside my reflection, my child body curled up with a book on the bathroom counter. Mirrors seemed to be everywhere—the bathroom, the car, the vanity in my bedroom, the walls of ballet class where we were told to be strong but also small enough to disappear. They were in the glint of a knife and the windows of buildings where I saw myself pulled forward by the hand, my feet moving by duty rather than desire. The city skylines of every place I visited were lined with mirrors as if to reflect the world back onto itself, but the older I got, the more I saw confusion, the way a mirror faced against a mirror created reflections to infinity, no sense of logic or place. The way a bird flew into a window believing it sky.

I read books about ghosts because, like time or gravity or the certainty that my body would remember to breathe or beat, it filled me with wonder and a bit of fright. I read the one where a boy finds a mirror in the attic that can make him invisible. He likes disappearing and makes a little game of it, the way I liked to look at myself in the mirror to be both image and abstraction. Eventually the boy disappears for too long, struggling to find his way home. I thought about how one day my angry grandfather was alive and then he was dead and my grandmother seemed like she could finally breathe.

I thought about how my friend down the road with the best climbing trees moved away and then her trees were forbidden even though I knew all the footholds and how to reach one hand around the branch to the knot at the back, hoisting myself up and into the pine, sap glistening across my thighs as I looked across the riverbed to my house on the other side, the river disappearing, the bed full of cracks where the water vanished, birds pecking at the dry ground.

I thought about how every spring the eucalyptus groves where the monarchs wintered were emptied and the flutter of gold vanished and though this was the way it should be, it was hard not to wonder if the butterflies would ever return. And I thought about how the historic mission in my town had stood for centuries but then it rained too much and the wall around the graveyard—the one my parents said kept the spirits in—collapsed and what would keep them in now or would they wander lonely through the town, confused why it seemed familiar though everything was different?

There is a delay between seeing and perceiving. It takes our brains a moment to process what we are looking at, so the image of my girlhood I saw in the mirror was from the past. At the mirror, I was both there and then. I was present and past, living and memory, girl and ghost. The longer I thought about time, how fast it goes—the first reflection I saw in the mirror long gone just as the one I was currently seeing was suspect, a version of myself I could no longer get back—the more I felt the sad sweet swell of nostalgia. I was only five, then six, then eight and ten, twenty and thirty, but already I was longing for and missing what was right in front of me.

One of my favorite books told the story of a young girl named Jane who visits her family in New England one summer and becomes intrigued by a garden reflecting ball. She spends long hours gazing at the reflection in the mirrors, the way they refract reality, until she begins, like me when I look in the mirror for too long, to see things that aren’t real.

Then, one day, Jane sees the ghost of a wicked girl named Emily. She does not know where one girl ends and the other begins, what is present and what is past. The adults around her say it’s make-believe like my parents say when they pull me away from the mirror to play in the real world. Jane and Emily merge into one.

I read the book time and again for a fright, stopping to stare at my reflection like a moon in the darkness of my bedroom window or in the skylight high in the bathroom ceiling, my pale face looking up as if from the end of a long tunnel.

It is myth that a mirror inverts your image. You do not reflect in reverse. Instead, the left of your face is imposed on the left of the mirror, the right over the right. It is merely illusion—another trick of perception—that you exist altered. This is why photos and videos of ourselves seem so unnatural. We are more used to existing in the lag time between reflection and perception.

To view an accurate image, you must position two mirrors together at ninety degrees, stand at the split, straddle the images on either side. You must exist in multiples, view yourself from where the many selves join.

A true mirror is one that projects your image as others see you. Wave your right hand and the three-dimensional image will wave as if from the left. Lean to one side and see yourself lean away. The image is lifelike in a way that a traditional mirror is not and the experience disrupts our understanding of reflection, at once more human and intimate than our many years brushing our teeth or hair at the abstraction in front of us.

Some are startled, shaken, some shamed they have understood themselves incorrectly. And some weep at the rare chance to witness the self in as it truly exists in time and space.

Now, in my mid-thirties, I am trying to see myself as I exist rather than as I reflect. I am searching for the place where the two mirrors come together to reveal the truth.

The image of the woman and the world I have been avoiding is both reflection and abstraction, the images not quite accurate, but ones I have been mourning these past few years. I have been so distracted by perceived loss that I’ve missed things disappearing right before me, even my own sense of wonder.

I no longer want to hang a Victorian veil over the mirror as though I am dead, as though the looking glass might trap my soul, prevent me from moving on. I want to go back to that girl in the mirror, watching, searching, enthralled by the many versions of the self.

When I stare in the mirror now, as I am (re)learning to do, as our reliance on video chats requires these months and years we isolate, the woman before seems a stranger and a support. I marvel at the way memory and nostalgia compress time so that I am here and then, in mirror and memory, the me of now and also of a split second ago and also all those years ago when I first stared in the mirror, headband pushing hair from my face, teeth starting to jut through the gums, that slow smile of recognition.

Reflection is both the mirrored image and careful rumination. I’ve been avoiding the image because I’ve been avoiding the thinking—about the homes I’ve made and the ways they do not fit, about the country changing underfoot. But these images I’ve avoided are not true reflections, and each is already gone. The only thing to do is remember there is no mirror test to convince your restless animal self that existence is precious, to convince you to step away from the reflection and into reality.

