Reflective essays are a common way for nurses to learn from their clinical experiences and improve their practice. By reflecting on past events and critically analysing your own actions, you can develop deeper insight into your values and beliefs and how these impact your nursing care. So, yes! Reflective essays sound promising for nurses.
A reflective essay is a type of writing in which you (the author) interact with an audience and describe some sort of experience. This experience could be anything from a simple task to something more complicated, such as caring for a patient.
Purpose of Reflection
You might be wondering why reflection is necessary and what purpose it serves. The main purpose of writing a reflective essay is to help the writer reflect on their own experiences and learn from them.
To do this effectively, you need to use descriptive language that engages the reader and helps them understand your point of view. You should also try to make your headings attractive and interesting so that readers will want to continue reading your essay.
A reflective essay encompasses all the useful details required to understand why and how something happened. Your role and feelings in the scenario must also be mentioned explicitly to get the readers to your perspective.
Difference Between Reflective and Analytical Essay
A reflective essay is a written piece of literature that describes an event or a person from the writer’s point of view. It is often considered a form of autobiographical writing, as it allows the writer to express their own thoughts and feelings about something that has happened in their life.
Besides, an analytical essay is a written piece of literature that looks at an event or person from an outside perspective. This type of essay often uses research to support its claims and points.
Both types of essays have their own benefits and drawbacks. A reflective essay can be more personal and emotive than an analytical essay but can also be less structured and researched. An analytical essay can be more impersonal and objective but also more difficult to write.
Ultimately, it is up to the writer to decide which type of essay they want to write. If you are unsure which type would be best for your purposes, you can always ask your instructor or consult with our essay help UK service.
Writing Style of Reflective Essay
Reflective writing is all about exploring the experience and highlighting personal ideas, feelings, and opinions about the event and how it affected you. A reflective essay is interactive. Describing a moment or experience in life is done in an engaging way to put the reader in the writer’s shoes.
It allows one to understand another person’s perspective while analysing their flaws and strengths. There is a certain way to do that. As we have already discussed that it is different from analytical writing. There are specific writing styles which must be followed while writing a reflective essay about the nursing experience.
Narrative Writing
If you want to write reflectively, use a narrative stance. It is written in the first person. You can write in the form of a story; the information stated in the essay depends on memory. Narrative writing aims to make the writing relatable and shed light on the experience.
Highlight Feelings
Best Tools and Models in Practise for Reflective Writing
Gibbs’ Reflective Cycle
In nursing, Gibbs’ reflective cycle is commonly used. It makes experiential learning supportive within the 6 stages. It helps to define feelings in a detailed manner. In the cycle, you answer these questions under the 6 stages.
Description
Answer what happened, or in other words, provide the case.
Feelings
Evaluation
Analysis
Conclusion
Action Plan
Driscoll Reflective Model
It is the simplest form of reflection model in nursing. It connects three stem questions to explain the learning cycle through prior experiences.
What?
In this section, you will describe the situation and what observations you made. Also, mention your reaction towards the situation and address the issue clearly. Connect the dots by recollecting all these situations.
So what?
Discuss what did you learn from the experience in the second phase. If you come across any new skill, write about it clearly. The things you perceive as negative must be addressed with reasoning and state the troubles intelligently to connect with the next phase.
Now what?
How To Begin the Reflection
Orient The Readers to The Goal of The Essay Provide Orientation of Essay’s Goal
Before jumping to the reflection, write about what the essay is all about. First, tell the reader what you are going to do and why. Write which model you are going to use and make a thesis statement for the essay.
Describe the Situation
Main Body of Reflection
Share Feelings
In the main body, start reflecting on the case you’ve presented in the opening paragraph. Share your feelings about what happened and how it is resolved. You’ve to highlight others’ feelings as well because it will help you to comprehend another person’s view about the situation.
Evaluate the Experience
In any reflective model, you must evaluate what you’ve experienced to maintain the goal of writing. You might lose marks if you fail to do the evaluation part intelligently. To avoid any risk, many students give us their reflective essays to us because we provide the best essay writing service for the students.
Summarise Thoughtfully
Highlight Take Aways
To summarise, use all the information you’ve put in the essay and draw a conclusion from your learning. Mention your learning from the re-evaluation of prior experience. Don’t hesitate to highlight any negative aspects. Be expressive and write the essay exclusively.
Future Implication
Make sure that your conclusion depicts future implications clearly. This is the marks-gaining part because it will highlight what you’ve learnt so far. If you think you might not be able to pen it down effectively, don’t resist handing over your reflective essay to our experienced assignment writers.
Importance of Reflective Essay Writing in Nursing
The importance of reflective essay writing in nursing cannot be underestimated. By engaging in reflective practice, nurses can develop their critical thinking skills and improve the quality of their care.
Personal Growth
Drawing reflection on past experience systematically allows thinking about the better ideas which could be done to make the situation end up more positive. It helps personal growth and highlights where the student is lacking because it emphasises strengths and weaknesses.
In nursing, thinking about prior experiences to make a difference is good. You can use this learning opportunity to improve future practice. Reflection also helps you understand what skills you need to learn to face difficult situations while practising.
Emphasis on Experience-based Learning
Winding-up
Now you know what reflection is all about. You can freely write it and express your opinions based on observation. Don’t forget to link your experience to the existing literature and highlight others’ roles in the scenario. If you find it unnerving, then simply get the essay assignment help and save the day!
