Writing Studio Personal and Reflective Writing

Voice and honesty

You will write in a voice that sounds like you on a good day, and say the true thing rather than the safe one.

Do this first

Take one paragraph from your draft and rewrite it as if you were telling a trusted friend what happened. Compare the two versions: keep the phrases that sound like you, and mark every sentence in the original that hides what you really thought.

Steps

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Draft privately first
Write a first version that nobody else will see, including what you felt and what you got wrong. The University of Edinburgh's Reflection Toolkit calls this moving from private to public reflection. It is easier to cut what is too personal later than to add honesty you avoided.
Use “I” plainly
Personal and reflective writing uses the first person, including in academic assignments. Write “I hesitated” rather than “hesitation was experienced”. Keep an academic register in assessed work (no slang, full sentences), but do not hide behind the passive voice.
Write against your defences
Look for places where you explain why you were right, blame someone else, or rush past a feeling. Honesty usually means writing your own part, including uncertainty, anger or relief. Readers and markers trust writers who admit what they did not know.
Separate then from now
Personal writing has two voices: the person you were in the moment and the person writing now. Make the gap visible with phrases such as “At the time I thought” and “Now I see”. Reflection happens in that gap.
Choose specific words over abstract ones
Replace “it was a difficult experience” with what made it difficult: the question you could not answer, the silence after you spoke. Concrete nouns and verbs carry voice better than adjectives.
Read it aloud
Read the draft aloud and mark any sentence you would never say. If you write in an additional language, a plain, precise voice is still your voice; you do not need idioms to sound like yourself.

Templates

Then and now

At the time, I [thought / felt / did] [specific detail].
What I did not see then was [blind spot].
Looking back, I think [current interpretation], because [reason or evidence].
I am still unsure about [open question].

Honest sentence starters for reflective assignments

I felt [specific emotion] when [specific moment], because [reason].
My first reaction was to [action], which [effect on the situation or person].
I realise now that my assumption that [assumption] came from [training, culture, past experience].
I was not confident about [skill or knowledge], and this showed when [example].

Check your draft

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I use “I” wherever I am the one acting, thinking or feeling.
The draft includes at least one moment where I was unsure, wrong or uncomfortable.
Where I criticise someone else, I also examine my own part.
Feelings are named precisely (embarrassed, relieved, resentful), not just “good” or “bad”.
A reader can tell the difference between what I thought then and what I think now.
For an assignment, the tone is personal but not casual: no slang or exclamation marks.
Every sentence sounds like something I would actually say.

In your field

Reflections in science and engineering courses are often short and plain; voice comes through precise description of decisions and errors rather than emotion. “I assumed the sensor was calibrated and did not check” is honest and appropriate.

Common mistakes

Writing what you think the marker or reader wants to hear rather than what happened.
Using the passive voice to avoid saying who did what.
Confessing in detail without any reflection on what it means.
Borrowing the phrasing of a model reflection, which makes your voice sound secondhand.
Confusing honesty with harshness, especially about people who cannot respond.

Go further

University of Edinburgh Reflection Toolkit: General tips for academic reflectionsExplains the private-to-public approach and what academic reflection is not (a diary, a showcase of self-disclosure, uncritical praise).
Monash University: Reflective practice and frameworksCovers using the first person, keeping an academic tone, tense choices and moving from description to analysis.
Bird by Bird, by Anne LamottFunny, practical book on drafting honestly, including the case for messy first drafts.
Reflective Practice: Writing and Professional Development, by Gillie Bolton and Russell DelderfieldWidely used in health, education and social care for building reflective writing into professional life.