This doesn’t mean we forget history or stop aching for it, mourning it if we must, but rather that living requires we keep some distance between our past and present, we keep our many selves in sight in the rearview mirror, as we determine which path to take and where to deviate.

The first images of Earth were captured in the 1940s, a 35mm camera snapping a shot each second from a rocket, the photos falling back to land in a steel canister. What was reflected was revolutionary—horizon curve backdropped by space—but scientists worried over whether or not to release the images.

Earth surrounded by the vast dark of space, they feared, would counter people’s self-perceptions. They thought people would feel insignificant, alone, fearful. They thought people might see human life as futile when faced with the vast isolation of space.

These first images fell to Earth from the future, but revealed a world already in the past. It is difficult to look at these photos without the complexity of time tugging comprehension in multiple directions. This image of the world is foreign and familiar, comfort and chaos. Astronauts tasked with leaving in order to move humankind forward to the edge of the galaxy, to live where the darkness was so deep there was no light to reflect, were compelled to turn back, nostalgic for what they’d abandoned.

__________________________________

Excerpted from Halfway from Home by Sarah Fawn Montgomery, available via Split/Lip Press.

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The Importance of Self-Reflection: How Looking Inward Can Improve Your Mental Health

Sanjana is a health writer and editor. Her work spans various health-related topics, including mental health, fitness, nutrition, and wellness.

Dr. Sabrina Romanoff, PsyD, is a licensed clinical psychologist and a professor at Yeshiva University’s clinical psychology doctoral program.

Sunwoo Jung / Getty Images

Why Is Self-Reflection So Important?

When self-reflection becomes unhealthy, how to practice self-reflection, what to do if self-reflection makes you uncomfortable, incorporating self-reflection into your routine.

How well do you know yourself? Do you think about why you do the things you do? Self-reflection is a skill that can help you understand yourself better.

Self-reflection involves being present with yourself and intentionally focusing your attention inward to examine your thoughts, feelings, actions, and motivations, says Angeleena Francis , LMHC, executive director for AMFM Healthcare.

Active self-reflection can help grow your understanding of who you are , what values you believe in, and why you think and act the way you do, says Kristin Wilson , MA, LPC, CCTP, RYT, chief experience officer for Newport Healthcare.

This article explores the benefits and importance of self-reflection, as well as some strategies to help you practice it and incorporate it into your daily life. We also discuss when self-reflection can become unhealthy and suggest some coping strategies.

Self-reflection is important because it helps you form a self-concept and contributes toward self-development.

Builds Your Self-Concept

Self-reflection is critical because it contributes to your self-concept, which is an important part of your identity.

Your self-concept includes your thoughts about your traits, abilities, beliefs, values, roles, and relationships. It plays an influential role in your mood, judgment, and behavioral patterns.

Reflecting inward allows you to know yourself and continue to get to know yourself as you change and develop as a person, says Francis. It helps you understand and strengthen your self-concept as you evolve with time.

Enables Self-Development

Self-reflection also plays a key role in self-development. “It is a required skill for personal growth ,” says Wilson.

Being able to evaluate your strengths and weaknesses, or what you did right or wrong, can help you identify areas for growth and improvement, so you can work on them.

For instance, say you gave a presentation at school or work that didn’t go well, despite putting in a lot of work on the project. Spending a little time on self-reflection can help you understand that even though you spent a lot of time working on the project and creating the presentation materials, you didn’t practice giving the presentation. Realizing the problem can help you correct it. So, the next time you have to give a presentation, you can practice it on your colleagues or loved ones first.

Or, say you’ve just broken up with your partner. While it’s easy to blame them for everything that went wrong, self-reflection can help you understand what behaviors of yours contributed to the split. Being mindful of these behaviors can be helpful in other relationships.

Without self-reflection, you would continue to do what you’ve always done and as a result, you may continue to face the same problems you’ve always faced.

Benefits of Self-Reflection

These are some of the benefits of self-reflection, according to the experts:

• Increased self-awareness: Spending time in self-reflection can help build greater self-awareness , says Wilson. Self-awareness is a key component of emotional intelligence. It helps you recognize and understand your own emotions, as well as the impact of your emotions on your thoughts and behaviors.
• Greater sense of control: Self-reflection involves practicing mindfulness and being present with yourself at the moment. This can help you feel more grounded and in control of yourself, says Francis.
• Improved communication skills: Self-reflection can help you improve your communication skills, which can benefit your relationships. Understanding what you’re feeling can help you express yourself clearly, honestly, and empathetically.
• Deeper alignment with core values: Self-reflection can help you understand what you believe in and why. This can help ensure that your words and actions are more aligned with your core values, Wilson explains. It can also help reduce cognitive dissonance , which is the discomfort you may experience when your behavior doesn’t align with your values, says Francis.
• Better decision-making skills: Self-reflection can help you make better decisions for yourself, says Wilson. Understanding yourself better can help you evaluate all your options and how they will impact you with more clarity. This can help you make sound decisions that you’re more comfortable with, says Francis.
• Greater accountability: Self-reflection can help you hold yourself accountable to yourself, says Francis. It can help you evaluate your actions and recognize personal responsibility. It can also help you hold yourself accountable for the goals you’re working toward.

