Overview
Reflection is assessed in nursing and midwifery, teacher education, social work, medicine, business and leadership programs, and increasingly in first-year writing courses. It is an unusual academic genre: first person is expected, feelings are legitimate evidence, and yet the writing must still be analytical, critical and connected to literature.
We start by identifying the model your course requires, or helping you choose one if it doesn't specify. Each model sets up a different path. Gibbs gives six detailed stages, Kolb frames learning as a cycle from experience to experimentation, Driscoll uses three short questions, and Schön distinguishes reflecting during an event from reflecting afterward. Using the model as a thinking tool rather than a set of headings to fill is often the single biggest improvement.
Feedback then focuses on depth: are you questioning your assumptions, considering other perspectives (the patient's, the pupil's, the colleague's), connecting to theory or guidelines, and ending with specific, realistic actions? We also check professional conventions such as anonymizing people and settings.
Who it’s for and the problems it solves
This is for you if you are…
- Nursing, midwifery and allied health students writing reflections on clinical placements
- Trainee teachers writing reflective journals or lesson evaluations
- Social work, counseling and medical students completing reflective assignments or portfolios
- Business and leadership students reflecting on group work, internships or management experiences
- Practitioners preparing reflective accounts for professional revalidation or continuing development
Common problems we help with
- Your reflection is mostly a description of events with a short 'I learned a lot' at the end
- You're unsure how personal to be, or feel uncomfortable writing about emotions
- The marker said you need to link reflection to literature, but you don't know how
- You're following Gibbs' stages as headings and each section feels repetitive
- Your action plan is vague, such as 'communicate better next time'
What’s included — and what isn’t
Included
- Guidance on choosing and using a reflective model: Gibbs, Kolb, Driscoll, Schön, Rolfe and others your course names
- Help selecting an incident or experience that offers enough material for reflection
- Feedback on the balance between description, analysis and action
- Coaching on levels of reflection, from descriptive to dialogic to critical
- Support linking experience to theory, research evidence, professional standards or guidelines
- Help writing specific, measurable action plans
- Checks on confidentiality and anonymization conventions in professional reflections
- Feedback on academic tone in first-person writing and appropriate hedging
Not included
- Writing reflections for you — a reflection on someone else's experience would not be yours
- Inventing incidents, feelings or outcomes
- Confirming that a reflection meets a professional regulator's revalidation requirements, which only the regulator or your assessor can do
What you receive
- Model selection note
- A brief explanation of which model suits your task and how to use each stage as a set of questions, with prompts adapted to your context.
- Annotated draft
- Comments marking where description can be cut, where analysis is thin, where theory would strengthen a point and where the action plan needs detail.
- Depth checklist
- A short checklist you can reuse to self-assess future reflections before submission.
- Annotated model reflection
- On request, a short illustrative reflection on an invented scenario with labels showing each stage and level of reflection.
How it works
Brief and model
You share the assignment, word count, required model and marking criteria. We confirm how the model applies.
Choose the experience
We talk through possible incidents and choose one with a genuine learning point you are comfortable writing about.
Draft and feedback
You write the reflection; we return annotated comments focused on depth, theory links and the action plan.
Revise
Optional follow-up review or session to check that revisions deepened the analysis.
Reflective models and when they fit
- Gibbs' Reflective Cycle (1988)
- Description, feelings, evaluation, analysis, conclusion, action plan. Detailed and common in nursing and education; the analysis stage is where theory should come in.
- Kolb's Experiential Learning Cycle
- Concrete experience, reflective observation, abstract conceptualization, active experimentation. Useful when an assignment asks how experience led to a new understanding you then tested.
- Driscoll's 'What? So what? Now what?'
- Three questions built on Borton's framework. Concise and flexible, suited to short reflections and regular journal entries.
- Rolfe, Freshwater and Jasper
- Also uses 'What? So what? Now what?' but emphasizes moving from descriptive to theory- and knowledge-building reflection.
- Schön's reflection-in-action and reflection-on-action
- Distinguishes thinking on your feet during an event from reflecting afterward. Helpful for explaining decisions made in the moment in teaching or clinical practice.
