reflective essay journal

How to Write a Reflective Journal with Tips and Examples

• How To Create a Reflective Journal

One of the most commonly used and therapeutic ways to utilize your journal is to reflect upon experiences you deem profound or that had an impact on your life. Getting it all down on paper can really give you a completely different perspective on things. Writing in your journal can be an incredibly useful tool to help you better understand yourself and the world you operate in. Reflective learning journals are also a great way to find creative solutions to difficult problems.

So, what exactly is a Reflective Journal?

A reflective journal (aka a reflective diary) is the perfect place to jot down some of life's biggest thoughts. In a reflective journal, you can write about a positive or negative event that you experienced, what it means or meant to you, and what you may have learned from that experience.

A well-written journal can be an important tool. As with any tool, to get the most benefits, you need practice. This could mean forcing yourself to write, at first, but after a while, it will become like second nature. Write down your entry as soon as possible after the event. This way, the details will still be fresh in your mind, which will help later in your analysis.

5 Reasons To Write a Reflective Journal

Reflective journals are most often used to record detailed descriptions of certain aspects of an event or thought. For example, who was there, what was the purpose of the event, what do you think about it, how does it make you feel, etc. Write down everything, even if you don't have a clear idea of how this information will be helpful. 

Here are some of the most common reasons why people find reflective journals so useful:

• To make sense of things that happened. What you write should sound as if you are describing the details to someone who wasn't there. Be as descriptive as possible. Just the act of writing down the details of what happened may give you perspective that you may not have otherwise considered had you just continued to think about it.
• To speculate as to why something is the way it is.  Your views can come from your own common sense, or from something you have heard at a lecture or read in a book. Either way, speculating why something is the way it is can be a very useful exercise in reasoning.
• To align future actions with your reflected values and experiences.  After positing your interpretation, continue to observe the subject of your speculation to decide whether you want to stick to your original views, or make changes. That is one of the great things about an online journal--you can make changes to your entries at any time.
• To get thoughts and ideas out of your head.  Writing down your thoughts can help relieve pressure or help resolve problems. It will also help you focus the task at hand.
• To share your thoughts and ideas with others.  Getting opinions from others about what you wrote can help you clarify your feelings for a deeper understanding of yourself.

The Reflective Journal Thought Process

When writing a reflective journal, you are simply documenting something that has happened in your life that requires you to make a change or consider the impact of your decision. Your journal, in many ways, is a dialogue that you are having with yourself. You are forcing your brain to think critically about something and to produce written words accordingly.

The worst thing you can do to a creative flow is to start inputting criticism before your thought is complete. Allow yourself the time to make a mistake and keep going. Who cares if you didn't phrase that exactly how you should have or you didn't spell that word right? Those things just aren't important here. Find whatever works for you.

4 Tips To Get Your Reflective Journaling Started

Writing a reflective journal requires not only that you describe a learning experience, but also that you analyze the topics covered and articulate your feelings and opinions about the subject matter. There is no set structure for writing a reflective journal, as the diary is meant for your own use. The writing process is entirely free-form. However, there are certain guidelines to follow that will make you more successful at this. Here are some basic tips at how to write a reflective journal. 

1. Always Keep the Journal Nearby

The first step in learning how to write a reflective journal is as simple as being prepared to jot down your thoughts and opinions on something you are learning anytime the mood strikes. For example, if you have an insightful observation about a book you're reading while on the bus, it pays to have your journal with you. Penzu's free diary software  come in handy in such a situation, as online and mobile entries can be made in your Penzu journal from any location.

2. Make Regular Entries

While you can write in whatever form and style you please, it's important to write regular entries, even if a moment of inspiration doesn't arise. This ensures you are reviewing content and actively thinking about what you have learned. This will develop your writing and critical thinking skills while keeping you organized. In the end, this should enable you to better understand specific topics you are studying.

3. Participate, Observe, Summarize and Contemplate

While reflecting is the main part of keeping a reflective diary, it's also vital that you first participate in a learning activity, make observations and summarize facts and experiences. For example, if you are writing a lab for science class, be sure to first cover what you did and what the goal and outcome of the experiment was prior to elaborating on your ideas and opinions of what was discovered. Reflective journaling is first about participating and observing before writing.

4. Review Regularly

Take time to read over previous journal entries and see how new experiences, additional knowledge and time have altered how you think and feel about the material you've been analyzing and contemplating. This will make the journal more valuable to you personally, as it will shed light on how you've grown. 

Reflective Journal Topic Examples

To create a reflective journal that really provides detail on your overall perspective on a variety of different situations, consider using one of the prompts below to help with your thought process.

• Write about which relationships have the most meaning to you and why. Include ways you can grow to help maintain these close relationships and get rid of the toxic relationships currently in your life.
• Write about what you are learning at school or in college.
• Write about someone in your life who has experienced a positive change and how you can learn from their situation.
• Write about what you want out of the next five years of your life and what you can do to achieve these goals.

If you’re looking for more topic examples, check out these great reflective journal prompts

Reflective Journal Example

The passage below is a sample reflective diary entry about losing a job:

“This week I lost my job because my employer thought I was not consistent in my work. At first I was a little upset, because I'm always on time, and I complete what I can by the end of the day. I couldn't figure out what she meant by stating that I wasn't consistent in my work. After thinking about the situation, I realized that I can only complete the work assigned to the best of my ability. What she doesn't realize is that the problem started because I constantly received incomplete reports. Whoever ends up with my former job will have the same issues if that problem isn't addressed first. However, knowing that I did what I could will allow me to continue to move forward with a positive outlook for the future.

A reflective journal is a personal account of an educational experience that offers a variety of benefits, from enhancing your writing skills and helping you retain information to allowing you to express your thoughts on new ideas and theories.

When keeping a reflective journal, it's important that you have privacy and convenience. Penzu's online account and mobile platform offer secure access and the ability to write entries from anywhere, and your diary will never get lost or stolen.

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How to Write a Reflection Paper: An Easy-to-Follow Guide

Last Updated: June 6, 2024 Fact Checked

Brainstorming

Organizing a reflection paper, as you write, sample outline and paper, expert q&a.

This article was co-authored by Alicia Cook . Alicia Cook is a Professional Writer based in Newark, New Jersey. With over 12 years of experience, Alicia specializes in poetry and uses her platform to advocate for families affected by addiction and to fight for breaking the stigma against addiction and mental illness. She holds a BA in English and Journalism from Georgian Court University and an MBA from Saint Peter’s University. Alicia is a bestselling poet with Andrews McMeel Publishing and her work has been featured in numerous media outlets including the NY Post, CNN, USA Today, the HuffPost, the LA Times, American Songwriter Magazine, and Bustle. She was named by Teen Vogue as one of the 10 social media poets to know and her poetry mixtape, “Stuff I’ve Been Feeling Lately” was a finalist in the 2016 Goodreads Choice Awards. There are 8 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 3,851,713 times.

Reflection papers allow you to communicate with your instructor about how a specific article, lesson, lecture, or experience shapes your understanding of class-related material. Reflection papers are personal and subjective [1] X Research source , but they must still maintain a somewhat academic tone and must still be thoroughly and cohesively organized. Here's what you need to know about writing an effective reflection.

How to Start a Reflection Paper

To write a reflection paper, first write an introduction that outlines your expectations and thesis. Then, state your conclusions in the body paragraphs, explaining your findings with concrete details. Finally, conclude with a summary of your experience.

• These sentences should be both descriptive yet straight to the point.

• For lectures or readings, you can write down specific quotations or summarize passages.
• For experiences, make a note of specific portions of your experience. You could even write a small summary or story of an event that happened during the experience that stands out. Images, sounds, or other sensory portions of your experience work, as well.

• In the first column, list the main points or key experiences. These points can include anything that the author or speaker treated with importance as well as any specific details you found to be important. Divide each point into its own separate row.
• In the second column, list your personal response to the points you brought up in the first column. Mention how your subjective values, experiences, and beliefs influence your response.
• In the third and last column, describe how much of your personal response to share in your reflection paper.

• Does the reading, lecture, or experience challenge you socially, culturally, emotionally, or theologically? If so, where and how? Why does it bother you or catch your attention?
• Has the reading, lecture, or experience changed your way of thinking? Did it conflict with beliefs you held previously, and what evidence did it provide you with in order to change your thought process on the topic?
• Does the reading, lecture, or experience leave you with any questions? Were these questions ones you had previously or ones you developed only after finishing?
• Did the author, speaker, or those involved in the experience fail to address any important issues? Could a certain fact or idea have dramatically changed the impact or conclusion of the reading, lecture, or experience?
• How do the issues or ideas brought up in this reading, lecture, or experience mesh with past experiences or readings? Do the ideas contradict or support each other?

• Verify whether or not your instructor specified a word count for the paper instead of merely following this average.
• If your instructor demands a word count outside of this range, meet your instructor's requirements.

• For a reading or lecture, indicate what you expected based on the title, abstract, or introduction.
• For an experience, indicate what you expected based on prior knowledge provided by similar experiences or information from others.

• This is essentially a brief explanation of whether or not your expectations were met.
• A thesis provides focus and cohesion for your reflection paper.
• You could structure a reflection thesis along the following lines: “From this reading/experience, I learned...”

• Your conclusions must be explained. You should provide details on how you arrived at those conclusions using logic and concrete details.
• The focus of the paper is not a summary of the text, but you still need to draw concrete, specific details from the text or experience in order to provide context for your conclusions.
• Write a separate paragraph for each conclusion or idea you developed.
• Each paragraph should have its own topic sentence. This topic sentence should clearly identify your major points, conclusions, or understandings.

• The conclusions or understandings explained in your body paragraphs should support your overall conclusion. One or two may conflict, but the majority should support your final conclusion.

• If you feel uncomfortable about a personal issue that affects the conclusions you reached, it is wisest not to include personal details about it.
• If a certain issue is unavoidable but you feel uncomfortable revealing your personal experiences or feelings regarding it, write about the issue in more general terms. Identify the issue itself and indicate concerns you have professionally or academically.

• Avoid dragging someone else down in your writing. If a particular person made the experience you are reflecting on difficult, unpleasant, or uncomfortable, you must still maintain a level of detachment as you describe that person's influence. Instead of stating something like, “Bob was such a rude jerk,” say something more along the lines of, “One man was abrupt and spoke harshly, making me feel as though I was not welcome there.” Describe the actions, not the person, and frame those actions within the context of how they influenced your conclusions.
• A reflection paper is one of the few pieces of academic writing in which you can get away with using the first person pronoun “I.” That said, you should still relate your subjective feelings and opinions using specific evidence to explain them. [8] X Research source
• Avoid slang and always use correct spelling and grammar. Internet abbreviations like “LOL” or “OMG” are fine to use personally among friends and family, but this is still an academic paper, so you need to treat it with the grammatical respect it deserves. Do not treat it as a personal journal entry.
• Check and double-check your spelling and grammar after you finish your paper.

• Keep your sentences focused. Avoid squeezing multiple ideas into one sentence.
• Avoid sentence fragments. Make sure that each sentence has a subject and a verb.
• Vary your sentence length. Include both simple sentences with a single subject and verb and complex sentences with multiple clauses. Doing so makes your paper sound more conversational and natural, and prevents the writing from becoming too wooden. [9] X Research source

• Common transitional phrases include "for example," "for instance," "as a result," "an opposite view is," and "a different perspective is."

• For instance, if reflecting on a piece of literary criticism, you could mention how your beliefs and ideas about the literary theory addressed in the article relate to what your instructor taught you about it or how it applies to prose and poetry read in class.
• As another example, if reflecting on a new social experience for a sociology class, you could relate that experience to specific ideas or social patterns discussed in class.

You Might Also Like

• ↑ https://www.csuohio.edu/writing-center/reflection-papers
• ↑ https://libguides.usc.edu/writingguide/assignments/reflectionpaper
• ↑ Alicia Cook. Professional Writer. Expert Interview. 11 December 2020.
• ↑ https://www.trentu.ca/academicskills/how-guides/how-write-university/how-approach-any-assignment/how-write-reflection-paper
• ↑ https://writingcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/thesis-statements/
• ↑ https://writingcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/conclusions/
• ↑ https://www.anu.edu.au/students/academic-skills/writing-assessment/reflective-writing/reflective-essays
• ↑ https://academicguides.waldenu.edu/writingcenter/scholarlyvoice/sentencestructure

About This Article

To write a reflection paper, start with an introduction where you state any expectations you had for the reading, lesson, or experience you're reflecting on. At the end of your intro, include a thesis statement that explains how your views have changed. In the body of your essay, explain the conclusions you reached after the reading, lesson, or experience and discuss how you arrived at them. Finally, finish your paper with a succinct conclusion that explains what you've learned. To learn how to brainstorm for your paper, keep reading! Did this summary help you? Yes No

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Reflective Writing

Reflective writing  occurs when you analyze and write about what you have learned through an interaction, an event, or an observation. Reflective writing gives you insight into your thinking and learning by giving you time to consider the thoughts and emotions that took place during and after an experience.

Reflective writing can be both personal and academic . You can conduct personal reflective writing in a journal to look back on the day’s events, noting what you learned from your day and naming what you might do differently.

You may conduct academic reflective writing when you write discussing what a specific reading or assignment helped you learn. After reading a chapter in a book, you can briefly analyze what you learned; thus, you internalize the information

A common misconception  happens when people believe reflective writing means to only recount the facts of the experience. However, reflective writing goes beyond explaining a situation or facts of an experience and explains the thoughts and feelings generated in the moment and discerned afterward.

Academic Reflection Writing Tips

Important Note : Be sure you have read the material of an assignment before finalizing an academic reflective assignment. A best practice is to read the material and wait a while before trying to reflect. If you are confused or unsure what the material meant, you need to go back and reread it until you fully grasp the subject.

When you start your reflection assignment, ask these questions to get you thinking:

• What did I find interesting?
• What was the author trying to say?
• What are the conclusions that I came to after reading it?
• Will I be affected by what I learned? In what ways?

Remember: For academic reflective writing, grammar and spelling are important. Careful proofreading is expected. Also be sure you follow the assignment directions.