Self-reflection is a healthy practice that is important for mental well-being. However, it can become harmful if it turns into rumination, self-criticism, self-judgment, negative self-talk , and comparison to others, says Wilson.

Here’s what that could look like:

• Rumination: Experiencing excessive and repetitive stressful or negative thoughts. Rumination is often obsessive and interferes with other types of mental activity.
• Self-judgment: Constantly judging yourself and often finding yourself lacking. 
• Negative self-talk: Allowing the voice inside your head to discourage you from doing things you want to do. Negative self-talk is often self-defeating.
• Self-criticism: Constantly criticizing your actions and decisions.
• Comparison: Endlessly comparing yourself to others and feeling inferior.

Kristin Wilson, LPC, CCTP

Looking inward may activate your inner critic, but true self-reflection comes from a place of neutrality and non-judgment.

When anxious thoughts and feelings come up in self-reflection, Wilson says it’s important to practice self-compassion and redirect your focus to actionable insights that can propel your life forward. “We all have faults and room for improvement. Reflect on the behaviors or actions you want to change and take steps to do so.”

It can help to think of what you would say to a friend in a similar situation. For instance, if your friend said they were worried about the status of their job after they gave a presentation that didn’t go well, you would probably be kind to them, tell them not to worry, and to focus on improving their presentation skills in the future. Apply the same compassion to yourself and focus on what you can control.

If you are unable to calm your mind of racing or negative thoughts, Francis recommends seeking support from a trusted person in your life or a mental health professional. “Patterns of negative self-talk, self-doubt , or criticism should be addressed through professional support, as negative cognitions of oneself can lead to symptoms of depression if not resolved.”

Wilson suggests some strategies that can help you practice self-reflection:

• Ask yourself open-ended questions: Start off by asking yourself open-ended questions that will prompt self-reflection, such as: “Am I doing what makes me happy?” “Are there things I’d like to improve about myself?” or “What could I have done differently today?” “Am I taking anything or anyone for granted?” Notice what thoughts and feelings arise within you for each question and then begin to think about why. Be curious about yourself and be open to whatever comes up.
• Keep a journal: Journaling your thoughts and responses to these questions is an excellent vehicle for self-expression. It can be helpful to look back at your responses, read how you handled things in the past, assess the outcome, and look for where you might make changes in the future.
• Try meditation: Meditation can also be a powerful tool for self-reflection and personal growth. Even if it’s only for five minutes, practice sitting in silence and paying attention to what comes up for you. Notice which thoughts are fleeting and which come up more often.
• Process major events and emotions: When something happens in your life that makes you feel especially good or bad, take the time to reflect on what occurred, how it made you feel, and either how you can get to that feeling again or what you might do differently the next time. Writing down your thoughts in a journal can help.
• Make a self-reflection board: Create a self-reflection board of positive attributes that you add to regularly. Celebrate your authentic self and the ways you stay true to who you are. Having a visual representation of self-reflection can be motivating.

You may avoid self-reflection if it brings up difficult emotions and makes you feel uncomfortable, says Francis. She recommends preparing yourself to get comfortable with the uncomfortable before you start.

Think of your time in self-reflection as a safe space within yourself. “Avoid judging yourself while you explore your inner thoughts, feelings, and motives of behavior,” says Francis. Simply notice what comes up and accept it. Instead of focusing on fears, worries, or regrets, try to look for areas of growth and improvement.

“Practice neutrality and self-compassion so that self-reflection is a positive experience that you will want to do regularly,” says Wilson.

Francis suggests some strategies that can help you incorporate self-reflection into your daily routine:

• Dedicate time to it: it’s important to dedicate time to self-reflection and build it into your routine. Find a slot that works for your schedule—it could be five minutes each morning while drinking coffee or 30 minutes sitting outside in nature once per week.
• Pick a quiet spot: It can be hard to focus inward if your environment is busy or chaotic. Choose a calm and quiet space that is free of distractions so you can hear your own thoughts.
• Pay attention to your senses: Pay attention to your senses. Sensory input is an important component of self-awareness.

Nowak A, Vallacher RR, Bartkowski W, Olson L. Integration and expression: The complementary functions of self-reflection . J Pers . 2022;10.1111/jopy.12730. doi:10.1111/jopy.12730

American Psychological Association. Self-concept .

Dishon N, Oldmeadow JA, Critchley C, Kaufman J. The effect of trait self-awareness, self-reflection, and perceptions of choice meaningfulness on indicators of social identity within a decision-making context . Front Psychol . 2017;8:2034. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2017.02034

Drigas AS, Papoutsi C. A new layered model on emotional intelligence . Behav Sci (Basel) . 2018;8(5):45. doi:10.3390/bs8050045

American Psychological Association. Rumination .

By Sanjana Gupta Sanjana is a health writer and editor. Her work spans various health-related topics, including mental health, fitness, nutrition, and wellness.

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Don’t Underestimate the Power of Self-Reflection

• James R. Bailey
• Scheherazade Rehman

Focus on moments of surprise, failure, and frustration.

Research shows the habit of reflection can separate extraordinary professionals from mediocre ones. But how do you sort which experiences are most significant for your development?

