A reflective essay is a document in which you write about your own experiences, much like an academic journal entry. The idea is to help you think about something that happened in your life. Objects in your essay, key features. Reflective writing is a way of processing your experience based on practice to produce learning. It has two main characteristics: 1 It integrates theory and practice. Identify important aspects of your thoughts and write them using appropriate theories and academic context to explain and interpret your thoughts. The language of reflective writing. Reflective academic writing is: almost always written in the first person. evaluative - you judge something. partly personal, partly criteria-based. analytical: you generally categorize actions and events. formal - it is aimed at an academic audience. carefully constructed. For others, writing down their thoughts in a formal, structured way from the start helps them structure their thinking. The Fundamentals of Academic Reflective Writing Academic reflective writing is a genre and just like an essay it has characteristics, so does academic reflective writing.1. Keep it short and sweet. A typical reflection paper is word-long. Check whether or not your instructor has specified a word count for the article instead of just following this average. If your instructor asks for a word count outside of this range, meet their requirements. 2.