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A complete guide to writing a reflective essay

(Last updated: 3 June 2024)

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“The overwhelming burden of writing my first ever reflective essay loomed over me as I sat as still as a statue, as my fingers nervously poised over the intimidating buttons on my laptop keyboard. Where would I begin? Where would I end? Nerve wracking thoughts filled my mind as I fretted over the seemingly impossible journey on which I was about to embark.”

Reflective essays may seem simple on the surface, but they can be a real stumbling block if you're not quite sure how to go about them. In simple terms, reflective essays constitute a critical examination of a life experience and, with the right guidance, they're not too challenging to put together. A reflective essay is similar to other essays in that it needs to be easily understood and well structured, but the content is more akin to something personal like a diary entry.

In this guide, we explore in detail how to write a great reflective essay , including what makes a good structure and some advice on the writing process. We’ve even thrown in an example reflective essay to inspire you too, making this the ultimate guide for anyone needing reflective essay help.

Types of Reflection Papers

There are several types of reflective papers, each serving a unique purpose. Educational reflection papers focus on your learning experiences, such as a course or a lecture, and how they have impacted your understanding. Professional reflection papers often relate to work experiences, discussing what you have learned in a professional setting and how it has shaped your skills and perspectives. Personal reflection papers delve into personal experiences and their influence on your personal growth and development.

Each of these requires a slightly different approach, but all aim to provide insight into your thoughts and experiences, demonstrating your ability to analyse and learn from them. Understanding the specific requirements of each type can help you tailor your writing to effectively convey your reflections.

Reflective Essay Format

In a reflective essay, a writer primarily examines his or her life experiences, hence the term ‘reflective’. The purpose of writing a reflective essay is to provide a platform for the author to not only recount a particular life experience, but to also explore how he or she has changed or learned from those experiences. Reflective writing can be presented in various formats, but you’ll most often see it in a learning log format or diary entry. Diary entries in particular are used to convey how the author’s thoughts have developed and evolved over the course of a particular period.

The format of a reflective essay may change depending on the target audience. Reflective essays can be academic, or may feature more broadly as a part of a general piece of writing for a magazine, for instance. For class assignments, while the presentation format can vary, the purpose generally remains the same: tutors aim to inspire students to think deeply and critically about a particular learning experience or set of experiences. Here are some typical examples of reflective essay formats that you may have to write:

A focus on personal growth:

A type of reflective essay often used by tutors as a strategy for helping students to learn how to analyse their personal life experiences to promote emotional growth and development. The essay gives the student a better understanding of both themselves and their behaviours.

A focus on the literature:

This kind of essay requires students to provide a summary of the literature, after which it is applied to the student’s own life experiences.

Pre-Writing Tips: How to Start Writing the Reflection Essay?

As you go about deciding on the content of your essay, you need to keep in mind that a reflective essay is highly personal and aimed at engaging the reader or target audience. And there’s much more to a reflective essay than just recounting a story. You need to be able to reflect (more on this later) on your experience by showing how it influenced your subsequent behaviours and how your life has been particularly changed as a result.

As a starting point, you might want to think about some important experiences in your life that have really impacted you, either positively, negatively, or both. Some typical reflection essay topics include: a real-life experience, an imagined experience, a special object or place, a person who had an influence on you, or something you have watched or read. If you are writing a reflective essay as part of an academic exercise, chances are your tutor will ask you to focus on a particular episode – such as a time when you had to make an important decision – and reflect on what the outcomes were. Note also, that the aftermath of the experience is especially important in a reflective essay; miss this out and you will simply be storytelling.

What Do You Mean By Reflection Essay?

It sounds obvious, but the reflective process forms the core of writing this type of essay, so it’s important you get it right from the outset. You need to really think about how the personal experience you have chosen to focus on impacted or changed you. Use your memories and feelings of the experience to determine the implications for you on a personal level.

Once you’ve chosen the topic of your essay, it’s really important you study it thoroughly and spend a lot of time trying to think about it vividly. Write down everything you can remember about it, describing it as clearly and fully as you can. Keep your five senses in mind as you do this, and be sure to use adjectives to describe your experience. At this stage, you can simply make notes using short phrases, but you need to ensure that you’re recording your responses, perceptions, and your experience of the event(s).

Once you’ve successfully emptied the contents of your memory, you need to start reflecting. A great way to do this is to pick out some reflection questions which will help you think deeper about the impact and lasting effects of your experience. Here are some useful questions that you can consider:

• What have you learned about yourself as a result of the experience?
• Have you developed because of it? How?
• Did it have any positive or negative bearing on your life?
• Looking back, what would you have done differently?
• Why do you think you made the particular choices that you did? Do you think these were the right choices?
• What are your thoughts on the experience in general? Was it a useful learning experience? What specific skills or perspectives did you acquire as a result?

These signpost questions should help kick-start your reflective process. Remember, asking yourself lots of questions is key to ensuring that you think deeply and critically about your experiences – a skill that is at the heart of writing a great reflective essay.

Consider using models of reflection (like the Gibbs or Kolb cycles) before, during, and after the learning process to ensure that you maintain a high standard of analysis. For example, before you really get stuck into the process, consider questions such as: what might happen (regarding the experience)? Are there any possible challenges to keep in mind? What knowledge is needed to be best prepared to approach the experience? Then, as you’re planning and writing, these questions may be useful: what is happening within the learning process? Is the process working out as expected? Am I dealing with the accompanying challenges successfully? Is there anything that needs to be done additionally to ensure that the learning process is successful? What am I learning from this? By adopting such a framework, you’ll be ensuring that you are keeping tabs on the reflective process that should underpin your work.

How to Strategically Plan Out the Reflective Essay Structure?

Here’s a very useful tip: although you may feel well prepared with all that time spent reflecting in your arsenal, do not, start writing your essay until you have worked out a comprehensive, well-rounded plan . Your writing will be so much more coherent, your ideas conveyed with structure and clarity, and your essay will likely achieve higher marks.

This is an especially important step when you’re tackling a reflective essay – there can be a tendency for people to get a little ‘lost’ or disorganised as they recount their life experiences in an erratic and often unsystematic manner as it is a topic so close to their hearts. But if you develop a thorough outline (this is the same as a ‘plan’) and ensure you stick to it like Christopher Columbus to a map, you should do just fine as you embark on the ultimate step of writing your essay. If you need further convincing on how important planning is, we’ve summarised the key benefits of creating a detailed essay outline below:

An outline allows you to establish the basic details that you plan to incorporate into your paper – this is great for helping you pick out any superfluous information, which can be removed entirely to make your essay succinct and to the point.

Think of the outline as a map – you plan in advance the points you wish to navigate through and discuss in your writing. Your work will more likely have a clear through line of thought, making it easier for the reader to understand. It’ll also help you avoid missing out any key information, and having to go back at the end and try to fit it in.

It’s a real time-saver! Because the outline essentially serves as the essay’s ‘skeleton’, you’ll save a tremendous amount of time when writing as you’ll be really familiar with what you want to say. As such, you’ll be able to allocate more time to editing the paper and ensuring it’s of a high standard.

Now you’re familiar with the benefits of using an outline for your reflective essay, it is essential that you know how to craft one. It can be considerably different from other typical essay outlines, mostly because of the varying subjects. But what remains the same, is that you need to start your outline by drafting the introduction, body and conclusion. More on this below.

Introduction

As is the case with all essays, your reflective essay must begin within an introduction that contains both a hook and a thesis statement. The point of having a ‘hook’ is to grab the attention of your audience or reader from the very beginning. You must portray the exciting aspects of your story in the initial paragraph so that you stand the best chances of holding your reader’s interest. Refer back to the opening quote of this article – did it grab your attention and encourage you to read more? The thesis statement is a brief summary of the focus of the essay, which in this case is a particular experience that influenced you significantly. Remember to give a quick overview of your experience – don’t give too much information away or you risk your reader becoming disinterested.

Next up is planning the body of your essay. This can be the hardest part of the entire paper; it’s easy to waffle and repeat yourself both in the plan and in the actual writing. Have you ever tried recounting a story to a friend only for them to tell you to ‘cut the long story short’? They key here is to put plenty of time and effort into planning the body, and you can draw on the following tips to help you do this well:

Try adopting a chronological approach. This means working through everything you want to touch upon as it happened in time. This kind of approach will ensure that your work is systematic and coherent. Keep in mind that a reflective essay doesn’t necessarily have to be linear, but working chronologically will prevent you from providing a haphazard recollection of your experience. Lay out the important elements of your experience in a timeline – this will then help you clearly see how to piece your narrative together.

Ensure the body of your reflective essay is well focused and contains appropriate critique and reflection. The body should not only summarise your experience, it should explore the impact that the experience has had on your life, as well as the lessons that you have learned as a result. The emphasis should generally be on reflection as opposed to summation. A reflective posture will not only provide readers with insight on your experience, it’ll highlight your personality and your ability to deal with or adapt to particular situations.

In the conclusion of your reflective essay, you should focus on bringing your piece together by providing a summary of both the points made throughout, and what you have learned as a result. Try to include a few points on why and how your attitudes and behaviours have been changed. Consider also how your character and skills have been affected, for example: what conclusions can be drawn about your problem-solving skills? What can be concluded about your approach to specific situations? What might you do differently in similar situations in the future? What steps have you taken to consolidate everything that you have learned from your experience? Keep in mind that your tutor will be looking out for evidence of reflection at a very high standard.

Congratulations – you now have the tools to create a thorough and accurate plan which should put you in good stead for the ultimate phase indeed of any essay, the writing process.

Step-by-Step Guide to Writing Your Reflective Essay

As with all written assignments, sitting down to put pen to paper (or more likely fingers to keyboard) can be daunting. But if you have put in the time and effort fleshing out a thorough plan, you should be well prepared, which will make the writing process as smooth as possible. The following points should also help ease the writing process:

• To get a feel for the tone and format in which your writing should be, read other typically reflective pieces in magazines and newspapers, for instance.
• Don’t think too much about how to start your first sentence or paragraph; just start writing and you can always come back later to edit anything you’re not keen on. Your first draft won’t necessarily be your best essay writing work but it’s important to remember that the earlier you start writing, the more time you will have to keep reworking your paper until it’s perfect. Don’t shy away from using a free-flow method, writing and recording your thoughts and feelings on your experiences as and when they come to mind. But make sure you stick to your plan. Your plan is your roadmap which will ensure your writing doesn’t meander too far off course.
• For every point you make about an experience or event, support it by describing how you were directly impacted, using specific as opposed to vague words to convey exactly how you felt.
• Write using the first-person narrative, ensuring that the tone of your essay is very personal and reflective of your character.
• If you need to, refer back to our notes earlier on creating an outline. As you work through your essay, present your thoughts systematically, remembering to focus on your key learning outcomes.
• Consider starting your introduction with a short anecdote or quote to grasp your readers’ attention, or other engaging techniques such as flashbacks.
• Choose your vocabulary carefully to properly convey your feelings and emotions. Remember that reflective writing has a descriptive component and so must have a wide range of adjectives to draw from. Avoid vague adjectives such as ‘okay’ or ‘nice’ as they don’t really offer much insight into your feelings and personality. Be more specific – this will make your writing more engaging.
• Be honest with your feelings and opinions. Remember that this is a reflective task, and is the one place you can freely admit – without any repercussions – that you failed at a particular task. When assessing your essay, your tutor will expect a deep level of reflection, not a simple review of your experiences and emotion. Showing deep reflection requires you to move beyond the descriptive. Be extremely critical about your experience and your response to it. In your evaluation and analysis, ensure that you make value judgements, incorporating ideas from outside the experience you had to guide your analysis. Remember that you can be honest about your feelings without writing in a direct way. Use words that work for you and are aligned with your personality.
• Once you’ve finished learning about and reflecting on your experience, consider asking yourself these questions: what did I particularly value from the experience and why? Looking back, how successful has the process been? Think about your opinions immediately after the experience and how they differ now, so that you can evaluate the difference between your immediate and current perceptions. Asking yourself such questions will help you achieve reflective writing effectively and efficiently.
• Don’t shy away from using a variety of punctuation. It helps keeps your writing dynamic! Doesn’t it?
• If you really want to awaken your reader’s imagination, you can use imagery to create a vivid picture of your experiences.
• Ensure that you highlight your turning point, or what we like to call your “Aha!” moment. Without this moment, your resulting feelings and thoughts aren’t as valid and your argument not as strong.
• Don’t forget to keep reiterating the lessons you have learned from your experience.

Bonus Tip - Using Wider Sources

Although a reflective piece of writing is focused on personal experience, it’s important you draw on other sources to demonstrate your understanding of your experience from a theoretical perspective. It’ll show a level of analysis – and a standard of reliability in what you’re claiming – if you’re also able to validate your work against other perspectives that you find. Think about possible sources, like newspapers, surveys, books and even journal articles. Generally, the additional sources you decide to include in your work are highly dependent on your field of study. Analysing a wide range of sources, will show that you have read widely on your subject area, that you have nuanced insight into the available literature on the subject of your essay, and that you have considered the broader implications of the literature for your essay. The incorporation of other sources into your essay also helps to show that you are aware of the multi-dimensional nature of both the learning and problem-solving process.

Reflective Essay Example

If you want some inspiration for writing, take a look at our example of a short reflective essay , which can serve as a useful starting point for you when you set out to write your own.

Some Final Notes to Remember

To recap, the key to writing a reflective essay is demonstrating what lessons you have taken away from your experiences, and why and how you have been shaped by these lessons.

The reflective thinking process begins with you – you must consciously make an effort to identify and examine your own thoughts in relation to a particular experience. Don’t hesitate to explore any prior knowledge or experience of the topic, which will help you identify why you have formed certain opinions on the subject. Remember that central to reflective essay writing is the examination of your attitudes, assumptions and values, so be upfront about how you feel. Reflective writing can be quite therapeutic, helping you identify and clarify your strengths and weaknesses, particularly in terms of any knowledge gaps that you may have. It’s a pretty good way of improving your critical thinking skills, too. It enables you to adopt an introspective posture in analysing your experiences and how you learn/make sense of them.