• To answer this questions, the authors asked 442 executives to reflect on which experiences most advanced their professional development and had the most impact on making them better leaders.
• Three distinct themes arose through their analysis: surprise, frustration, and failure. Reflections that involved one or more or of these sentiments proved to be the most valuable in helping the leaders grow.
• Surprise, frustration, and failure. Cognitive, emotional, and behavioral. These parts of you are constantly in motion and if you don’t give them time to rest and reflect upon what you learned from them, you will surely fatigue.

Where your work meets your life. See more from Ascend here .

Empathy, communication, adaptability, emotional intelligence, compassion. These are all skills you need to thrive in the workplace and become a great leader. Time and again, we even hear that these capabilities are the key to making yourself indispensable — not just now but far into the future. Soft skills, after all, are what make us human, and as far as we know, can’t be performed well by technologies like artificial intelligence.

• James R. Bailey is professor and Hochberg Fellow of Leadership at George Washington University. The author of five books and more than 50 academic papers, he is a frequent contributor to the Harvard Business Review, The Hill, Fortune, Forbes, and Fast Company and appears on many national television and radio programs.
• Scheherazade Rehman is professor and Dean’s Professorial Fellow of International Finance. She is director of the European Union Research Center and former Director of World ExecMBA with Cybersecurity, has appeared in front of the U.S. House and Senate, and been a guest numerous times onPBS Newshour, the Colbert Report, BBC World News, CNBC, Voice of America, and C-Span.

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4.6 SELF-REFLECTION: What Are Your Strengths and Weaknesses in Writing an Academic Research Essay in English?

• What are your strengths in writing an academic research essay in English? 
• What are your weaknesses in writing an academic research essay in English?

ACADEMIC Writing Skills

• Getting ideas, planning, and organizing my essay
• Writing thesis statements for an essay
• Writing effective introduction and conclusion paragraphs
• Developing and supporting my ideas with good examples and complex sentences
• Organizing my ideas logically into strong paragraphs
• Using grammar correctly (verb tenses, subject-verb agreement, etc.)
• Using vocabulary correctly (including spelling)
• Using MLA format to cite information that I use from other sources
• Identifying and evaluating secondary sources of information to support my own ideas or opinions
• Summarizing and paraphrasing information from other sources
• Editing and proofreading, finding and correcting mistakes

Synthesis Copyright © 2022 by Timothy Krause is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

Self Reflection Essay

What goes through your mind when you have to write a self reflection essay? Do you ponder on your life choices, the actions you take to get where you want to be or where you are now? If you answered yes and yes to both of the questions, you are on the right track and have some idea on what a reflection essay would look like. This article would help give you more ideas on how to write a self reflection essay , how it looks like, what to put in it and some examples for you to use. So what are you waiting for? Check these out now.

10+ Self Reflection Essay Examples

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Defining Self

A person’s self that is different from the rest. On occasions it is considered as an object of a person’s view.

Defining Self Reflection

A self reflection is often described as taking a step back to reflect on your life. To take a break and observe how far you have become, the obstacles you have gone through and how they have affected your life, behavior and belief.

Defining Self Reflection Essay

A self- reflection essay is a type of essay that makes you express the experiences you have gone through in life based on a topic you have chosen to write about. It is a personal type of essay that you write about.  It makes you reflect on your life and journey to who you are today. The struggles, the fears, the triumphs and the actions you have taken to arrive at your current situation.

Tips on Writing a Self Reflection Essay

When writing a self reflection essay, there are some guidelines and formats to follow. But I am here to give you some tips to write a very good self reflection essay. These tips are easy to follow and they are not as complicated as some might believe them to be. Let’s begin. To write a good self reflection essay, one must first do:

• Think : Think about what you want to write. This is true for the title of your essay as well. Thinking about what to write first can save you a lot of time. After this tip, we move on to the next one which is:
• Drafting : As much as it sounds like a waste of time and effort, drafting what you are preparing to write is helpful. Just like in the first tip, drafting is a good way of writing down what you want and to add or take out what you will be writing later.
• State the purpose : Why are you writing this essay? State the purpose of the essay . As this is a self reflective essay, your purpose is to reflect on your life, the actions you did to reach this point of your life. The things you did to achieve it as well.
• Know your audience : Your self reflection essay may also depend on your audience. If you are planning on reading out loud your essay, your essay should fit your audience. If your audience is your team members, use the correct wording.
• Share your tips: This essay gives you the opportunity to share how you have achieved in life. Write down some tips for those who want to be able to achieve the same opportunity you are in right now.

How long or short can my self reflection essay be?

This depends on you. You may write a short self reflection essay, and you may also write a long one. The important thing there is stating the purpose of you writing your essay.

Writing a self reflection essay, am I allowed to write everything about my life?

The purpose of the self reflection essay is to reflect on a topic you choose and to talk about it.

Is there a limit of words to write this type of essay?

Yes, as much as possible stick to 300-700 words. But even if it may be this short, don’t forget to get creative and true in your essay.

A self reflective essay is a type of essay that people write to reflect on their lives. To reflect on a certain topic of their life and talk about it. Most of the time, this type of essay is short because this is merely to take a step back and watch your life throughout the beginning till the present time. Writing this type of essay may be a bit difficult for some as you have to dive deep into your life and remember the triumphs and the loss. The beauty of this essay though is the fact that you are able to see how far you have reached, how far you have overcome.