- Levels of reflection
- Frameworks that distinguish descriptive writing, descriptive reflection, dialogic reflection and critical reflection, used to judge depth.
Why reflections read as too descriptive
Description is necessary but should be brief — often around a tenth of the word count. The rest should examine why things happened, what assumptions you brought, what alternative explanations exist and what the literature says. A useful move is to ask 'why?' of your own reaction at least twice before writing the analysis section.
We mark the point in your draft where description could stop and suggest the questions that would move it into analysis.
Bringing theory into personal writing
Markers often want reflection to connect experience to concepts: a communication model, a learning theory, a clinical guideline, a leadership framework. The skill is to use literature to explain or challenge your experience, not to decorate it. For example, a nurse reflecting on a difficult conversation might use a breaking-bad-news protocol to evaluate what went well and what did not, rather than simply citing it.
- "This aligns with…" — theory explains what happened
- "However, unlike the model suggests…" — experience challenges theory
- "On reflection, I now see…" — theory reframes your understanding
Action plans that are actually actionable
'I will improve my communication' is not a plan. We help you write actions that name a behavior, a context, a resource and a way of knowing whether it worked — for example, practicing a structured handover format on the next three shifts and asking the mentor for feedback on one of them. SMART criteria are a useful check.
Confidentiality and professional tone
In health, social care and education, reflections must not identify patients, service users, pupils, colleagues or sometimes even placement settings. We flag identifying details and explain common anonymization conventions, while you should also follow your program's and regulator's specific guidance.
What the work can look like
Illustrative example — fictional data
Sample feedback: deepening a Gibbs analysis stage
A second-year nursing student wrote a 1,500-word reflection using Gibbs' cycle about a medication-round interruption on placement. The excerpt and comment are invented for illustration.
Student's analysis stage (excerpt)
"I felt stressed because I was interrupted. It was a busy ward and I learned that interruptions happen a lot."
Comment
This restates the feelings stage. Analysis should ask why the interruption mattered and what the evidence says. Is there literature on interruptions during medication administration and error risk? Did the ward use any strategy, such as a do-not-disturb tabard? Compare what the evidence recommends with what happened, and consider the interrupting colleague's perspective. That comparison will give your action plan something concrete to build on.
Illustrative example; the scenario and text are invented. Real feedback follows your brief, your draft and your program's guidance.
What you’ll need to provide
- The assignment brief, word count and marking criteria
- The reflective model required, if any
- Your draft, notes or journal entries (anonymized)
- Any readings, guidelines or professional standards you are expected to reference
- Deadline
You don’t need everything ready to ask for a quote — tell us what you have and we’ll say what’s missing.
What affects price and turnaround
Price depends on
- Word count and number of reflective pieces (a single essay versus a set of journal entries)
- Whether you want help choosing the incident and model or only draft feedback
- Number of feedback rounds
- Need to integrate a substantial body of literature or professional standards
- Turnaround
Turnaround depends on
- Number and length of pieces
- Whether a planning session is scheduled first
- Your submission date
Every project is quoted individually. How we price our work.
Questions people ask before starting
Which reflective model should I use?
Use the one your brief names. If none is specified, Gibbs suits detailed reflections on a single event, Driscoll suits shorter or repeated entries, Kolb suits learning that you then tested in practice, and Schön suits explaining in-the-moment decisions. We can help you justify the choice in a sentence.
Can I write in the first person?
Yes — reflective writing almost always expects 'I'. It should still be analytical and appropriately formal, and claims about theory still need citations.
Can you write a reflection for my portfolio?
No. A reflection must be on your own experience and in your own words; anything else would misrepresent your learning to an assessor or regulator. We give feedback, ask questions that deepen your thinking and show annotated examples on invented scenarios.
What should I do about patient or pupil confidentiality?
Remove names, dates, locations and details that could identify anyone, and follow your program's rules. Please anonymize before sending drafts to us; we'll flag anything that still looks identifying.
Can you help with a reflective portfolio made up of many entries?
Yes. For cumulative portfolios, the portfolio and e-portfolio support service helps with selection, organization and mapping entries to learning outcomes.