If you are still having difficulties with starting the writing process, why not try mind-mapping which will help you to structure your thinking and ideas, enabling you to produce a coherent piece. Creating a mind map will ensure that your argument is written in a very systematic way that will be easy for your tutor to follow. Here’s a recap of the contents of this article, which also serves as a way to create a mind map:

1. Identify the topic you will be writing on.

2. Note down any ideas that are related to the topic and if you want to, try drawing a diagram to link together any topics, theories, and ideas.

3. Allow your ideas to flow freely, knowing that you will always have time to edit your reflective essay .

4. Consider how your ideas are connected to each other, then begin the writing process.

And finally, keep in mind that although there are descriptive elements in a reflective essay, we can’t emphasise enough how crucial it is that your work is critical, analytical, and adopts a reflective posture in terms of your experience and the lessons you have learned from it.

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Reflective practice toolkit, introduction.

• What is reflective practice?
• Everyday reflection
• Models of reflection
• Barriers to reflection
• Free writing
• Reflective writing exercise
• Bibliography

Many people worry that they will be unable to write reflectively but chances are that you do it more than you think!  It's a common task during both work and study from appraisal and planning documents to recording observations at the end of a module. The following pages will guide you through some simple techniques for reflective writing as well as how to avoid some of the most common pitfalls.

What is reflective writing?

Writing reflectively involves critically analysing an experience, recording how it has impacted you and what you plan to do with your new knowledge. It can help you to reflect on a deeper level as the act of getting something down on paper often helps people to think an experience through.

The key to reflective writing is to be analytical rather than descriptive. Always ask why rather than just describing what happened during an experience. 

Remember...

Reflective writing is...

• Written in the first person
• Free flowing
• A tool to challenge assumptions
• A time investment

Reflective writing isn't...

• Written in the third person
• Descriptive
• What you think you should write
• A tool to ignore assumptions
• A waste of time

Adapted from The Reflective Practice Guide: an Interdisciplinary Approach / Barbara Bassot.

You can learn more about reflective writing in this handy video from Hull University:

Created by SkillsTeamHullUni

• Hull reflective writing video transcript (Word)
• Hull reflective writing video transcript (PDF)

Where might you use reflective writing?

You can use reflective writing in many aspects of your work, study and even everyday life. The activities below all contain some aspect of reflective writing and are common to many people:

1. Job applications

Both preparing for and writing job applications contain elements of reflective writing. You need to think about the experience that makes you suitable for a role and this means reflection on the skills you have developed and how they might relate to the specification. When writing your application you need to expand on what you have done and explain what you have learnt and why this matters - key elements of reflective writing.

2. Appraisals

In a similar way, undertaking an appraisal is a good time to reflect back on a certain period of time in post. You might be asked to record what went well and why as well as identifying areas for improvement.

3. Written feedback

If you have made a purchase recently you are likely to have received a request for feedback. When you leave a review of a product or service online then you need to think about the pros and cons. You may also have gone into detail about why the product was so good or the service was so bad so other people know how to judge it in the future.

4. Blogging

Blogs are a place to offer your own opinion and can be a really good place to do some reflective writing. Blogger often take a view on something and use their site as a way to share it with the world. They will often talk about the reasons why they like/dislike something - classic reflective writing.

5. During the research process

When researchers are working on a project they will often think about they way they are working and how it could be improved as well as considering different approaches to achieve their research goal. They will often record this in some way such as in a lab book and this questioning approach is a form of reflective writing.

6. In academic writing

Many students will be asked to include some form of reflection in an academic assignment, for example when relating a topic to their real life circumstances. They are also often asked to think about their opinion on or reactions to texts and other research and write about this in their own work.

Think about ... When you reflect

Think about all of the activities you do on a daily basis. Do any of these contain elements of reflective writing? Make a list of all the times you have written something reflective over the last month - it will be longer than you think!

Reflective terminology

A common mistake people make when writing reflectively is to focus too much on describing their experience. Think about some of the phrases below and try to use them when writing reflectively to help you avoid this problem:

• The most important thing was...
• At the time I felt...
• This was likely due to...
• After thinking about it...
• I learned that...
• I need to know more about...
• Later I realised...
• This was because...
• This was like...
• I wonder what would happen if...
• I'm still unsure about...
• My next steps are...

Always try and write in the first person when writing reflectively. This will help you to focus on your thoughts/feelings/experiences rather than just a description of the experience.

Using reflective writing in your academic work

Many courses will also expect you to reflect on your own learning as you progress through a particular programme. You may be asked to keep some type of reflective journal or diary. Depending on the needs of your course this may or may not be assessed but if you are using one it's important to write reflectively. This can help you to look back and see how your thinking has evolved over time - something useful for job applications in the future. Students at all levels may also be asked to reflect on the work of others, either as part of a group project or through peer review of their work. This requires a slightly different approach to reflection as you are not focused on your own work but again this is a useful skill to develop for the workplace.

You can see some useful examples of reflective writing in academia from Monash University ,  UNSW (the University of New South Wales) and Sage . Several of these examples also include feedback from tutors which you can use to inform your own work.

Laptop/computer/broswer/research by StockSnap via Pixabay licenced under CC0.

Now that you have a better idea of what reflective writing is and how it can be used it's time to practice some techniques.

This page has given you an understanding of what reflective writing is and where it can be used in both work and study. Now that you have a better idea of how reflective writing works the next two pages will guide you through some activities you can use to get started.

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Reflective writing is a process of identifying, questioning, and critically evaluating course-based learning opportunities, integrated with your own observations, experiences, impressions, beliefs, assumptions, or biases, and which describes how this process stimulated new or creative understanding about the content of the course.

A reflective paper describes and explains in an introspective, first person narrative, your reactions and feelings about either a specific element of the class [e.g., a required reading; a film shown in class] or more generally how you experienced learning throughout the course. Reflective writing assignments can be in the form of a single paper, essays, portfolios, journals, diaries, or blogs. In some cases, your professor may include a reflective writing assignment as a way to obtain student feedback that helps improve the course, either in the moment or for when the class is taught again.

How to Write a Reflection Paper . Academic Skills, Trent University; Writing a Reflection Paper . Writing Center, Lewis University; Critical Reflection . Writing and Communication Centre, University of Waterloo; Tsingos-Lucas et al. "Using Reflective Writing as a Predictor of Academic Success in Different Assessment Formats." American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education 81 (2017): Article 8.

Benefits of Reflective Writing Assignments

As the term implies, a reflective paper involves looking inward at oneself in contemplating and bringing meaning to the relationship between course content and the acquisition of new knowledge . Educational research [Bolton, 2010; Ryan, 2011; Tsingos-Lucas et al., 2017] demonstrates that assigning reflective writing tasks enhances learning because it challenges students to confront their own assumptions, biases, and belief systems around what is being taught in class and, in so doing, stimulate student’s decisions, actions, attitudes, and understanding about themselves as learners and in relation to having mastery over their learning. Reflection assignments are also an opportunity to write in a first person narrative about elements of the course, such as the required readings, separate from the exegetic and analytical prose of academic research papers.

Reflection writing often serves multiple purposes simultaneously. In no particular order, here are some of reasons why professors assign reflection papers:

• Enhances learning from previous knowledge and experience in order to improve future decision-making and reasoning in practice . Reflective writing in the applied social sciences enhances decision-making skills and academic performance in ways that can inform professional practice. The act of reflective writing creates self-awareness and understanding of others. This is particularly important in clinical and service-oriented professional settings.
• Allows students to make sense of classroom content and overall learning experiences in relation to oneself, others, and the conditions that shaped the content and classroom experiences . Reflective writing places you within the course content in ways that can deepen your understanding of the material. Because reflective thinking can help reveal hidden biases, it can help you critically interrogate moments when you do not like or agree with discussions, readings, or other aspects of the course.
• Increases awareness of one’s cognitive abilities and the evidence for these attributes . Reflective writing can break down personal doubts about yourself as a learner and highlight specific abilities that may have been hidden or suppressed due to prior assumptions about the strength of your academic abilities [e.g., reading comprehension; problem-solving skills]. Reflective writing, therefore, can have a positive affective [i.e., emotional] impact on your sense of self-worth.
• Applying theoretical knowledge and frameworks to real experiences . Reflective writing can help build a bridge of relevancy between theoretical knowledge and the real world. In so doing, this form of writing can lead to a better understanding of underlying theories and their analytical properties applied to professional practice.
• Reveals shortcomings that the reader will identify . Evidence suggests that reflective writing can uncover your own shortcomings as a learner, thereby, creating opportunities to anticipate the responses of your professor may have about the quality of your coursework. This can be particularly productive if the reflective paper is written before final submission of an assignment.
• Helps students identify their tacit [a.k.a., implicit] knowledge and possible gaps in that knowledge . Tacit knowledge refers to ways of knowing rooted in lived experience, insight, and intuition rather than formal, codified, categorical, or explicit knowledge. In so doing, reflective writing can stimulate students to question their beliefs about a research problem or an element of the course content beyond positivist modes of understanding and representation.
• Encourages students to actively monitor their learning processes over a period of time . On-going reflective writing in journals or blogs, for example, can help you maintain or adapt learning strategies in other contexts. The regular, purposeful act of reflection can facilitate continuous deep thinking about the course content as it evolves and changes throughout the term. This, in turn, can increase your overall confidence as a learner.
• Relates a student’s personal experience to a wider perspective . Reflection papers can help you see the big picture associated with the content of a course by forcing you to think about the connections between scholarly content and your lived experiences outside of school. It can provide a macro-level understanding of one’s own experiences in relation to the specifics of what is being taught.
• If reflective writing is shared, students can exchange stories about their learning experiences, thereby, creating an opportunity to reevaluate their original assumptions or perspectives . In most cases, reflective writing is only viewed by your professor in order to ensure candid feedback from students. However, occasionally, reflective writing is shared and openly discussed in class. During these discussions, new or different perspectives and alternative approaches to solving problems can be generated that would otherwise be hidden. Sharing student's reflections can also reveal collective patterns of thought and emotions about a particular element of the course.

Bolton, Gillie. Reflective Practice: Writing and Professional Development . London: Sage, 2010; Chang, Bo. "Reflection in Learning." Online Learning 23 (2019), 95-110; Cavilla, Derek. "The Effects of Student Reflection on Academic Performance and Motivation." Sage Open 7 (July-September 2017): 1–13; Culbert, Patrick. “Better Teaching? You Can Write On It “ Liberal Education (February 2022); McCabe, Gavin and Tobias Thejll-Madsen. The Reflection Toolkit . University of Edinburgh; The Purpose of Reflection . Introductory Composition at Purdue University; Practice-based and Reflective Learning . Study Advice Study Guides, University of Reading; Ryan, Mary. "Improving Reflective Writing in Higher Education: A Social Semiotic Perspective." Teaching in Higher Education 16 (2011): 99-111; Tsingos-Lucas et al. "Using Reflective Writing as a Predictor of Academic Success in Different Assessment Formats." American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education 81 (2017): Article 8; What Benefits Might Reflective Writing Have for My Students? Writing Across the Curriculum Clearinghouse; Rykkje, Linda. "The Tacit Care Knowledge in Reflective Writing: A Practical Wisdom." International Practice Development Journal 7 (September 2017): Article 5; Using Reflective Writing to Deepen Student Learning . Center for Writing, University of Minnesota.

How to Approach Writing a Reflection Paper

Thinking About Reflective Thinking

Educational theorists have developed numerous models of reflective thinking that your professor may use to frame a reflective writing assignment. These models can help you systematically interpret your learning experiences, thereby ensuring that you ask the right questions and have a clear understanding of what should be covered. A model can also represent the overall structure of a reflective paper. Each model establishes a different approach to reflection and will require you to think about your writing differently. If you are unclear how to fit your writing within a particular reflective model, seek clarification from your professor. There are generally two types of reflective writing assignments, each approached in slightly different ways.

1.  Reflective Thinking about Course Readings

This type of reflective writing focuses on thoughtfully thinking about the course readings that underpin how most students acquire new knowledge and understanding about the subject of a course. Reflecting on course readings is often assigned in freshmen-level, interdisciplinary courses where the required readings examine topics viewed from multiple perspectives and, as such, provide different ways of analyzing a topic, issue, event, or phenomenon. The purpose of reflective thinking about course readings in the social and behavioral sciences is to elicit your opinions, beliefs, and feelings about the research and its significance. This type of writing can provide an opportunity to break down key assumptions you may have and, in so doing, reveal potential biases in how you interpret the scholarship.

If you are assigned to reflect on course readings, consider the following methods of analysis as prompts that can help you get started :

• Examine carefully the main introductory elements of the reading, including the purpose of the study, the theoretical framework being used to test assumptions, and the research questions being addressed. Think about what ideas stood out to you. Why did they? Were these ideas new to you or familiar in some way based on your own lived experiences or prior knowledge?
• Develop your ideas around the readings by asking yourself, what do I know about this topic? Where does my existing knowledge about this topic come from? What are the observations or experiences in my life that influence my understanding of the topic? Do I agree or disagree with the main arguments, recommended course of actions, or conclusions made by the author(s)? Why do I feel this way and what is the basis of these feelings?
• Make connections between the text and your own beliefs, opinions, or feelings by considering questions like, how do the readings reinforce my existing ideas or assumptions? How the readings challenge these ideas or assumptions? How does this text help me to better understand this topic or research in ways that motivate me to learn more about this area of study?

2.  Reflective Thinking about Course Experiences

This type of reflective writing asks you to critically reflect on locating yourself at the conceptual intersection of theory and practice. The purpose of experiential reflection is to evaluate theories or disciplinary-based analytical models based on your introspective assessment of the relationship between hypothetical thinking and practical reality; it offers a way to consider how your own knowledge and skills fit within professional practice. This type of writing also provides an opportunity to evaluate your decisions and actions, as well as how you managed your subsequent successes and failures, within a specific theoretical framework. As a result, abstract concepts can crystallize and become more relevant to you when considered within your own experiences. This can help you formulate plans for self-improvement as you learn.