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Home — Essay Samples — Life — Self Reflection — Self Reflection Essay: My Journey Of Self-Development

Self Reflection Essay: My Journey of Self-development

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Published: Mar 14, 2024

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Self Reflection of Product Review Essay

To: Professor Rodwell

From: Jim Ferdous

Date: February 25, 2024

Subject: Self-Reflection of the Product Review Essay

When writing the product review essay, questions of the message, audience, and structuring were all factors that influenced the writing. As online reviews were provided as examples of product reviews, I knew that I wanted to emulate a writing style that would appeal to greater audiences such as people looking to purchase a KitchenAid Classic Can Opener/Bottle Opener as well as people of all age groups and used language and rhetorical concepts to engage the audience. The writing was a in-depth review of an item that I owned.

Some of the insights I’ve gained writing this product review essay was writing using my own opinions but also writing from the perspective of the manufacturer. Through quotes such “demonstrates its reliability and long working life through its solid structure, which uses stainless steel and durable hard plastics” (Ferdous 1), I was able to speak about the product in the way the manufacturer produced the item. This gave the review diversity and a two-sided review where it was opinionated but also unbiased.

Within the essay, I made personal connections with the can opener such as the time that it has lasted in my household. Likewise, I mentioned how the product is durable and easy to use, all things that I have noticed while utilizing the product. However, I also undertook the perspective of the engineers who designed the KitchenAid Classic Can Opener/Bottle Opener as “The KitchenAid Classic Can Opener/Bottle Opener is the epitome of research and innovative engineering that surpasses other competitors. Through skillful craftsmanship and planning, it delivers its intended outcome and reveals to the user its precision and effectiveness. The quality and functionality of the tool is a living example of how engineering can lead to the betterment of daily lives.” (Ferdous 2). Within my review, exigence played a pivotal role in my essay as it helped to solidify the purpose of my essay. The exigence in my narrative is the reflection I had of the product. This allowed me to be able to write a glowing review which resonated with my audience. Although the work is a review and focused on my personal life experiences, I used personal reflections as evidence to argue about how the product is a useful addition in a kitchen.

In terms of the quality, I think the review emphasizes the important points regarding the KitchenAid Classic Can Opener/Bottle Opener. The language in this case is clear and concise which makes it easy for readers to comprehend the product’s features and benefits. Similarly, the review is written in a formal manner which allows for readers to understand that the review is serious. The product review essay’s strongest aspect is the logical way the information is presented.  An element that needs improvement is the level of detail in some areas. I feel as if the review is not as detailed when explaining the product’s feature and benefits, which would make it more persuasive. When “this cannot be said for other can openers as the blade often gets dull after opening a few cans making the device worthless” (Ferdous 3), was argued, it was a weak comparison and was not detailed enough to explain why the can opener is actually a good product. One way to change this can be to analyze other product reviews to see how other’s make their reviews detailed and emulate that.

In the future, I will strive to maintain the same level of formality and diversity but also try to a develop more in-depth analysis which will provide stronger supporting information to make the essay more informative and more.

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Washington Square News

Students arrested at Gould Plaza required to complete ‘dozens of writing assignments,’ faculty group says

NYU’s Office of Student Conduct is allegedly requiring that some students arrested at the Gaza Solidarity Encampment in Gould Plaza write “reflection papers” and complete “dozens of writing assignments,” a recent Faculty & Staff for Justice in Palestine press release stated. The release said that in emails se​nt last week, the university informed students they would receive a censure — or a “ formal reprimand for violation of university policy ” — on their transcripts if they did not submit the assignments by May 29. 

One of the assignments instructed students to write a reflection paper describing the “incident” for which they were called in the OSC and assessing whether the decision they made aligned with their “personal values.” The paper “cannot serve to justify” the student’s actions, “evaluate the actions of others, or challenge a conduct regulation,” according to the assignment’s instructions. The other assignment is a 49-page “series of readings and reflective activities” that aims to help students “learn about and understand” their own values and how their actions “affected others and the community.”

“Either they really don’t understand that these students are living their values, or this was just intended to be humiliating and infantilizing,” Sara Pursley, a CAS professor and FSJP member, said in an interview with WSN. “It’s ironic to say the least that, in an essay on integrity, they tell students they can’t actually talk about what their real values were.” 

In the May 13 press release, FSJP also criticized NYU’s use of Advocate — a higher education software created by the “behavioral intervention management” company Symplicity — which the group claims houses the OSC’s writing prompts. The group noted that Symplicity, which supplies student conduct programs to NYU and over 250 universities, pleaded guilty in federal court on criminal hacking charges in 2014. 

In a written statement to WSN, university spokesperson John Beckman called FSJP’s press release “disappointingly misleading” and said that the only people “determining the sanctions that students may receive from conduct proceedings” are staff at the OSC.

“The implication that there’s something insidious going on or that NYU has ‘outsourced’ adjudication of the university’s student conduct procedures is deceptive propaganda,” Beckman wrote. “Symplicity has nothing —  repeat, nothing — to do with the specific sanctions NYU students may receive as a result of a conduct process.”

