Reflective essays allow individuals to process experiences and organize goals. While reflective essays are personal, they generally follow an academic essay structure with an introduction, thesis, examples, and conclusion. Reflective essays involve looking back on a situation or experience and presenting your perspective post-experience. They are unique to the individual and there is no wrong answer. Reflective essays give students a chance to reflect on their achievements in a project. When writing a reflective essay, include an introduction, main body, and conclusion to define the context and highlight the most important areas. Studying sample reflective essays is a good way to understand how to write one.

1. Reflective Essay Writing Tips for College Students
Reflective essays can be a useful tool to help an individual process something that has happened,
deal with difficult emotions, or organize goals. People who write reflective essays should feel
that they have room to explore without too many guidelines hindering their stream of
consciousness, but there are some principles that can guide and organize the process.
A reflective essay should follow the same format as most academic essays: introduction, thesis,
examples and conclusion. Using this format as a guideline will ensure a better chance of
understanding the issue being explored. However, since a reflective essay is more for personal
purposes than for academic candor, tributaries from the main flow of ideas should not be
discouraged as long as they are tied in to the overall thought process in a way that contributes to
improvement of understanding.
Think of the word "reflection". It means to look back upon a situation and present your findings.
It is all about your perspective, post-experience. Whether you are writing a reflective essay about
an event in your life, or you are reflecting on a poem that you were assigned to read for your
high school English class, reflective essay writing is all about composing your thoughts on the
subject.
It is different than an informative essay, for which you may research a topic, or have to come up
with ways to support your conclusions. Instead, reflective essay writing is unique to the
individual. There is really no wrong answer. In fact, this is the kind of essay in which your
teacher wants you to explore your creative thoughts and really think outside of the box.
A Reflective Essay can be based on a student’s own experiences, either past or present, or it can
be based on the experiences of another student. The reflective essay gives you an opportunity to
reflect and discuss your achievements while completing the project. Reflective essay is the
reflection of your thoughts and ideas. Reflective essay writing, as its name suggests, entails
focusing on reflection, consideration, etc.
To define context of an essay, include three parts in your essay. The introduction, the main body
and the conclusion.
Before starting to write, the essay reflects the development and the method that you followed in
responsibility of the project. Thoroughly study the process or the method and carefully organize
the information in a brief manner. While writing essay, highlight the most important areas. The
reflective essay gives you an opportunity to reflect and discuss about your achievements while
completing the project.
Reflective essay samples
All types of sample papers, including reflective essay, must follow an outline. One of the good
ways to understand how to write this essay type is to study essay samples in the internet.