If you are assigned to reflect on your experiences, consider the following questions as prompts to help you get started :

• Contextualize your reflection in relation to the overarching purpose of the course by asking yourself, what did you hope to learn from this course? What were the learning objectives for the course and how did I fit within each of them? How did these goals relate to the main themes or concepts of the course?
• Analyze how you experienced the course by asking yourself, what did I learn from this experience? What did I learn about myself? About working in this area of research and study? About how the course relates to my place in society? What assumptions about the course were supported or refuted?
• Think introspectively about the ways you experienced learning during the course by asking yourself, did your learning experiences align with the goals or concepts of the course? Why or why do you not feel this way? What was successful and why do you believe this? What would you do differently and why is this important? How will you prepare for a future experience in this area of study?

NOTE: If you are assigned to write a journal or other type of on-going reflection exercise, a helpful approach is to reflect on your reflections by re-reading what you have already written. In other words, review your previous entries as a way to contextualize your feelings, opinions, or beliefs regarding your overall learning experiences. Over time, this can also help reveal hidden patterns or themes related to how you processed your learning experiences. Consider concluding your reflective journal with a summary of how you felt about your learning experiences at critical junctures throughout the course, then use these to write about how you grew as a student learner and how the act of reflecting helped you gain new understanding about the subject of the course and its content.

ANOTHER NOTE: Regardless of whether you write a reflection paper or a journal, do not focus your writing on the past. The act of reflection is intended to think introspectively about previous learning experiences. However, reflective thinking should document the ways in which you progressed in obtaining new insights and understandings about your growth as a learner that can be carried forward in subsequent coursework or in future professional practice. Your writing should reflect a furtherance of increasing personal autonomy and confidence gained from understanding more about yourself as a learner.

Structure and Writing Style

There are no strict academic rules for writing a reflective paper. Reflective writing may be assigned in any class taught in the social and behavioral sciences and, therefore, requirements for the assignment can vary depending on disciplinary-based models of inquiry and learning. The organization of content can also depend on what your professor wants you to write about or based on the type of reflective model used to frame the writing assignment. Despite these possible variations, below is a basic approach to organizing and writing a good reflective paper, followed by a list of problems to avoid.

Pre-flection

In most cases, it's helpful to begin by thinking about your learning experiences and outline what you want to focus on before you begin to write the paper. This can help you organize your thoughts around what was most important to you and what experiences [good or bad] had the most impact on your learning. As described by the University of Waterloo Writing and Communication Centre, preparing to write a reflective paper involves a process of self-analysis that can help organize your thoughts around significant moments of in-class knowledge discovery.

• Using a thesis statement as a guide, note what experiences or course content stood out to you , then place these within the context of your observations, reactions, feelings, and opinions. This will help you develop a rough outline of key moments during the course that reflect your growth as a learner. To identify these moments, pose these questions to yourself: What happened? What was my reaction? What were my expectations and how were they different from what transpired? What did I learn?
• Critically think about your learning experiences and the course content . This will help you develop a deeper, more nuanced understanding about why these moments were significant or relevant to you. Use the ideas you formulated during the first stage of reflecting to help you think through these moments from both an academic and personal perspective. From an academic perspective, contemplate how the experience enhanced your understanding of a concept, theory, or skill. Ask yourself, did the experience confirm my previous understanding or challenge it in some way. As a result, did this highlight strengths or gaps in your current knowledge? From a personal perspective, think introspectively about why these experiences mattered, if previous expectations or assumptions were confirmed or refuted, and if this surprised, confused, or unnerved you in some way.
• Analyze how these experiences and your reactions to them will shape your future thinking and behavior . Reflection implies looking back, but the most important act of reflective writing is considering how beliefs, assumptions, opinions, and feelings were transformed in ways that better prepare you as a learner in the future. Note how this reflective analysis can lead to actions you will take as a result of your experiences, what you will do differently, and how you will apply what you learned in other courses or in professional practice.

Basic Structure and Writing Style

Reflective Background and Context

The first part of your reflection paper should briefly provide background and context in relation to the content or experiences that stood out to you. Highlight the settings, summarize the key readings, or narrate the experiences in relation to the course objectives. Provide background that sets the stage for your reflection. You do not need to go into great detail, but you should provide enough information for the reader to understand what sources of learning you are writing about [e.g., course readings, field experience, guest lecture, class discussions] and why they were important. This section should end with an explanatory thesis statement that expresses the central ideas of your paper and what you want the readers to know, believe, or understand after they finish reading your paper.

Reflective Interpretation

Drawing from your reflective analysis, this is where you can be personal, critical, and creative in expressing how you felt about the course content and learning experiences and how they influenced or altered your feelings, beliefs, assumptions, or biases about the subject of the course. This section is also where you explore the meaning of these experiences in the context of the course and how you gained an awareness of the connections between these moments and your own prior knowledge.

Guided by your thesis statement, a helpful approach is to interpret your learning throughout the course with a series of specific examples drawn from the course content and your learning experiences. These examples should be arranged in sequential order that illustrate your growth as a learner. Reflecting on each example can be done by: 1)  introducing a theme or moment that was meaningful to you, 2) describing your previous position about the learning moment and what you thought about it, 3) explaining how your perspective was challenged and/or changed and why, and 4) introspectively stating your current or new feelings, opinions, or beliefs about that experience in class.

It is important to include specific examples drawn from the course and placed within the context of your assumptions, thoughts, opinions, and feelings. A reflective narrative without specific examples does not provide an effective way for the reader to understand the relationship between the course content and how you grew as a learner.

Reflective Conclusions

The conclusion of your reflective paper should provide a summary of your thoughts, feelings, or opinions regarding what you learned about yourself as a result of taking the course. Here are several ways you can frame your conclusions based on the examples you interpreted and reflected on what they meant to you. Each example would need to be tied to the basic theme [thesis statement] of your reflective background section.

• Your reflective conclusions can be described in relation to any expectations you had before taking the class [e.g., “I expected the readings to not be relevant to my own experiences growing up in a rural community, but the research actually helped me see that the challenges of developing my identity as a child of immigrants was not that unusual...”].
• Your reflective conclusions can explain how what you learned about yourself will change your actions in the future [e.g., “During a discussion in class about the challenges of helping homeless people, I realized that many of these people hate living on the street but lack the ability to see a way out. This made me realize that I wanted to take more classes in psychology...”].
• Your reflective conclusions can describe major insights you experienced a critical junctures during the course and how these moments enhanced how you see yourself as a student learner [e.g., "The guest speaker from the Head Start program made me realize why I wanted to pursue a career in elementary education..."].
• Your reflective conclusions can reconfigure or reframe how you will approach professional practice and your understanding of your future career aspirations [e.g.,, "The course changed my perceptions about seeking a career in business finance because it made me realize I want to be more engaged in customer service..."]
• Your reflective conclusions can explore any learning you derived from the act of reflecting itself [e.g., “Reflecting on the course readings that described how minority students perceive campus activities helped me identify my own biases about the benefits of those activities in acclimating to campus life...”].

NOTE: The length of a reflective paper in the social sciences is usually less than a traditional research paper. However, don’t assume that writing a reflective paper is easier than writing a research paper. A well-conceived critical reflection paper often requires as much time and effort as a research paper because you must purposeful engage in thinking about your learning in ways that you may not be comfortable with or used to. This is particular true while preparing to write because reflective papers are not as structured as a traditional research paper and, therefore, you have to think deliberately about how you want to organize the paper and what elements of the course you want to reflect upon.

ANOTHER NOTE: Do not limit yourself to using only text in reflecting on your learning. If you believe it would be helpful, consider using creative modes of thought or expression such as, illustrations, photographs, or material objects that reflects an experience related to the subject of the course that was important to you [e.g., like a ticket stub to a renowned speaker on campus]. Whatever non-textual element you include, be sure to describe the object's relevance to your personal relationship to the course content.

Problems to Avoid

A reflective paper is not a “mind dump” . Reflective papers document your personal and emotional experiences and, therefore, they do not conform to rigid structures, or schema, to organize information. However, the paper should not be a disjointed, stream-of-consciousness narrative. Reflective papers are still academic pieces of writing that require organized thought, that use academic language and tone , and that apply intellectually-driven critical thinking to the course content and your learning experiences and their significance.

A reflective paper is not a research paper . If you are asked to reflect on a course reading, the reflection will obviously include some description of the research. However, the goal of reflective writing is not to present extraneous ideas to the reader or to "educate" them about the course. The goal is to share a story about your relationship with the learning objectives of the course. Therefore, unlike research papers, you are expected to write from a first person point of view which includes an introspective examination of your own opinions, feelings, and personal assumptions.

A reflection paper is not a book review . Descriptions of the course readings using your own words is not a reflective paper. Reflective writing should focus on how you understood the implications of and were challenged by the course in relation to your own lived experiences or personal assumptions, combined with explanations of how you grew as a student learner based on this internal dialogue. Remember that you are the central object of the paper, not the research materials.

A reflective paper is not an all-inclusive meditation. Do not try to cover everything. The scope of your paper should be well-defined and limited to your specific opinions, feelings, and beliefs about what you determine to be the most significant content of the course and in relation to the learning that took place. Reflections should be detailed enough to covey what you think is important, but your thoughts should be expressed concisely and coherently [as is true for any academic writing assignment].

Critical Reflection . Writing and Communication Centre, University of Waterloo; Critical Reflection: Journals, Opinions, & Reactions . University Writing Center, Texas A&M University; Connor-Greene, Patricia A. “Making Connections: Evaluating the Effectiveness of Journal Writing in Enhancing Student Learning.” Teaching of Psychology 27 (2000): 44-46; Good vs. Bad Reflection Papers , Franklin University; Dyment, Janet E. and Timothy S. O’Connell. "The Quality of Reflection in Student Journals: A Review of Limiting and Enabling Factors." Innovative Higher Education 35 (2010): 233-244: How to Write a Reflection Paper . Academic Skills, Trent University; Amelia TaraJane House. Reflection Paper . Cordia Harrington Center for Excellence, University of Arkansas; Ramlal, Alana, and Désirée S. Augustin. “Engaging Students in Reflective Writing: An Action Research Project.” Educational Action Research 28 (2020): 518-533; Writing a Reflection Paper . Writing Center, Lewis University; McGuire, Lisa, Kathy Lay, and Jon Peters. “Pedagogy of Reflective Writing in Professional Education.” Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (2009): 93-107; Critical Reflection . Writing and Communication Centre, University of Waterloo; How Do I Write Reflectively? Academic Skills Toolkit, University of New South Wales Sydney; Reflective Writing . Skills@Library. University of Leeds; Walling, Anne, Johanna Shapiro, and Terry Ast. “What Makes a Good Reflective Paper?” Family Medicine 45 (2013): 7-12; Williams, Kate, Mary Woolliams, and Jane Spiro. Reflective Writing . 2nd edition. London: Red Globe Press, 2020; Yeh, Hui-Chin, Shih-hsien Yang, Jo Shan Fu, and Yen-Chen Shih. “Developing College Students’ Critical Thinking through Reflective Writing.” Higher Education Research and Development (2022): 1-16.

Writing Tip

Focus on Reflecting, Not on Describing

Minimal time and effort should be spent describing the course content you are asked to reflect upon. The purpose of a reflection assignment is to introspectively contemplate your reactions to and feeling about an element of the course. D eflecting the focus away from your own feelings by concentrating on describing the course content can happen particularly if "talking about yourself" [i.e., reflecting] makes you uncomfortable or it is intimidating. However, the intent of reflective writing is to overcome these inhibitions so as to maximize the benefits of introspectively assessing your learning experiences. Keep in mind that, if it is relevant, your feelings of discomfort could be a part of how you critically reflect on any challenges you had during the course [e.g., you realize this discomfort inhibited your willingness to ask questions during class, it fed into your propensity to procrastinate, or it made it difficult participating in groups].

Writing a Reflection Paper . Writing Center, Lewis University; Reflection Paper . Cordia Harrington Center for Excellence, University of Arkansas.

Another Writing Tip

Helpful Videos about Reflective Writing

These two short videos succinctly describe how to approach a reflective writing assignment. They are produced by the Academic Skills department at the University of Melbourne and the Skills Team of the University of Hull, respectively.

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Reflective writing: Reflective essays

• What is reflection? Why do it?
• What does reflection involve?
• Reflective questioning
• Reflective writing for academic assessment
• Types of reflective assignments
• Differences between discursive and reflective writing
• Sources of evidence for reflective writing assignments
• Linking theory to experience
• Reflective essays
• Portfolios and learning journals, logs and diaries
• Examples of reflective writing
• Video summary
• Bibliography

On this page:

“Try making the conscious effort to reflect on the link between your experience and the theory, policies or studies you are reading” Williams et al., Reflective Writing

Writing a reflective essay

When you are asked to write a reflective essay, you should closely examine both the question and the marking criteria. This will help you to understand what you are being asked to do. Once you have examined the question you should start to plan and develop your essay by considering the following:

• What experience(s) and/or event(s) are you going to reflect on?
• How can you present these experience(s) to ensure anonymity (particularly important for anyone in medical professions)?
• How can you present the experience(s) with enough context for readers to understand?
• What learning can you identify from the experience(s)?
• What theories, models, strategies and academic literature can be used in your reflection?
• How this experience will inform your future practice

When structuring your reflection, you can present it in chronological order (start to finish) or in reverse order (finish to start). In some cases, it may be more appropriate for you to structure it around a series of flashbacks or themes, relating to relevant parts of the experience.

Example Essay Structure

This is an example structure for a reflective essay focusing on a single experience or event:

When you are writing a reflective assessment, it is important you keep your description to a minimum. This is because the description is not actually reflection and it often counts for only a small number of marks. This is not to suggest the description is not important. You must provide enough description and background for your readers to understand the context.

You need to ensure you discuss your feelings, reflections, responses, reactions, conclusions, and future learning. You should also look at positives and negatives across each aspect of your reflection and ensure you summarise any learning points for the future.

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Structure of academic reflections

Guidance on the structure of academic reflections.

Academic reflections or reflective writing completed for assessment often require a clear structure. Contrary to some people’s belief, reflection is not just a personal diary talking about your day and your feelings.

Both the language and the structure are important for academic reflective writing. For the structure you want to mirror an academic essay closely. You want an introduction, a main body, and a conclusion.