The FSJP press release comes after the university had allegedly dropped criminal charges brought against all protesters arrested at the pro-Palestinian encampment in Gould Plaza three weeks ago, including dozens of students and faculty . Since the encampment, on-campus groups, including FSJP and the NYU Palestine Solidarity Coalition have been demanding that NYU pardon students facing disciplinary action for their involvement in pro-Palestinian demonstrations, divest from companies with ties to Israel, shut down its study away site in Tel Aviv and remove police from campus. 

NYU allegedly began disciplinary hearing for students who were involved with pro-Palestinian demonstrations on campus last week, although NYU PSC did not say how many students received misconduct violations or what university policies they were accused of violating. More recently, nine students were suspended and two were given persona non grata status after a demonstration in Bobst Library on Friday, according to NYU PSC. 

Contact Dharma Niles at [email protected] .

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Thousands Believe Covid Vaccines Harmed Them. Is Anyone Listening?

All vaccines have at least occasional side effects. But people who say they were injured by Covid vaccines believe their cases have been ignored.

Shaun Barcavage, 54, a nurse practitioner in New York City, said that ever since his first Covid shot, standing up has sent his heart racing. Credit... Hannah Yoon for The New York Times

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By Apoorva Mandavilli

Apoorva Mandavilli spent more than a year talking to dozens of experts in vaccine science, policymakers and people who said they had experienced serious side effects after receiving a Covid-19 vaccine.

• Published May 3, 2024 Updated May 4, 2024

Within minutes of getting the Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 vaccine, Michelle Zimmerman felt pain racing from her left arm up to her ear and down to her fingertips. Within days, she was unbearably sensitive to light and struggled to remember simple facts.

She was 37, with a Ph.D. in neuroscience, and until then could ride her bicycle 20 miles, teach a dance class and give a lecture on artificial intelligence, all in the same day. Now, more than three years later, she lives with her parents. Eventually diagnosed with brain damage, she cannot work, drive or even stand for long periods of time.

“When I let myself think about the devastation of what this has done to my life, and how much I’ve lost, sometimes it feels even too hard to comprehend,” said Dr. Zimmerman, who believes her injury is due to a contaminated vaccine batch .

The Covid vaccines, a triumph of science and public health, are estimated to have prevented millions of hospitalizations and deaths . Yet even the best vaccines produce rare but serious side effects . And the Covid vaccines have been given to more than 270 million people in the United States, in nearly 677 million doses .

Dr. Zimmerman’s account is among the more harrowing, but thousands of Americans believe they suffered serious side effects following Covid vaccination. As of April, just over 13,000 vaccine-injury compensation claims have been filed with the federal government — but to little avail. Only 19 percent have been reviewed. Only 47 of those were deemed eligible for compensation, and only 12 have been paid out, at an average of about $3,600 .

Some scientists fear that patients with real injuries are being denied help and believe that more needs to be done to clarify the possible risks.

“At least long Covid has been somewhat recognized,” said Akiko Iwasaki, an immunologist and vaccine expert at Yale University. But people who say they have post-vaccination injuries are “just completely ignored and dismissed and gaslighted,” she added.

In interviews and email exchanges conducted over several months, federal health officials insisted that serious side effects were extremely rare and that their surveillance efforts were more than sufficient to detect patterns of adverse events.

“Hundreds of millions of people in the United States have safely received Covid vaccines under the most intense safety monitoring in U.S. history,” Jeff Nesbit, a spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services, said in an emailed statement.

But in a recent interview, Dr. Janet Woodcock, a longtime leader of the Food and Drug Administration, who retired in February, said she believed that some recipients had experienced uncommon but “serious” and “life-changing” reactions beyond those described by federal agencies.

“I feel bad for those people,” said Dr. Woodcock, who became the F.D.A.’s acting commissioner in January 2021 as the vaccines were rolling out. “I believe their suffering should be acknowledged, that they have real problems, and they should be taken seriously.”

“I’m disappointed in myself,” she added. “I did a lot of things I feel very good about, but this is one of the few things I feel I just didn’t bring it home.”

Federal officials and independent scientists face a number of challenges in identifying potential vaccine side effects.

The nation’s fragmented health care system complicates detection of very rare side effects, a process that depends on an analysis of huge amounts of data. That’s a difficult task when a patient may be tested for Covid at Walgreens, get vaccinated at CVS, go to a local clinic for minor ailments and seek care at a hospital for serious conditions. Each place may rely on different health record systems.

There is no central repository of vaccine recipients, nor of medical records, and no easy to way to pool these data. Reports to the largest federal database of so-called adverse events can be made by anyone, about anything. It’s not even clear what officials should be looking for.

“I mean, you’re not going to find ‘brain fog’ in the medical record or claims data, and so then you’re not going to find” a signal that it may be linked to vaccination, Dr. Woodcock said. If such a side effect is not acknowledged by federal officials, “it’s because it doesn’t have a good research definition,” she added. “It isn’t, like, malevolence on their part.”

The government’s understaffed compensation fund has paid so little because it officially recognizes few side effects for Covid vaccines. And vaccine supporters, including federal officials, worry that even a whisper of possible side effects feeds into misinformation spread by a vitriolic anti-vaccine movement.

‘I’m Not Real’

Patients who believe they experienced serious side effects say they have received little support or acknowledgment.

Shaun Barcavage, 54, a nurse practitioner in New York City who has worked on clinical trials for H.I.V. and Covid, said that ever since his first Covid shot, merely standing up sent his heart racing — a symptom suggestive of postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome , a neurological disorder that some studies have linked to both Covid and, much less often, vaccination .

