Short answer: a reflective essay takes one specific experience and works it through a reflective model — most often Gibbs' cycle (1988): Description, Feelings, Evaluation, Analysis, Conclusion and Action Plan. Describe briefly, spend most of your words analysing what happened against theory, and finish with what you would do differently. First person — writing as “I” — is expected in reflective writing.
Most reflective essays lose marks the same way: they retell the event like a diary, at length, and end with “I learned a lot.” The marker is not marking the event — she is marking what you made of it: whether you can examine your own practice, connect it to theory, and turn it into a change she could watch you make. Gibbs' cycle forces exactly that movement, from story to sense-making to action. The essay-level basics in our guide to how to write an assignment still apply; what follows is the reflective version.
The six stages — and what each one is for
| Stage | The question it answers | Share of a 2,000-word essay |
|---|---|---|
| Description | What happened? | ~10% · about 200 words |
| Feelings | What did I think and feel — before, during and after? | ~10% · about 200 words |
| Evaluation | What was good and bad about it? | ~15% · about 300 words |
| Analysis | Why did it happen? What does theory say? | ~30% · about 600 words |
| Conclusion | What else could I have done? What did I learn? | ~15% · about 300 words |
| Action Plan | If it happens again, what will I do — and how will I prepare? | ~10% · about 200 words |
Your introduction takes the remaining ~10%: name the incident, name the model, and say what the reflection reaches. Note the weight: Analysis alone is worth three Descriptions.
Before the stages: pick one incident
- One incident, not a whole placement. A single shift, conversation or decision, small enough to describe in 200 words.
- Choose a moment with a turn — a decision, or a moment your understanding changed. “A normal day” gives Analysis nothing to work on.
- Anonymise everyone. No real names, wards, schools or dates: “a patient, Mrs J” is the convention, and reflections lose marks — or worse — for breaking confidentiality.
- Write raw notes the same day. Feelings fade first.
A full worked example, stage by stage
The incident: a first-year nursing student, on her first ward placement, is asked a question she cannot answer. Each stage below is a model excerpt, followed by what makes it work.
Description
Facts only — no feelings, no judgement. Those have their own stages; mixing them in here turns a description into a diary.
Feelings
Honest and specific, including the feeling that arrived later — naming the fear underneath the embarrassment is what Analysis will pick up.
Evaluation
Both halves, held apart — and notice how it isolates the real fault (the delay) from the obvious one (not knowing).
Analysis
This is where references live, and where the marks are: theory explains the incident instead of sitting beside it. Analysis paragraphs are built like any analytical paragraph — our PEEL paragraph guide shows that structure.
Conclusion
One sharp lesson, not a list of regrets — if it could be swapped into another student's essay, it is too general to mark.
Action Plan
Specific, timed and observable: “I will communicate better” is a wish; “escalated within five minutes” is a plan.
Description vs analysis: the error bank
| Diary version (loses marks) | Analytical version (earns them) |
|---|---|
| “The patient was upset and the nurse was very busy that day.” | “The patient's question waited twenty minutes because I ranked a visible task above an invisible one — a prioritisation error, not a knowledge error.” |
| “Communication is very important in nursing.” | “My silence at the bedside shows communication failing at its simplest point: not speaking well, but handing a question to someone who can answer it.” |
| “I learned a lot from this experience and will do better next time.” | “Next time I will escalate any question I cannot answer within five minutes and log it the same day — a change my mentor can observe and assess.” |
The pattern in every row: the diary version reports or generalises; the analytical version explains a cause or commits to a testable change.
The final check
- Could the Description stand alone as a factual account, with no feelings or judgements in it?
- Is Analysis the longest stage — and does every theory reference explain this incident, not a general topic?
- Does the Action Plan contain at least one change with a number, a deadline or an observer attached?
- Is everyone in the essay anonymised, and is the model named in the introduction and the reference list?
Run that check, then the final proofreading checklist, before you submit. If your draft is long on story and short on analysis — the most common reflective fault — RozContent's assignment support service reviews reflective drafts and shows you where description can be cut and analysis built, in your own words.
Keeping a placement log from phone photos? Merge each week's pages into one tidy file with the free Images to PDF tool.