Characteristics of reflective writing

Tenses

Reflective writing often requires movement between past and present tenses, depending on whether you are recounting the actual events or making a more general comment (for example, on the doctor-patient relationship or on an aspect of your current course).

As part of my placement at a small rural hospital in north-west Victoria, I worked closely with the nursing staff. I was impressed by the rapport they had with their patients – while performing their duties professionally they often joked with the patients, and in that way maintained a relaxed and pleasant atmosphere on the ward. I noticed that the nurses had more regular contact with patients than the doctors, and consequently seemed to develop a closer relationship.
When two of the patients became agitated I did not know what to do. I asked them to return to their beds, but they simply ignored me. I did not know what the correct procedure was in this situation.
When making a general comment, or relating an incident to current practice or to a particular theoretical perspective, present tense is normally used.
It seems that the roles of nurses and doctors are quite different, and that doctors need to acknowledge the importance of the nurse-patient relationship.
Clearly making new staff aware of the procedures and rules is important when they join a new workplace or institution.

Note

It's always good to stop and reflect on what you have written. Have your views been affected by your personal or professional experiences? Think about your use of tenses. Check that you have written your reflections in a non-judgemental way.

Speculative and hypothetical writing

In reflective writing you may be asked to speculate about the future, or about a hypothetical situation. For example, you may be asked to comment on whether you would like to practice in a rural area in your future career.

Notice in the example below the movement between past and present tenses, and the use of 'would' when speculating about the future.

Although my rural placement was a very positive experience, I would not like to work in the country when I first graduate. There are several reasons for this. Firstly, being a country doctor is more challenging. You do not have the support networks available in the city, so you have to cope with many different situations. Also, you have less privacy. In the country I would have to behave as the local doctor all the time, 24 hours a day. There would not be an opportunity to just be myself and not worry about what people think. Living in the country I would be far away from my family, and might feel lonely for that reason. Finally, I would have to focus on general practice, whereas my interest lies in more specialised areas of medicine.
As soon as I started there, I could see that having a good working relationship with the nurses would make my job much easier, and would possibly result in better health care for patients.

Navigating this resource

You can navigate the pages in this resource by either clicking on the page links here or by clicking the navigation buttons below.

Back Next

Student Academic Success

Student Academic Success

Characteristics of reflective writing

Tenses

Note

Speculative and hypothetical writing

Navigating this resource

What is reflective practice

Approaching reflective practice

Conditions of reflective practice

Self reflection v self criticism

Common errors in reflective writing

Reflecting on critical incidents

Sample critical incident report