7 Tips To Keep In Mind Looking For An Example Of A Reflective Essay

A reflective essay is a paper that describes the process of the writer’s personal experience. It can be focused on an event that made an impression on you personally or a period of time, for example a school semester. The main idea of the essay is to describe the experience and reflect upon it analyzing the effect it had on your life.

It might be difficult to understand how exactly to go about expressing your opinion in this form. If you struggle with this, you should study some samples. Nowadays, you can easily find them online. However, there are some important tips you should keep in mind when searching for these examples:

  1. The source can be unreliable.
  2. Not all websites can be trusted. Some of them can offer files infected with computer viruses that can do a great damage to your PC or laptop. You definitely should do some research and look for references to reliable free databases.

  3. The example will never be perfect.
  4. When working on a reflective essay, you will not be able to find an example that will perfectly fit your requirements. As these papers are focused on personal feelings and experiences, each of them is unique. You can use the sample to get some ideas and understand its structure. However, all the experiences and reflections you will write about must be your own.

  5. The quality of the sample might be low.
  6. Many databases don’t monitor the documents they offer, so quite a few of them might be written quite poorly. You’ll need to do some preliminary research in order to understand the actual quality of the paper.

  7. The sample might be incomplete.
  8. In some cases, the quality of writing in the example might be good, but it will not include all the necessary components of this type of paper. Again, some research should tell you what the exact structure of this work must be.

  9. The example might not be creative.
  10. Many of the papers you find online are generic. Their educational value in this case is very low, because this particular kind of paper requires the writer to be creative and show his or her personal style.

  11. The example might be too informal.
  12. It is true that a reflective essay should be less formal, but do not forget that this is still a piece of academic writing and certain rules must be obeyed.

  13. The sample might lack emotion.
  14. If the paper you study is neutral, it is no good. A reflective essay must be filled with avid emotional descriptions.