Academic reflection will require you to both describe the context, analyse it, and make conclusions. However, there is not one set of rules for the proportion of your reflection that should be spent describing the context, and what proportion should be spent on analysing and concluding. That being said, as learning tends to happen when analysing and synthesising rather than describing, a good rule of thumb is to describe just enough such that the reader understands your context.

Example structure for academic reflections

Below is an example of how you might structure an academic reflection if you were given no other guidance and what each section might contain.  Remember this is only a suggestion and you must consider what is appropriate for the task at hand and for you yourself.

Introduction

Identifies and introduces your experience or learning

• This can be a critical incident
• This can be the reflective prompt you were given
• A particular learning you have gained

When structuring your academic reflections it might make sense to start with what you have learned and then use the main body to evidence that learning, using specific experiences and events. Alternatively, start with the event and build up your argument. This is a question of personal preference – if you aren’t given explicit guidance you can ask the assessor if they have a preference, however both can work.

Highlights why it was important

• This can be suggesting why this event was important for the learning you gained
• This can be why the learning you gained will benefit you or why you appreciate it in your context

You might find that it is not natural to highlight the importance of an event before you have developed your argument for what you gained from it. It can be okay not to explicitly state the importance in the introduction, but leave it to develop throughout your reflection.

Outline key themes that will appear in the reflection (optional – but particularly relevant when answering a reflective prompt or essay)

• This can be an introduction to your argument, introducing the elements that you will explore, or that builds to the learning you have already gained.

This might not make sense if you are reflecting on a particular experience, but is extremely valuable if you are answering a reflective prompt or writing an essay that includes multiple learning points. A type of prompt or question that could particularly benefit from this would be ‘Reflect on how the skills and theory within this course have helped you meet the benchmark statements of your degree’

It can be helpful to explore one theme/learning per paragraph.

Explore experiences

• You should highlight and explore the experience you introduced in the introduction
• If you are building toward answering a reflective prompt, explore each relevant experience.

As reflection is centred around an individual’s personal experience, it is very important to make experiences a main component of reflection. This does not mean that the majority of the reflective piece should be on describing an event – in fact you should only describe enough such that the reader can follow your analysis.

Analyse and synthesise

• You should analyse each of your experiences and from them synthesise new learning

Depending on the requirements of the assessment, you may need to use theoretical literature in your analysis. Theoretical literature is a part of perspective taking which is relevant for reflection, and will happen as a part of your analysis.  

Restate or state your learning

• Make a conclusion based on your analysis and synthesis.
• If you have many themes in your reflection, it can be helpful to restate them here.

Plan for the future

• Highlight and discuss how your new-found learnings will influence your future practice

Answer the question or prompt (if applicable)

• If you are answering an essay question or reflective prompt, make sure that your conclusion provides a succinct response using your main body as evidence.  

Using a reflective model to structure academic reflections

You might recognise that most reflective models mirror this structure; that is why a lot of the reflective models can be really useful to structure reflective assignments. Models are naturally structured to focus on a single experience – if the assignment requires you to focus on multiple experiences, it can be helpful to simply repeat each step of a model for each experience.

One difference between the structure of reflective writing and the structure of models is that sometimes you may choose to present your learning in the introduction of a piece of writing, whereas models (given that they support working through the reflective process) will have learning appearing at later stages.

However, generally structuring a piece of academic writing around a reflective model will ensure that it involves the correct components, reads coherently and logically, as well as having an appropriate structure.

Reflective journals/diaries/blogs and other pieces of assessed reflection

The example structure above works particularly well for formal assignments such as reflective essays and reports.  Reflective journal/blogs and other pieces of assessed reflections tend to be less formal both in language and structure, however you can easily adapt the structure for journals and other reflective assignments if you find that helpful.

That is, if you are asked to produce a reflective journal with multiple entries it will most often (always check with the person who issued the assignment) be a successful journal if each entry mirrors the structure above and the language highlighted in the section on academic language. However, often you can be less concerned with form when producing reflective journals/diaries.

When producing reflective journals, it is often okay to include your original reflection as long as you are comfortable with sharing the content with others, and that the information included is not too personal for an assessor to read.

Developed from:

Ryan, M., 2011. Improving reflective writing in higher education: a social semiotic perspective. Teaching in Higher Education, 16(1), 99-111.

University of Portsmouth, Department for Curriculum and Quality Enhancement (date unavailable). Reflective Writing: a basic introduction [online].  Portsmouth: University of Portsmouth.

Queen Margaret University, Effective Learning Service (date unavailable).  Reflection. [online].  Edinburgh: Queen Margaret University.

8 Tips For Writing A Great Reflective Essay (With Examples)

By writing a reflective essay, you can capture some of these ephemeral emotions and make sense of who you are. Below, I share eight tips (and a few examples) that will help you do it in a better way. You may have to write a reflective essay as a part of an academic assignment or a college paper. Or perhaps you want to create it for yourself and never show it to anyone. Regardless of the reason, after reading this article, you will hopefully become better at it. They helped a lot of students over the years, so you may check them out.

Here’s how to write a great reflective essay:

1. first, what is a reflective essay, 2. the power of writing introspectively.

Many great men and women (like Charles Darwin or Frida Kahlo ) had a habit of keeping a journal. This seems to be forgotten these days as we record everything through our mobile devices. But the habit of introspective writing and journaling helps you get in touch with your inner self and even improves your mental health. The reflective essay serves a similar purpose. It lets you search for meaning in your life and lets you discover the underlying causes of your actions.

“Life can only be understood backward, but it must be lived forwards.” – Søren Kierkegaard

3. How do you start your essay?

This beginning has certain elements that make it effective:.

“When I discover who I am, I’ll be free.” – Ralph Ellison

4. Learn how to structure your essay

In terms of length, it all depends on your assignment, but usually, the reflective essay has between 300 and 700 words . It has a rather informal structure and the use of language. After all, you’re drilling into your personal experiences, and often, this requires a poetic turn of the phrase. You’re more than welcome to use a wide range of advanced vocabulary .

Introduction

5. create an outline for your essay.

As with most writing assignments , the work begins with ideation and then creating some sort of outline . Here’s a simple process you can use to get everything ready before you start writing: a) Scan your mind in search of powerful experiences, meaningful memories, and thoughts about your past. This will serve as a raw material from which you’ll sculpt a piece of prose. b) Consider the attractiveness of your topic from the reader’s point of view. You certainly don’t want to bore anyone, so pick something interesting, but important. c) Organize your essay and divide it into a couple of paragraphs. Each paragraph should contain one important idea. d) Decide in which sequence you would like to share your ideas. Put some logic and chronology behind it. e) Jot down any side notes included in the essay. It’s always better to have an overabundance of material.

“Your visions will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.” – C.G. Jung

6. The essay-writing process

Once you have the idea, you can follow a simple process:, 7. how to pick the right topic for your essay.

If you’re writing an assignment, you’ll probably receive the prompt from your professor. If that’s the case, follow it diligently. This may be something like: a) Reflect on what you learned during your first year of high school. b) Think about your favorite book and how it changed your life . c) How did your writing skills change over the years? And why? Or it might be something really specific like Write a two-page reflection paper on the Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain. Here, it’s not only about your personal experience, but about your interaction with a specific text, event, play, or movie and the effect it had on you. But what if you want to write an essay on your own? Which topic would you choose then? First, pick something meaningful to you. Second, pick something that you know well. Third, pick something that you want to explore and get deep into.

Here’s some more inspiration in the area of topics:

Personal reflection:, reflection on life and meaning:, reflection on events:.

“Reflect upon your present blessings — of which every man has many — not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some.” – Charles Dickens

8. Learn from the masters

Montaigne was the father of the essay as a literary form. He was the first writer to use informal tone, colloquial language, and rather prosaic themes to get to the deeper truth about human nature.

I recommend you check his essays for inspiration, along with other masterworks:

And here are a few books filled with great reflective essays:.

And here you may find a huge list of 450+ essay books on Goodreads.

“Once we accept our limits, we go beyond them.” – Albert Einstein

Example #1 of a reflective essay:

The misgivings about the high school football, here’s a second, shorter sample of a reflective essay:, the sources of love for instrumental music., looking backward, moving forward.

There are certain milestones in your life: finishing high school, falling in love for the first time, your first journey abroad, the first kiss, the first psychedelic trip, graduating from the university, getting your first job, getting married, having children… Each of these brings something new and unexpected and makes you grow as an individual. But you can run through life and never reflect on how it all changed , how silly and incompetent you were just a few years ago. And how you’ll think the same thing about the present in a few years. Perhaps you should compose a reflective essay and think about all of this, and about what’s coming. Next up, you may want to explore a list of the best essays of all time .

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Reflective Writing Guide

A great deal of your time at university will be spent thinking; thinking about what people have said, what you have read, what you yourself are thinking and how your thinking has changed. It is generally believed that the thinking process involves two aspects: reflective thinking and critical thinking. They are not separate processes; rather, they are closely connected (Brookfield 1987).

Figure 1: The Thinking Process (adapted from Mezirow 1990, Schon 1987, Brookfield 1987)

Reflective thinking

Reflection is: 

• a form of personal response to experiences, situations, events or new information.
• a 'processing' phase where thinking and learning take place.

There is neither a right nor a wrong way of reflective thinking, there are just questions to explore.

Figure 1 shows that the reflective thinking process starts with you. Before you can begin to assess the words and ideas of others, you need to pause and identify and examine your own thoughts.

Doing this involves revisiting your prior experience and knowledge of the topic you are exploring. It also involves considering how and why you think the way you do. The examination of your beliefs, values, attitudes and assumptions forms the foundation of your understanding. 

Reflective thinking demands that you recognise that you bring valuable knowledge to every experience. It helps you therefore to recognise and clarify the important connections between what you already know and what you are learning. It is a way of helping you to become an active, aware and critical learner.

What is reflective writing?

Reflective writing is:.

• documenting your response to experiences, opinions, events or new information
• communicating your response to thoughts and feelings
• a way of exploring your learning
• an opportunity to gain self-knowledge
• a way to achieve clarity and better understanding of what you are learning
• a chance to develop and reinforce writing skills
• a way of making meaning out of what you study

Reflective writing is not:

• just conveying information, instruction or argument
• pure description, though there may be descriptive elements
• straightforward decision or judgement, e.g. about whether something is right or wrong, good or bad
• simple problem-solving
• a summary of course notes
• a standard university essay.

See next: How do I write reflectively?

Essay and assignment writing guide.

• Essay writing basics
• Essay and assignment planning
• Answering assignment questions
• Editing checklist
• Writing a critical review
• Annotated bibliography
• How do I write reflectively?
• Examples of reflective writing
• ^ More support

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Reflective Essay Examples

50 best reflective essay examples (+topic samples).

If you have ever read reflective essay examples, you would know that these types of written works examine the writer’s life experiences . When you write a reflective paper example, you write about your own experiences and explore how you’ve changed, grown or developed because of those experiences. There’s no standard format for this essay as it may vary depending on the target audience.

Table of Contents

• 1 Reflective Essay Examples
• 2 What is a reflective essay?
• 3 Reflective Paper Examples
• 4 Format of reflective essay
• 5 Creating the outline of reflective essay examples
• 6 Reflective Paper Samples
• 7 Tips for writing reflective essay
• 8 Reflective Essay Samples

What is a reflective essay?

A reflective essay is a type of written work which reflects your own self. Since it’s about yourself, you already have a topic to write about. For reflective essay examples, readers expect you to evaluate a specific part of your life. To do this, you may reflect on emotions, memories, and feelings you’ve experienced at that time.

Since you’re writing reflection essay samples about yourself, make sure that they’re interesting and exciting. This is very important so that your readers don’t get bored with what you’ve written. Reflective essays are very personal thus, they’re a special type of essay. As you write one, you need to reflect, think, and explain.

In the essay, you should demonstrate and describe different feelings or emotions which you’ve felt in the past. These statements breathe life into your essay as your readers start picturing what you’ve written in their minds. Reflective essays are very honest, personal, and emotional, especially those which describe painful experiences.

Reflective Paper Examples

Format of reflective essay

As aforementioned, reflective essay examples don’t have a standard format. They seem easy enough to write but once you’ve sat down to start writing, you may suddenly find the task very challenging! Besides the format, you must think about the life experience you want to write about and remember everything about it.

A reflective paper example is a lot like a personal journal or diary. Of course, the difference is that other people will read your essay. Therefore, you must write it with good structure and coherence. In this regard, reflective essays are a lot like the other types of essays too.

When writing a reflective essay, you will have to examine your own life experiences. The purpose of writing such an essay is to provide yourself with a platform to share your most meaningful life experiences with other people. You can also use it as a way to explore how your experiences have changed you as a person.

You can present reflective writing in different formats. Most of the time though, people use a learning log or a diary entry format. You can use these formats and others. Just make sure that your essay has a good flow and that it’s easy for other readers to understand.

The format to use for your reflection essay samples would depend on your target audience. You can make an academic reflective essay or you can make it as a general and informal piece of writing. If you need to write the essay for a class assignment, follow the format given to you by your teacher.

No matter what format you choose, you may write an essay which:

• Focuses on your personal growth Such an essay helps you learn how to evaluate and analyze the experiences you have had in your personal life. This helps promote emotional development and growth. It also helps you understand yourself and your behaviors better.
• Focuses on literature For this type of essay, you may have to include references to literature and apply these to your own life experiences. Such essays are commonly given as assignments to students in school.

Creating the outline of reflective essay examples

Before you write your reflective essay examples, you must create an outline for them. Although you’d write about your own life, creating an outline gives structure to your essay to serve as a guide for what you want to write about.

Whether you need to write an essay for school, for a magazine or for any other reason, creating an outline is the very first step. With a good outline, you have a better idea of how your essay will flow from one paragraph to the next all the way to the conclusion.

When creating the outline of your reflective paper example, keep it organized. Develop the outline gradually and put a lot of thought into it. In doing this, you make the writing process much easier. Here is a rundown of the steps involved in the essay-writing process:

• Choose a topic (a significant life experience you want to write about)
• Gather information
• Create an outline
• Write a draft
• Finalize your essay

Reflective Paper Samples

Tips for writing reflective essay

As you think about the content of your reflection essay samples, remember that the important thing is that such an essay must be highly personal but also engaging to readers. There’s so much more to reflective essays than just writing your story. You must also reflect on your experiences to engage your audiences.