He also experienced stinging pain in his eyes, mouth and genitals, which has abated, and tinnitus, which has not.

“I can’t get the government to help me,” Mr. Barcavage said of his fruitless pleas to federal agencies and elected representatives. “I am told I’m not real. I’m told I’m rare. I’m told I’m coincidence.”

Renee France, 49, a physical therapist in Seattle, developed Bell’s palsy — a form of facial paralysis, usually temporary — and a dramatic rash that neatly bisected her face. Bell’s palsy is a known side effect of other vaccines, and it has been linked to Covid vaccination in some studies.

But Dr. France said doctors were dismissive of any connection to the Covid vaccines. The rash, a bout of shingles, debilitated her for three weeks, so Dr. France reported it to federal databases twice.

“I thought for sure someone would reach out, but no one ever did,” she said.

Similar sentiments were echoed in interviews, conducted over more than a year, with 30 people who said they had been harmed by Covid shots. They described a variety of symptoms following vaccination, some neurological, some autoimmune, some cardiovascular.

All said they had been turned away by physicians, told their symptoms were psychosomatic, or labeled anti-vaccine by family and friends — despite the fact that they supported vaccines.

Even leading experts in vaccine science have run up against disbelief and ambivalence.

Dr. Gregory Poland, 68, editor in chief of the journal Vaccine, said that a loud whooshing sound in his ears had accompanied every moment since his first shot, but that his entreaties to colleagues at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to explore the phenomenon, tinnitus, had led nowhere.

He received polite responses to his many emails, but “I just don’t get any sense of movement,” he said.

“If they have done studies, those studies should be published,” Dr. Poland added. In despair that he might “never hear silence again,” he has sought solace in meditation and his religious faith.

Dr. Buddy Creech, 50, who led several Covid vaccine trials at Vanderbilt University, said his tinnitus and racing heart lasted about a week after each shot. “It’s very similar to what I experienced during acute Covid, back in March of 2020,” Dr. Creech said.

Research may ultimately find that most reported side effects are unrelated to the vaccine, he acknowledged. Many can be caused by Covid itself.

“Regardless, when our patients experience a side effect that may or may not be related to the vaccine, we owe it to them to investigate that as completely as we can,” Dr. Creech said.

Federal health officials say they do not believe that the Covid vaccines caused the illnesses described by patients like Mr. Barcavage, Dr. Zimmerman and Dr. France. The vaccines may cause transient reactions, such as swelling, fatigue and fever, according to the C.D.C., but the agency has documented only four serious but rare side effects .

Two are associated with the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which is no longer available in the United States: Guillain-Barré syndrome , a known side effect of other vaccines , including the flu shot; and a blood-clotting disorder.

The C.D.C. also links mRNA vaccines made by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna to heart inflammation, or myocarditis, especially in boys and young men. And the agency warns of anaphylaxis, or severe allergic reaction, which can occur after any vaccination.

Listening for Signals

Agency scientists are monitoring large databases containing medical information on millions of Americans for patterns that might suggest a hitherto unknown side effect of vaccination, said Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, director of the C.D.C.’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases.

“We toe the line by reporting the signals that we think are real signals and reporting them as soon as we identify them as signals,” he said. The agency’s systems for monitoring vaccine safety are “pretty close” to ideal, he said.

Those national surveillance efforts include the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS). It is the largest database, but also the least reliable: Reports of side effects can be submitted by anyone and are not vetted, so they may be subject to bias or manipulation.

The system contains roughly one million reports regarding Covid vaccination, the vast majority for mild events, according to the C.D.C.

Federal researchers also comb through databases that combine electronic health records and insurance claims on tens of millions of Americans. The scientists monitor the data for 23 conditions that may occur following Covid vaccination. Officials remain alert to others that may pop up, Dr. Daskalakis said.

But there are gaps, some experts noted. The Covid shots administered at mass vaccination sites were not recorded in insurance claims databases, for example, and medical records in the United States are not centralized.

“It’s harder to see signals when you have so many people, and things are happening in different parts of the country, and they’re not all collected in the same system,” said Rebecca Chandler, a vaccine safety expert at the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations.

An expert panel convened by the National Academies concluded in April that for the vast majority of side effects, there was not enough data to accept or reject a link.

Asked at a recent congressional hearing whether the nation’s vaccine-safety surveillance was sufficient, Dr. Peter Marks, director of the F.D.A.’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, said, “I do believe we could do better.”

In some countries with centralized health care systems, officials have actively sought out reports of serious side effects of Covid vaccines and reached conclusions that U.S. health authorities have not.

In Hong Kong, the government analyzed centralized medical records of patients after vaccination and paid people to come forward with problems. The strategy identified “a lot of mild cases that other countries would not otherwise pick up,” said Ian Wong, a researcher at the University of Hong Kong who led the nation’s vaccine safety efforts.

That included the finding that in rare instances — about seven per million doses — the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine triggered a bout of shingles serious enough to require hospitalization.

The European Medicines Agency has linked the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines to facial paralysis, tingling sensations and numbness. The E.M.A. also counts tinnitus as a side effect of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, although the American health agencies do not. There are more than 17,000 reports of tinnitus following Covid vaccination in VAERS.

