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50 Typical Reflective Essay Mistakes!

Reflective essay will allow you to communicate about your experience, life
and much more. The essay must be subjective and personal; however, it should
maintain an academic tone and must be cohesively and thoroughly organized.

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50 Reflective Essay Mistakes!
1. Not identifying the main theme: Students do not summarize their experience,
lesson and notes in 3 sentences. The sentences must be straight to the point
and descriptive.
2. Not having any notes: In writing the reflective essay, you must make notes
such as summarizes passages, specific quotations and others.
3. Not charting things out: Students make mistakes in writing the essay because
they just write. It is important to make a chart or a table in keeping track of
the ideas. In first column, it must contain key experiences or main points. In
second column, it should the list of personal response and third and last

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column; it must describe the personal response in sharing the reflective

essay.
4. Not having or using a guide: Many students are struggling in writing the
reflective essay because they do not have a guide to follow. To avoid the
mistake, it is essential to ask yourself some questions.
5. Lengthy essay: The reflective essay must be short. It must be between 300 to
700 words long. If do not have word count, your essay should not too long or
you can ask your professor on the word count limit.
6. Not introducing the expectations: Many students are making mistake in
writing the essay because they do not present their expectations. It must
appear on the introduction part of the paper.
7. No thesis statement: At end of the introduction part, it is important to include
at least one sentence explaining your transition from expectations. This is a
brief explanation of your expectations whether it is met or not.
8. No explanation in the conclusion: In the conclusion, it must explain the
body paragraphs. It is not about summary of your text, but drawing specific
and concrete details.
9. No summary: The conclusion must describe the lesson, understanding and
feeling succinctly.
10.Not revealing the details wisely: A reflective essay is personal which include
opinions and subjective feelings. Instead of telling everything about you, you
need to ask yourself what you need to write.
11.No academic or professional tone: Even though you are writing a reflective
essay, you need to keep your thoughts sensible and organized all the time.
12.Using slang: In writing the essay, you need to avoid slang and be sure that
you use correct grammar and spelling. You need to avoid abbreviations such
as OMG or LOL because you are still writing an academic paper.
13.Not reading again: Before you submit you paper, make sure that you read it
again and double check grammar and spelling mistakes.
14.Not reviewing their content: The essay must be well-written and contains
clear sentences. Most students do not keep their sentences focused. Be sure
that you will not squeeze many ideas in one sentence.

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15.Containing sentence fragments: Many students commit it and you must

avoid it. Be sure that your sentence has subject and verb.
16.Not checking or using correct sentence: The simple sentence must have
single subject and verb. For complex sentences, it must have multiple
clauses. Ensure that your paper sounds natural and conversational.
17.No transitions: Using transitional phrases is important. It will help you in
illustrating how certain experience links to understanding or conclusion.
18.No enough information: Sometimes, students just write without considering
if they give enough information or not.
19.Not having connections: Since it is a reflective essay, which must be
personal, you need to make connections.
20.Not clarifying connections: Be sure that you will clarify the connections
such as between what you learn and what you develop and between practice
and theory.
21.Not examining learning process: The reflective essay encourages students to
comment and consider their learning experience and not only on how they
learned and what theyve learned.
22.Not reflecting on successes and mistakes: Reflecting on your mistakes will
help you not to repeat it again.
23.No good structure: Many students write their essay without having clear
structure wherein the readers do not understand what they are talking about.
You need to have introduction, body and conclusion.
24.Not reporting: In the reflective essay, you need to report an experience or
issue that explain why it is essential to you. Be sure to have initial response
on the issue or experience.
25.No explanation: You should not just write and write, but you need to explain
everything you included in your paper.
26.Not relating experience or issue to professional experience, discipline
knowledge or skills: students just write their experience without describing.
You need to make connections between previous knowledge to similar
situations.

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27.Not having an outline: It is important to outline changes or your behavior

and understanding.
28.Not explaining relevance: Students do not check if they explained the
relevance of experience and issue to their professional practice.
29.Not following the requirement: Most students do not follow instructions
which makes their essay disappointed. In every program, there is certain
requirements that must be followed.
30.Lack of planning: You must plan before you start writing your reflective
paper. You need to think of possible opportunities or subjects that you will
write.
31.Bad writing style: Be sure that you should not write too informally. It does
not mean that it is reflective, you will already ignore the academic writing
style.
32.Not enough details: It is important to describe the experience for readers to
know about it and understand it. In describing the experience, you need to
evaluate and analyze it.
33.Being judgmental: You must describe events honestly and accurately.
34.Not understanding the topic: Before you begin writing, you need to take time
thinking what personal experience you will explain and share to your
readers.
35.Leaving the main ideas to the end of the essay: Students sometimes do not
make quick summary of their experience which means the essay must have
main ideas.
36.Not being concise with the essay: Even though you will talk about your
personal experience, it is essential to make it short depending on the word
count.
37.Not enjoying the writing process: Students are being stressed in writing their
essay and you need to avoid it instead you need to be comfortable.
38.Including personalities: If you are writing a experience together with other
people, do not evaluate his actions and personality.
39.Using empty sentences: You must avoid wordy sentences with no meanings.
Keep your sentences precise and clear. You must stick to your topic.

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40.Not re-read: if you are finished in writing, you need to check your paper.
41.No mind map: It is important that you have your thesis and identify the main
arguments as well as ideas supporting it. You need to have logical sequence
and order.
42.No strong opening: In writing the reflective essay, your opening paragraph
must be eye catching to get the attention of your readers and to engaged
them immediately.
43.No supporting arguments: The essay also needs supporting arguments,
examples and ideas in the body paragraphs.
44.The introduction does not have hint about the conclusion: If you write your
introduction, then you should give a hint on what will be your conclusion.
45.Using personal pronoun: Students have doubts to use the personal pronoun
I, but since it is reflective essay, it is acceptable.
46.Being too personal: Despite the fact that it is a reflective essay, avoid to
make it too personal because you need to remember that you are still writing
an academic paper and not a letter to family or friend.
47.Writing all experiences: Do not write all of your experiences in your essay.
You must choose only those significant and important examples.
48.No clear direction: Before you start reflective essay writing, make sure that
you have clear direction on where you going or write.
49.Free flowing analysis: Do not make the essay a free flowing analysis which
include insights, ideas and unstructured thoughts.
50.Not writing in descriptive manner: In writing the essay, you need to write it
in descriptive manner where your thoughts must be stated clearly for readers
to understand what you want to say.
There you have the typical mistakes in writing the reflective essay. Keep them in
mind and dont commit them when writing. Finally, proofread and edit your essay
to ensure it comes out without errors in grammar and spelling,too, aside from an
amazing content.
Use this guide to avoid the common mistakes in reflective essay writing today!

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