For your starting point, think about the most significant experiences you had in your life. Those which had either a negative or a positive impact on you as a person. If the reflective essay is a school assignment, your professor would probably specify what you must write about. Here are some tips for you for writing your reflective paper example:

• Reflection The most important part of writing your reflective essay is the reflective process. Think about the personal experience you want to write about. Focus on what happened, how this experience made you feel, and how it affected your life. Explore your memories and emotions for this part of the process. As you’re recalling and reflecting on your life experience, take a lot of notes . Write down all the details you remember and try to be as clear and as detailed as you possibly can. Take as much time as you need for reflection. You can even close your eyes as you try to remember those experiences vividly. When you’re confident that you have recalled all of the details of your life experience, it’s time to write your essay. To make it more meaningful, try to answer some important questions about your life experience including: Did you learn anything new about yourself because of this experience? Have you grown or developed because of this experience? If so, in what way? Did this experience impact your life positively or negatively? If you had the chance to experience this all over again, would you do anything differently? Why did you behave in such a way at the time of this experience? Did you make the right choices? What are your general thoughts and feelings about this experience? Can you say that you learned from this experience? Did you gain any new perspectives or skills because of this experience? These are “signpost questions” which can help you write a more meaningful essay. These are just some examples, you can also think of your own questions to ask yourself. The point of these questions is to make sure that you think critically and deeply about the experience you’re writing about.
• Planning After you’ve reflected on your life experience, it’s time to start planning your essay. When it’s time to start, you might feel as if you’re not adequately prepared even though you’ve done a lot of reflection. This is a normal feeling, especially if you want to create a written piece which people will love reading. To ease your anxiety and doubt, come up with a well-rounded and comprehensive plan. The best way to do this is through an outline. With an outline to guide your writing process, you can come up with an essay that’s more coherent and which has a clear structure. An outline or plan is important for reflective essays. Since you’re writing about an emotionally-charged topic, you might find yourself getting “lost” along the way. This is especially true if you’re writing about a painful experience which still affects you until now. The outline serves as a map for you to keep your thoughts organized. In your outline, make sure to establish all of the fundamental details you wish to include in your essay. This helps you pick out and remove any superfluous information to make it easier to read and understand. Planning the points you want to write about makes it easier for you to stay on point. As such, your writing becomes a lot clearer and your readers can follow your line of thought. An outline also prevents you from missing out any relevant information. It’s very difficult and frustrating to go back after you’ve written the whole essay just to fit in this information! Planning your essay also saves you a lot of time. Coming up with the structure makes you more familiar with your essay even before you start writing it. Thus, you can spend more time writing, revising, and proofreading your essay to make it the best version possible.

Reflective Essay Samples

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Reflective writing

Reflective writing tasks ​allow you to review and think critically about a personal experience related to your course.

Reflective writing as an assessment is a great way for your marker to see your thoughts progress. You can ask questions, add suggestions, argue with the material and question your own experiences or previous understanding. It demonstrates you’re taking your understanding of your subject deeper. —Ari Moore, Senior Student Writing Mentor

Reflective writing tasks at university are a way of asking you to critically evaluate and make connections between the theories and practice you are engaging with in your unit. They can also guide you to become more aware of your personal thoughts about your life experiences in relation to those theories. In some disciplines, for example, education, reflection is often used to build upon existing knowledge and to help improve professional practice.

Reflective writing is  not just a description or summary of something that you have observed. Instead, reflective writing requires you to  describe ,  analyse and  evaluate . Describing, analysing and evaluating experiences enables you to develop new insights and perspectives. The quality of your analysis is improved by reading widely and thinking critically about what you are learning in your course.

Some examples of reflective writing assignments include:

• Analysing your experience of working on a group task.
• Critiquing a teaching or learning activity (self-review or peer review activities).
• Critiquing your experiences on a placement or internship.
• Describing a critical experience in your life that has shaped your view of the world.
• Keeping a reflective journal or log on a work placement.

There are various reflective writing models and this guide will discuss two used at Deakin. However, you should always check your unit assessment instructions for specific directions or preferred reflection models.

Language features

The language and style used in reflective writing tasks will depend on the assignment instructions and your discipline. However, in most reflections, the reader will expect to learn about your personal experience, feelings, ideas and opinions. You may also reflect on and cite sources from your coursework. It is acceptable to refer to yourself and use personal pronouns when writing reflectively (I, my, me). The use of action verbs to express feelings and opinions can also be useful (‘I felt…’, ‘I think…’, ‘I agree…’).

The ideas and phrases listed below are commonly used in reflective writing.

‘What? So what? Now what?’ model

The ‘What? So what? Now what?’ model can guide your reflection on an experience and the actions that follow. Use the suggested prompts under each heading to help you get started.

4R’s model

The 4r's reflection model.

The 4R's of reflection model can be applied to suit many different contexts and provides you with a general idea of how to organise the information in your reflection.

Bain J, Ballantyne R, Packer J and Mills C (1999) ‘Using journal writing to enhance student teachers' reflectivity during field experience placements’, Teachers and Teaching , 5(1):51-73.

• The 4 Rs (PDF, 98.4KB)
• Reflective writing models (DOCX, 32.2KB)

You might also like:

• Critical thinking
• Integrating sources
• Essay writing
• Report writing
• Reflecting on your learning

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• BMC Med Educ

A systematic scoping review of reflective writing in medical education

Jia yin lim.

1 Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore, NUHS Tower Block, 1E Kent Ridge Road, Level 11, Singapore, 119228 Singapore

2 Division of Supportive and Palliative Care, National Cancer Centre Singapore, 11 Hospital Crescent, Singapore, 169610 Singapore

Simon Yew Kuang Ong

3 Division of Medical Oncology, National Cancer Centre Singapore, 11 Hospital Crescent, Singapore, 169610 Singapore

4 Division of Cancer Education, National Cancer Centre Singapore, 11 Hospital Crescent, Singapore, 169610 Singapore

5 Duke-NUS Medical School, National University of Singapore, 8 College Rd, Singapore, 169857 Singapore

Chester Yan Hao Ng

Karis li en chan, song yi elizabeth anne wu, wei zheng so, glenn jin chong tey, yun xiu lam, nicholas lu xin gao, yun xue lim, ryan yong kiat tay, ian tze yong leong, nur diana abdul rahman, crystal lim.

6 Medical Social Services, Singapore General Hospital, Outram Rd, Singapore, 169608 Singapore

Gillian Li Gek Phua

7 Lien Centre for Palliative Care, Duke-NUS Medical School, National University of Singapore, 8 College Rd, Singapore, 169857 Singapore

Vengadasalam Murugam

Eng koon ong.

8 Assisi Hospice, 832 Thomson Rd, Singapore, 574627 Singapore

Lalit Kumar Radha Krishna

9 Palliative Care Institute Liverpool, Academic Palliative & End of Life Care Centre, Cancer Research Centre, University of Liverpool, 200 London Road, Liverpool, L3 9TA UK

10 PalC, The Palliative Care Centre for Excellence in Research and Education, PalC c/o Dover Park Hospice, 10 Jalan Tan Tock Seng, Singapore, 308436 Singapore

Associated Data

All data generated or analysed during this review are included in this published article and its supplementary files.

Reflective writing (RW) allows physicians to step back, review their thoughts, goals and actions and recognise how their perspectives, motives and emotions impact their conduct. RW also helps physicians consolidate their learning and boosts their professional and personal development. In the absence of a consistent approach and amidst growing threats to RW’s place in medical training, a review of theories of RW in medical education and a review to map regnant practices, programs and assessment methods are proposed.

A Systematic Evidence-Based Approach guided Systematic Scoping Review (SSR in SEBA) was adopted to guide and structure the two concurrent reviews. Independent searches were carried out on publications featured between 1st January 2000 and 30th June 2022 in PubMed, Embase, PsychINFO, CINAHL, ERIC, ASSIA, Scopus, Google Scholar, OpenGrey, GreyLit and ProQuest. The Split Approach saw the included articles analysed separately using thematic and content analysis. Like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, the Jigsaw Perspective combined the themes and categories identified from both reviews. The Funnelling Process saw the themes/categories created compared with the tabulated summaries. The final domains which emerged structured the discussion that followed.

A total of 33,076 abstracts were reviewed, 1826 full-text articles were appraised and 199 articles were included and analysed. The domains identified were theories and models, current methods, benefits and shortcomings, and recommendations.

Conclusions

This SSR in SEBA suggests that a structured approach to RW shapes the physician’s belief system, guides their practice and nurtures their professional identity formation. In advancing a theoretical concept of RW, this SSR in SEBA proffers new insight into the process of RW, and the need for longitudinal, personalised feedback and support.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12909-022-03924-4.

Introduction

Reflective practice in medicine allows physicians to step back, review their actions and recognise how their thoughts, feelings and emotions affect their decision-making, clinical reasoning and professionalism [ 1 ]. This approach builds on Dewey [ 2 ], Schon [ 3 , 4 ], Kolb [ 5 ], Boud et al. [ 6 ] and Mezirow [ 7 ]’s concepts of critical self-examination. It sees new insights drawn from the physician’s experiences and considers how assumptions may integrate into their current values, beliefs and principles (henceforth belief system) [ 8 , 9 ].

Teo et al. [ 10 ] build on this concept of reflective practice. The authors suggest that the physician’s belief system informs and is informed by their self-concepts of identity which are in turn rooted in their self-concepts of personhood - how they conceive what makes them who they are [ 11 ]. This posit not only ties reflective practice to the shaping of the physician’s moral and ethical compass but also offers evidence of it's role in their professional identity formation (PIF) [ 8 , 12 – 23 ]. With PIF [ 8 , 24 ] occupying a central role in medical education, these ties underscore the critical importance placed on integrating reflective practice in medical training.

Perhaps the most common form of reflective practice in medical education is reflective writing (RW) [ 25 ]. Identified as one of the distinct approaches used to achieve integrated learning, education, curriculum and teaching [ 26 ], RW already occupies a central role in guiding and supporting longitudinal professional development [ 27 – 29 ]. Its ability to enhance self-monitoring and self-regulation of decisional paradigms and conduct has earned RW a key role in competency-based medical practice and continuing professional development [ 30 – 36 ].

However, the absence of consistent guiding principles, dissonant practices, variable structuring and inadequate assessments have raised concerns as to RW’s efficacy and place in medical training [ 25 , 37 – 39 ]. A Systematic Scoping Review is proposed to map current understanding of RW programs. It is hoped that this SSR will also identify gaps in knowledge and regnant practices, programs and assessment methods to guide the design of RW programs.

Methodology

A Systematic Scoping Review (SSR) is employed to map the employ, structuring and assessment of RW in medical education. An SSR-based review is especially useful in attending to qualitative data that does not lend itself to statistical pooling [ 40 – 42 ] whilst its broad flexible approach allows the identification of patterns, relationships and disagreements [ 43 ] across a wide range of study formats and settings [ 44 , 45 ].

To synthesise a coherent narrative from the multiple accounts of reflective writing, we adopt Krishna’s Systematic Evidence-Based Approach (SEBA) [ 10 , 15 , 21 , 46 – 53 ]. A SEBA-guided Systematic Scoping Review (SSR in SEBA) [ 13 – 24 , 50 , 53 – 55 ] facilitates reproducible, accountable and transparent analysis of patterns, relationships and disagreements from multiple angles [ 56 ].

The SEBA process (Fig.  1 ) comprises the following elements: 1) Systematic Approach, 2) Split Approach, 3) Jigsaw Perspective, 4) Funnelling Process, 5) Analysis of data and non-data driven literature, and 6) Synthesis of SSR in SEBA [ 10 , 15 , 21 , 46 – 53 , 57 – 60 ] . Every stage was overseen by a team of experts that included medical librarians from the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine (YLLSoM) at the National University of Singapore, and local educational experts and clinicians at YLLSoM, Duke-NUS Medical School, Assisi Hospice, Singapore General Hospital, National Cancer Centre Singapore and Palliative Care Institute Liverpool.

The SEBA Process

STAGE 1 of SEBA: Systematic Approach

Determining the title and background of the review.

Ensuring a systematic approach, the expert team and the research team agreed upon the overall goals of the review. Two separate searches were performed, one to look at the theories of reflection in medical education, and another to review regnant practices, programs, and assessment methods used in reflective writing in medical education. The PICOs is featured in Table  1 .

PICOs inclusion and exclusion criteria

Identifying the research question

Guided by the Population Concept, Context (PCC) elements of the inclusion criteria and through discussions with the expert team, the research question was determined to be: “ How is reflective writing structured, assessed and supported in medical education? ” The secondary research question was “ How might a reflective writing program in medical education be structured? ”

Inclusion criteria

All study designs including grey literature published between 1st January 2000 to 30th June 2022 were included [ 61 , 62 ]. We also consider data on medical students and physicians from all levels of training (henceforth broadly termed as physicians).

Ten members of the research team carried out independent searches using seven bibliographic databases (PubMed, Embase, PsychINFO, CINAHL, ERIC, ASSIA, Scopus) and four grey literature databases (Google Scholar, OpenGrey, GreyLit, ProQuest). Variations of the terms “reflective writing”, “physicians and medical students”, and “medical education” were applied.

Extracting and charting

Titles and abstracts were independently reviewed by the research team to identify relevant articles that met the inclusion criteria set out in Table ​ Table1. 1 . Full-text articles were then filtered and proposed. These lists were discussed at online reviewer meetings and Sandelowski and Barroso [ 63 ]’s approach to ‘negotiated consensual validation’ was used to achieve consensus on the final list of articles to be included.

Stage 2 of SEBA: Split Approach

The Split Approach was employed to enhance the trustworthiness of the SSR in SEBA [ 64 , 65 ]. Data from both searches were analysed by three independent groups of study team members.