Are the two linked? It’s not clear. As many as one in four adults has some form of tinnitus. Stress, anxiety, grief and aging can lead to the condition, as can infections like Covid itself and the flu.

There is no test or scan for tinnitus, and scientists cannot easily study it because the inner ear is tiny, delicate and encased in bone, said Dr. Konstantina Stankovic, an otolaryngologist at Stanford University.

Still, an analysis of health records from nearly 2.6 million people in the United States found that about 0.04 percent , or about 1,000, were diagnosed with tinnitus within three weeks of their first mRNA shot. In March, researchers in Australia published a study linking tinnitus and vertigo to the vaccines .

The F.D.A. is monitoring reports of tinnitus, but “at this time, the available evidence does not suggest a causal association with the Covid-19 vaccines,” the agency said in a statement.

Despite surveillance efforts, U.S. officials were not the first to identify a significant Covid vaccine side effect: myocarditis in young people receiving mRNA vaccines. It was Israeli authorities who first raised the alarm in April 2021. Officials in the United States said at the time that they had not seen a link.

On May 22, 2021, news broke that the C.D.C. was investigating a “relatively few” cases of myocarditis. By June 23, the number of myocarditis reports in VAERS had risen to more than 1,200 — a hint that it is important to tell doctors and patients what to look for.

Later analyses showed that the risk for myocarditis and pericarditis, a related condition, is highest after a second dose of an mRNA Covid vaccine in adolescent males aged 12 to 17 years.

In many people, vaccine-related myocarditis is transient. But some patients continue to experience pain, breathlessness and depression, and some show persistent changes on heart scans . The C.D.C. has said there were no confirmed deaths related to myocarditis, but in fact there have been several accounts of deaths reported post-vaccination .

Pervasive Misinformation

The rise of the anti-vaccine movement has made it difficult for scientists, in and out of government, to candidly address potential side effects, some experts said. Much of the narrative on the purported dangers of Covid vaccines is patently false, or at least exaggerated, cooked up by savvy anti-vaccine campaigns.

Questions about Covid vaccine safety are core to Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s presidential campaign. Citing debunked theories about altered DNA, Florida’s surgeon general has called for a halt to Covid vaccination in the state.

“The sheer nature of misinformation, the scale of misinformation, is staggering, and anything will be twisted to make it seem like it’s not just a devastating side effect but proof of a massive cover-up,” said Dr. Joshua Sharfstein, a vice dean at Johns Hopkins University.

Among the hundreds of millions of Americans who were immunized for Covid, some number would have had heart attacks or strokes anyway. Some women would have miscarried. How to distinguish those caused by the vaccine from those that are coincidences? The only way to resolve the question is intense research .

But the National Institutes of Health is conducting virtually no studies on Covid vaccine safety, several experts noted. William Murphy, a cancer researcher who worked at the N.I.H. for 12 years, has been prodding federal health officials to initiate these studies since 2021.

The officials each responded with “that very tired mantra: ‘But the virus is worse,’” Dr. Murphy recalled. “Yes, the virus is worse, but that doesn’t obviate doing research to make sure that there may be other options.”

A deeper understanding of possible side effects, and who is at risk for them, could have implications for the design of future vaccines, or may indicate that for some young and healthy people, the benefit of Covid shots may no longer outweigh the risks — as some European countries have determined.

Thorough research might also speed assistance to thousands of Americans who say they were injured.

The federal government has long run the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program , designed to compensate people who suffer injuries after vaccination. Established more than three decades ago, the program sets no limit on the amounts awarded to people found to have been harmed.

But Covid vaccines are not covered by that fund because Congress has not made them subject to the excise tax that pays for it. Some lawmakers have introduced bills to make the change.

Instead, claims regarding Covid vaccines go to the Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program . Intended for public health emergencies, this program has narrow criteria to pay out and sets a limit of $50,000, with stringent standards of proof.

It requires applicants to prove within a year of the injury that it was “the direct result” of getting the Covid vaccine, based on “compelling, reliable, valid, medical, and scientific evidence.”

The program had only four staff members at the beginning of the pandemic, and now has 35 people evaluating claims. Still, it has reviewed only a fraction of the 13,000 claims filed, and has paid out only a dozen.

Dr. Ilka Warshawsky, a 58-year-old pathologist, said she lost all hearing in her right ear after a Covid booster shot. But hearing loss is not a recognized side effect of Covid vaccination.

The compensation program for Covid vaccines sets a high bar for proof, she said, yet offers little information on how to meet it: “These adverse events can be debilitating and life-altering, and so it’s very upsetting that they’re not acknowledged or addressed.”

Dr. Zimmerman, the neuroscientist, submitted her application in October 2021 and provided dozens of supporting medical documents. She received a claim number only in January 2023.

In adjudicating her claim for workers’ compensation, Washington State officials accepted that Covid vaccination caused her injury, but she has yet to get a decision from the federal program.

One of her therapists recently told her she might never be able to live independently again.

“That felt like a devastating blow,” Dr. Zimmerman said. “But I’m trying not to lose hope there will someday be a treatment and a way to cover it.”

Apoorva Mandavilli is a reporter focused on science and global health. She was a part of the team that won the 2021 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for coverage of the pandemic. More about Apoorva Mandavilli

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