The first group used Braun and Clarke [ 66 ]’s approach to thematic analysis. Phase 1 consisted of ‘actively’ reading the included articles to find meaning and patterns in the data. The analysis then moved to Phase 2 where codes were constructed. These codes were collated into a codebook and analysed using an iterative step-by-step process. As new codes emerge, previous codes and concepts were incorporated. In Phase 3, codes and subthemes were organised into themes that best represented the dataset. An inductive approach allowed themes to be “defined from the raw data without any predetermined classification” [ 67 ]. In Phase 4, these themes were then further refined to best depict the whole dataset. In Phase 5, the research team discussed the results and consensus was reached, giving rise to the final themes.

The second group employed Hsieh and Shannon [ 68 ]’s approach to directed content analysis. Categories were drawn from Mann et al. [ 9 ]’s article, “Reflection and Reflective Practice in Health Professions Education: A Systematic Review” and Wald and Reis [ 69 ]’s article “Beyond the Margins: Reflective Writing and Development of Reflective Capacity in Medical Education”.

The third group created tabulated summaries in keeping with recommendations drawn from Wong et al. [ 56 ]’s "RAMESES Publication Standards: Meta-narrative Reviews" and Popay et al. [ 70 ]’s “Guidance on the C onduct of N arrative Synthesis in Systematic Reviews”. The tabulated summaries served to ensure that key aspects of included articles were not lost.

Stage 3 of SEBA: Jigsaw Perspective

The Jigsaw Perspective [ 71 , 72 ] saw the findings of both searches combined. Here, overlaps and similarities between the themes and categories from the two searches were combined to create themes/categories. The themes and subthemes were compared with the categories and subcategories identified, and similarities were verified by comparing the codes contained within them. Individual subthemes and subcategories were combined if they were complementary in nature.

Stage 4 of SEBA: Funnelling Process

The Funnelling Process saw the themes/categories compared with the tabulated summaries to determine the consistency of the domains created, forming the basis of the discussion.

Stage 5: Analysis of data and non-data driven literature

Amidst concerns that data from grey literature which were neither peer-reviewed nor necessarily evidence-based may bias the synthesis of the discussion, the research team separately thematically analysed the included grey literature. These themes were compared with themes from data-driven or research-based peer-reviewed data and were found to be the same and thus unlikely to have influenced the analysis.

Stage 6: Synthesis of SSR in SEBA

The Best Evidence Medical Education (BEME) Collaboration Guide and the Structured approach to the Reporting In healthcare education of Evidence Synthesis (STORIES) were used to guide the discussion.

A total of 33,076 abstracts were reviewed from the two separate searches on theories of reflection in medical education, and on regnant practices, programs and assessments of RW programs in medical education. A total of 1826 full-text articles were appraised from the separate searches, and 199 articles were included and analysed. The PRISMA Flow Chart may be found in Fig.  2 a and b. The domains identified when combining the findings of the two separate searches were 1) Theories and Models, 2) Current Methods, 3) Benefits and Shortcomings and 4) Recommendations.

a PRISMA Flow Chart (Search Strat #1: Theories of Reflection in Medical Education). b PRISMA Flow Chart (Search Strat #2: Reflective Writing in Medical Education)

Domain 1: Theories and Models

Many current theories and models surrounding RW in medical education are inspired by Kolb’s Learning Cycle [ 5 ] (Table  2 ). These theories focus on descriptions of areas of reflection; evaluations of experiences and emotions; how events may be related to previous experiences; knowledge critiques of their impact on thinking and practice; integration of learning points; and the physician’s willingness to apply lessons learnt [ 6 , 73 – 75 ]. In addition, some of these theories also consider the physician’s self-awareness, ability and willingness to reflect [ 76 ], contextual factors related to the area of reflection [ 4 , 77 ] and the opportunity to reflect effectively within a supportive environment [ 78 , 79 ]. Ash and Clayton's DEAL Model recommends inclusion of information from all five senses [ 80 – 83 ]. Johns's Model of Structured Reflection [ 84 ] advocates giving due consideration to internal and external influences upon the event being evaluated. Rodgers [ 39 ] underlines the need for appraisal of the suppositions and assumptions that precipitate and accompany the effects and responses that may have followed the studied event. Griffiths and Tann [ 75 ], Mezirow [ 77 ], Kim [ 85 ], Roskos et al. [ 86 ], Burnham et al. [ 87 ], Korthagen and Vasalos [ 78 ] and Koole et al. [ 74 ] build on Dewey [ 2 ] and Kolb [ 5 ]’s notion of creating and experimenting with a ‘working hypothesis’. These models also propose that the lessons learnt from experimentations should be critiqued as part of a reiterative process within the reflective cycle. Underlining the notion of the reflective cycle and the long-term effects of RW, Pearson and Smith [ 88 ] suggest that reflections should be carried out regularly to encourage longitudinal and holistic reflections on all aspects of the physician’s personal and professional life.

Theories and models referred for implementation - iterative stages of reflection

Regnant theories shape assessments of RW (Table  3 ). This extends beyond Thorpe [ 96 ]’s study which categorises reflective efforts into ‘non-reflectors’, ‘reflectors’, ‘critical reflectors’, and focuses on their process, structure, depth and content. van Manen [ 97 ], Plack et al. [ 98 ], Rogers et al. [ 99 ] and Makarem et al. [ 100 ] begin with evaluating the details of the events. Kim’s Critical Reflective Inquiry Model [ 85 ] and Bain’s 5Rs Reflective Framework [ 101 ] also consider characterisations of emotions involved. Other models appraise the intentions behind actions and thoughts [ 85 ], the factors precipitating the event [ 101 ] and meaning-making [ 85 ]. Other theories consider links with previous experiences [ 100 ], the integration of thoughts, justifications and perspectives [ 99 ], and the hypothesising of future strategies [ 98 ].

Theories and models referred for assessment - vertical levels of reflection

Domain 2: Current methods of structuring RW programs

Current programs focus on supporting the physician throughout the reflective process. Whilst due consideration is given to the physician’s motivations, insight, experiences, capacity and capabilities [ 25 , 96 , 112 – 116 ], programs also endeavour to ensure appropriate selection and training of physicians intending to participate in RW. Efforts are also made to align expectations, and guide and structure the RW process [ 37 , 116 – 122 ]. Physicians are provided with frameworks [ 76 , 79 , 105 , 123 , 124 ], rubrics [ 99 , 123 , 125 , 126 ], examples of the expected quality and form of reflection [ 96 , 115 , 116 ], and how to include emotional and contextual information in their responses [ 121 , 127 – 129 ].

Other considerations are enclosed in Table  4 including frequency, modality and the manner in which RW is assessed.

Current methods of structuring RW programs

Domain 3: Benefits and Shortcomings

The benefits of RW are rarely described in detail and may be divided into personal and professional benefits as summarised in Table  5 for ease of review. From a professional perspective, RW improves learning [ 96 , 112 , 119 , 147 , 157 , 170 , 179 , 185 – 192 ], facilitates continuing medical education [ 119 , 128 , 173 , 174 , 193 – 195 ], inculcates moral, ethical, professional and social standards and expectations [ 118 , 156 , 160 ], improves patient care [ 29 , 120 , 129 , 131 , 135 , 142 , 194 , 196 – 199 ] and nurtures PIF [ 150 , 157 , 172 , 191 , 200 ].

Benefits of RW programs

From a personal perspective, RW increases self-awareness [ 114 , 127 , 137 , 161 , 166 , 179 , 185 , 202 , 216 ], self-advancement [ 9 , 131 , 134 , 150 , 168 , 174 , 195 , 205 , 217 , 229 ], facilitates understanding of individual strengths, weaknesses and learning needs [ 112 , 119 , 150 , 152 , 170 , 218 , 219 ], promotes a culture of self-monitoring, self-improvement [ 130 , 172 , 173 , 185 , 193 , 198 , 201 , 210 , 211 ], developing critical perspectives of self [ 193 , 223 ] and nurtures resilience and better coping [ 154 , 160 , 206 ]. RW also guides shifts in thinking and perspectives [ 148 , 149 , 156 , 203 , 207 , 208 ] and focuses on a more holistic appreciation of decision-making [ 37 , 118 , 126 , 174 , 177 , 194 , 196 , 199 , 200 , 224 – 226 ] and their ramifications [ 37 , 112 , 116 , 130 , 131 , 141 , 154 , 179 , 193 , 194 , 196 , 204 , 207 , 218 , 230 ].

Table  6 combines current lists of the shortcomings of RW. These limitations may be characterised by individual, structural and assessment styles.

Shortcomings of RW programs

It is suggested that RW does not cater to the different learning styles [ 220 , 232 ], cultures [ 190 ], roles, values, processes and expectations of RW [ 114 , 129 , 135 , 138 , 142 , 209 , 227 , 234 ], and physicians' differing levels of self-awareness [ 29 , 79 , 119 , 176 , 188 , 226 , 231 , 236 ], motivations [ 29 , 119 , 136 , 138 , 157 , 161 , 167 – 169 , 176 , 181 , 193 , 196 , 226 , 232 , 233 ] and willingness to engage in RW [ 37 , 114 , 136 , 149 , 160 , 183 ]. RW is also limited by poorly prepared physicians and misaligned expectations whilst a lack of privacy and a safe setting may precipitate physician anxiety at having their private thoughts shared [ 129 , 149 , 209 , 231 ]. RW is also compromised by a lack of faculty training [ 143 , 145 , 239 ], mentoring support [ 37 , 50 , 119 , 133 , 196 ] and personalised feedback [ 50 , 114 , 136 , 167 , 229 ] which may lead to self-censorship [ 37 , 114 , 136 , 149 , 160 , 183 ] and an unwillingness to address negative emotions arising from reflecting on difficult events [ 114 , 168 , 176 , 193 , 230 ], circumventing the reflective process [ 118 , 142 , 165 , 196 ] .

Variations in assessment styles [ 9 , 115 , 157 , 161 , 166 , 193 , 209 ], depth [ 29 , 105 , 118 , 126 , 177 , 207 ] and content [ 37 , 114 , 136 , 149 , 169 , 183 , 196 ], and pressures to comply with graded assessments [ 114 , 115 , 118 , 129 , 138 , 143 , 149 , 155 , 157 , 209 , 232 , 237 , 238 ] also undermine efforts of RW.

Domain 4. Recommendations

In the face of practice variations and challenges, there have been several recommendations on improving practice.

Boosting awareness of RW

Acknowledging the importance of a physician’s motivations, willingness and judgement [ 37 ], an RW program must acquaint physicians with information on RW’s role [ 128 ], program expectations, the form, frequency and assessments of RW and the support available to them [ 130 , 132 , 150 , 154 , 242 ] and its benefits to their professional and personal development [ 96 , 227 ] early in their training programs [ 115 , 220 , 242 , 243 ]. Physicians should also be trained on the knowledge and skills required to meet these expectations [ 1 , 37 , 135 , 151 , 160 , 215 , 244 , 245 ].

A structured program and environment

Recognising that effective RW requires a structured program. Recommendations focus on three aspects of the program design [ 132 ]. One is the need for trained faculty [ 9 , 115 , 219 , 220 , 230 , 233 , 242 , 246 ], accessible communications, protected time for RW and debriefs [ 125 ], consistent mentoring support [ 190 ] and assessment processes [ 247 ]. This will facilitate trusting relationships between physicians and faculty [ 30 , 114 , 168 , 196 , 231 , 233 ]. Two, the need to nurture an open and trusting environment where physicians will be comfortable with sharing their reflections [ 96 , 128 ], discussing their emotions, plans [ 127 , 248 ] and receiving feedback [ 9 , 37 , 79 , 114 , 119 , 128 , 135 , 173 , 176 , 179 , 190 , 237 ]. This may be possible in a decentralised classroom setting [ 163 , 190 ]. Three, RW should be part of the formal curriculum and afforded designated time. RW should be initiated early and longitudinally along the training trajectory [ 116 , 122 ].

Adjuncts to RW programs

Several approaches have been suggested to support RW programs. These include collaborative reflection, in-person discussion groups to share written reflections [ 128 , 131 , 138 , 196 , 199 , 231 , 249 ] and reflective dialogue to exchange feedback [ 119 ], use of social media [ 149 , 160 , 169 , 194 , 204 , 230 ], video-recorded observations and interactions for users to review and reflect on later [ 133 ]. Others include autobiographical reflective avenues in addition to practice-oriented reflection [ 137 ], support groups to help meditate stress or emotions triggered by reflections [ 249 ] and mixing of reflective approaches to meet different learning styles [ 169 , 250 ].

In answering the primary research question, “How is reflective writing structured, assessed and supported in medical education?” , this SSR in SEBA highlights several key insights. To begin, RW involves integrating the insights of an experience or point of reflection (henceforth ‘event’) into the physician’s currently held values, beliefs and principles (henceforth belief system). Recognising that an ‘event’ has occurred and that it needs deeper consideration highlights the physician’s sensitivity . Recognising the presence of an ‘event’ triggers an evaluation as to the urgency in which it needs to be addressed, where it stands amongst other ‘events’ to be addressed and whether the physician has the appropriate skills, support and time to address the ‘event’. This reflects the physician’s judgement . The physician must then determine whether they are willing to proceed and the ramifications involved. These include ethical, medical, clinical, administrative, organisational, sociocultural, legal and professional considerations. This is then followed by contextualising them to their own personal, psychosocial, clinical, professional, research, academic, and situational setting. Weighing these amidst competing ‘events’ underlines the import of the physician’s ability to ‘balance’ considerations. Creating and experimenting on their ‘working hypothesis’ highlights their  ‘ability’, whilst how they evaluate the effects of their experimentation and how they adapt their practice underscores their ‘ responsiveness ’ [ 2 , 5 , 74 , 75 , 77 , 78 , 85 – 87 , 90 ].

The concepts of ‘ sensitivity’, ‘judgement’, ‘willingness’, ‘balance’, ‘ability’ and ‘responsiveness’ spotlight environmental and physician-related factors. These include the physician’s motivations, knowledge, skills, attitudes, competencies, working style, needs, availabilities, timelines, and their various medical, clinical, administrative, organisational, sociocultural, legal, professional, personal, psychosocial, clinical, research, academic and situational experiences. It also underlines the role played by the physician’s beliefs, moral values, ethical principles, familial mores, cultural norms, attitudes, thoughts, decisional preferences, roles and responsibilities. The environmental-related factors include the influence of the curriculum, the culture, structure, format, assessment and feedback of the RW process and the program it is situated in. Together, the physician and their environmental factors not only frame RW as a sociocultural construct necessitating holistic review but also underscore the need for longitudinal examination of its effects. This need for holistic and longitudinal appraisal of RW is foregrounded by the experimentations surrounding the ‘working hypothesis’ [ 2 , 5 , 72 , 74 , 77 , 84 – 86 , 90 ]. In turn, experimentations and their effects affirm the notion of regular use of RW and reiterate the need for longitudinal reflective relationships that provide guidance, mentoring and feedback [ 87 , 90 ]. These considerations set the stage for the proffering of a new conceptual model of RW.

To begin, the Krishna Model of Reflective Writing (Fig.  3 ) builds on the Krishna-Pisupati Model [ 10 ] used to describe evaluations of professional identity formation (PIF) [ 8 , 10 , 24 , 251 ]. Evidenced in studies of how physicians cope with death and dying patients, moral distress and dignity-centered care [ 46 , 54 ], the Krishna-Pisupati Model suggests that the physician’s belief system is informed by their self-concepts of personhood and identity. This is effectively characterised by the Ring Theory of Personhood (RToP) [ 11 ].

Krishna Model of Reflective Writing

The Krishna Model of RW posits that the RToP is able to encapsulate various aspects of the physician’s belief system. The Innate Ring which represents the innermost ring of the four concentric rings depicting the RToP is derived from currently held spiritual, religious, theist, moral and ethical values, beliefs and principles [ 13 , 51 , 53 , 252 ]. Encapsulating the Innate Ring is the Individual Ring. The Individual Ring’s belief system is derived from the physician’s thoughts, conduct, biases, narratives, personality, decision-making processes and other facets of conscious function which together inform the physician’s Individual Identity [ 13 , 51 , 53 , 252 ]. The Relational Ring is shaped by the values, beliefs and principles governing the physician’s personal and important relationships [ 13 , 51 , 53 , 252 ]. The Societal Ring, the outermost ring of the RToP is shaped by regnant societal, religious, professional and legal expectations, values, beliefs and principles which inform their interactions with colleagues and acquaintances [ 13 , 51 , 53 , 252 ]. Adoption of the RToP to depict this belief system not only acknowledges the varied aspects and influences that shape the physician’s identity but that the belief system evolves as the physician’s environment, narrative, context and relationships change.

The environmental factors influencing the belief system include the support structures used to facilitate reflections such as appropriate protected time, a consistent format for RW, a structured assessment program, a safe environment, longitudinal support, timely feedback and trained faculty. The Krishna Model of RW also recognises the importance of the relationships which advocate for the physician and proffer the physician with coaching, role modelling, supervision, networking opportunities, teaching, tutoring, career advice, sponsorship and feedback upon the RW process. Of particular importance is the relationship between physician and faculty (henceforth reflective relationship). The reflective relationship facilitates the provision of personalised, appropriate, holistic, and frank communications and support. This allows the reflective relationship to support the physician as they deploy and experiment with their ‘working hypothesis’. As a result, the Krishna Model of RW focuses on the dyadic reflective relationship and acknowledges that there are wider influences beyond this dyad that shape the RW process. This includes the wider curriculum, clinical, organisational, social, professional and legal considerations within specific practice settings and other faculty and program-related factors. Important to note, is that when an ‘event’ triggers ‘ sensitivity’, ‘judgement’, ‘willingness’, ‘balance’, ‘ability’ and ‘responsiveness’,  the process of creating and experimenting with a ‘working hypothesis' and adapting one's belief system is also shaped by the physician’s narratives, context, environment and relationships. 

In answering its secondary question, “ How might a reflective writing program in medical education be structured? ”, the data suggests that an RW program ought to be designed with due focus on the various factors influencing the physician's belief system, their  ‘sensitivity’, ‘judgement’, ‘willingness’, ‘balance’, ‘ability’ and ‘responsiveness’, and their creation and experimentation with their ‘working hypothesis’. These will be termed the ‘physician's reactions’ . The design of the RW program ought to consider the following factors:

• Recognising that the physician’s notion of ‘ sensitivity’, ‘judgement’, ‘willingness’, ‘balance’, ‘ability’ and ‘responsiveness’ is influenced by their experience, skills, knowledge, attitude and motivations, physicians recruited to the RW program should be carefully evaluated
• To align expectations, the physician should be introduced to the benefits and role of RW in their personal and professional development
• The ethos, frequency, goals and format of the reflection and assessment methods should be clearly articulated to the physician [ 253 ]
• The physician should be provided with the knowledge, skills and mentoring support necessary to meet expectations [ 76 , 79 , 105 , 123 , 124 , 254 , 255 ]
• Training and support must also be personalised
• Recognising that the physician’s academic, personal, research, administrative, clinical, professional, sociocultural and practice context will change, the structure, approach, assessment and support provided must be flexible and responsive
• The communications platform should be easily accessible and robust to attend to the individual needs of the physician in a timely and appropriate manner
• The program must support diversity [ 207 ]
• The reflective relationship is shaped by the culture and structure of the environment in which the program is hosted in
• The RW programs must be hosted within a formal structured curriculum, supported and overseen by a host organisation which is able to integrate the program into regnant educational and assessment processes [ 9 , 115 , 219 , 220 , 230 , 233 , 242 , 246 ]
• The faculty must be trained and provided access to counselling, mindfulness meditation and stress management programs [ 249 ]
• The faculty must support the development of the physician’s metacognitive skills [ 256 – 259 ], and should create a platform that facilitates community-centered learning [ 173 , 176 ], structured, timely, personalised open feedback [ 119 , 135 , 179 , 237 ] and support [ 128 , 131 , 138 , 196 , 199 , 231 , 249 ]
• The faculty must be responsive to changes and provide appropriate personal, educational and professional support and adaptations to the assessment process when required [ 207 ]
• To facilitate the development of effective reflective relationships, a consistent faculty member should work with the physician and build a longitudinal trusting, open and supportive reflective relationship
• The evolving nature of the various structures and influences upon the RW process underscores the need for longitudinal assessment and support
• The physician must be provided with timely, appropriate and personalised training and feedback
• The program’s structure and oversight must also be flexible and responsive
• There must be accessible longitudinal mentoring support
• The format and assessment of RW must account for growing experience and competencies as well as changing motivations and priorities
• Whilst social media may be employed to widen sharing [ 149 , 155 , 160 , 169 , 194 ], privacy must be maintained [ 120 , 189 ]

On assessment

• Assessment rubrics should be used to guide the training of faculty, education of physicians and guidance of reflections [ 37 , 116 – 122 ]
• Assessments ought to take a longitudinal perspective to track the physician's progress [ 116 , 122 ]

Based on the results from this SSR in SEBA, we forward a guide catering to novice reflective practitioners (Additional file  1 ).

Limitations

This SSR in SEBA suggests that, amidst the dearth of rigorous quantitative and qualitative studies in RW and in the presence of diverse practices, approaches and settings, conclusions may not be easily drawn. Extrapolations of findings are also hindered by evidence that appraisals of RW remain largely reliant upon single time point self-reported outcomes and satisfaction surveys.

This SSR in SEBA highlights a new model for RW that requires clinical validation. However, whilst still not clinically proven, the model sketches a picture of RW’s role in PIF and the impact of reflective processes on PIF demands further study. As we look forward to engaging in this area of study, we believe further research into the longer-term effects of RW and its potential place in portfolios to guide and assess the development of physicians must be forthcoming.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to dedicate this paper to the late Dr. S Radha Krishna and A/Prof Cynthia Goh whose advice and ideas were integral to the success of this review and Thondy and Maia Olivia whose lives continue to inspire us.

The authors would also like to thank the anonymous reviewers, Dr. Ruaraidh Hill and Dr. Stephen Mason for their helpful comments which greatly enhanced this manuscript.

Abbreviations

Authors’ contributions

All authors were involved in data curation, formal analysis, investigation, preparing the original draft of the manuscript as well as reviewing and editing the manuscript. All authors have read and approved the manuscript.

No funding was received for this review.

Availability of data and materials

Declarations.

All authors have no competing interests for this review.

Publisher’s Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

• DOI: 10.1134/S1022795407080157
• Corpus ID: 7608680

The gene pool of the Belgorod oblast population: II. “Family name portraits” in groups of districts with different degrees of subdivision and the role of migrations in their formation

• I. Sorokina , M. Churnosov , E. Balanovska
• Published in Russian Journal of Genetics 1 August 2007
• Geography, Sociology

4 Citations

The gene pool of the belgorod oblast population: description of the “genetic landscape” of 22 district populations.

• Highly Influenced

Population-Genetic Structure of the Residents of Central Russia

Analysis of the level of population endogamia as the basis of population-genetic and medical-genetic studies, polymorphisms of candidate genes, associated with the risk of pre-eclampsia, 4 references, the gene pool of the belgorod oblast population: i. differentiation of all district populations based on anthroponymic data, the russian gene pool: gene geography of surnames, use of family names to study dynamic factors of population structure, measurement of inbreeding from the frequency of marriages between persons of the same surname., related papers.

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Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, January 24, 2024

Nicole Wolkov, Angelica Evans, Grace Mappes, Karolina Hird, George Barros, and Frederick W. Kagan

January 24, 2024, 8:20pm ET

Click here to see ISW’s interactive map of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. This map is updated daily alongside the static maps present in this report.

Click here to see ISW’s 3D control of terrain topographic map of Ukraine. Use of a computer (not a mobile device) is strongly recommended for using this data-heavy tool.

Click here to access ISW’s archive of interactive time-lapse maps of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. These maps complement the static control-of-terrain map that ISW produces daily by showing a dynamic frontline. ISW will update this time-lapse map archive monthly.

Note: The data cut-off for this product was 1:30pm ET on January 24. ISW will cover subsequent reports in the January 25 Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment.

A Russian Il-76 military transport aircraft crashed in Belgorod Oblast on January 24.  Geolocated footage posted by various Russian sources shows the Il-76 crashing in Yablonovo, Belgorod Oblast (about 50km northeast of Belgorod City).[1] The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) claimed that the Il-76 was carrying 65 Ukrainian prisoners of war (POWs) and was en route to a pre-arranged POW exchange at the Kolotylivka border-crossing checkpoint between Russia and Ukraine.[2] The Russian MoD accused Ukraine of hitting the plane with two unspecified missiles, killing the 65 POWs, six Russian crew members, and three Russian military personnel.[3] Senior Russian propagandist and Editor-in-Chief of state-controlled outlet  RT  Margarita Simonyan published a list of the names of the Ukrainian POWs supposedly on the flight, but several Russian and Ukrainian sources noted that at least one of the alleged POWs had already been exchanged in a previous POW swap on January 3.[4] Ukrainian officials, including Ukrainian Human Rights Commissioner Dmytro Lubinets and the Ukrainian Coordinating Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War, immediately responded to the incident by emphasizing that Ukraine is investigating the crash and urged audiences not to draw premature conclusions about the crash based on unconfirmed reporting.[5] Ukrainian Main Military Intelligence Directorate (GUR) Spokesperson Andriy Yusov confirmed that a POW exchange was scheduled to take place on January 24 but that the exchange was no longer taking place and that GUR is investigating the circumstances of the crash.[6] GUR later stated that Ukraine “does not have reliable and comprehensive information about who exactly was on board the plane.”[7] The Ukrainian General Staff did not directly respond to the incident but emphasized that Russia has conducted 19 missile strikes against Kharkiv Oblast from Belgorod Oblast over the past week and stressed that Ukraine “will continue to take measures to destroy means of delivery” and “control the airspace” in the Kharkiv-Belgorod border area.[8] Ukrainian outlet  Ukrainska Pravda,  citing unspecified sources in the Ukrainian Armed Forces, claimed that the Il-76 was transporting S-300 air-defense missiles, which Russian forces frequently use in strikes against ground targets in Kharkiv Oblast.[9] Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky stated in his nightly address on January 24 that Ukraine is working to establish “all clear facts” and that GUR is looking into “the fate of all prisoners.”  ISW offers no assessment of the circumstances of the Il-76 crash at this time and cannot independently verify Russian or Ukrainian statements on the incident.

Russian information space actors are seizing on the Il-76 crash to sow domestic discontent in Ukraine and undermine Western will to continue giving military support to Ukraine.  Russian State Duma Defense Committee Chairperson Andrei Kartapolov claimed that Ukraine deliberately shot down the Il-76 knowing that it contained Ukrainian POWs and called for all POW exchanges to pause indefinitely.[10] Deputy Chairperson of the Russian Security Council Dmitry Medvedev accused Ukrainian “internal political struggles” of contributing to the crash.[11] Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who is currently in New York for UN Security Council (UNSC) meetings, called for an urgent UNSC meeting to address the crash and accused Ukraine of terrorism.[12] Such Russian accusations are meant in part to sow discontent in Ukraine and galvanize distrust of the Ukrainian government, which is consistent with several other Russian information efforts aimed at weakening Ukraine domestically.[13] POW exchanges are a sensitive issue in both Russia and Ukraine, and rhetorical invocations of POWs predictably elicit emotional responses. Russian officials additionally made unsubstantiated claims that Ukraine struck the Il-76 with US- or German-provided missile systems, likely in an attempt to discourage Ukraine’s Western partners from providing Ukraine with critical air defense systems necessary for Ukraine’s continued defense.[14]

Russian law enforcement authorities are codifying xenophobic profiling methods suggesting that migrants are predisposed to criminal activity against the backdrop of continued conflicts between Russian citizens and naturalized migrants.  Russian outlet  RTVI  reported on January 24 that the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) published a “criminogenic index” detailing which countries’ migrants committed the most crimes in Russia in response to a request from Russian State Duma Deputy Mikhail Matveev to determine if “immigrants from certain countries have criminal characteristics.”[15] The MVD report found that crimes committed by migrants from “neighboring countries” declined between 2013 and 2019 but have increased since 2019.[16] The MVD report also found that citizens of Uzbekistan committed 40 percent of all crimes committed by foreigners from “neighboring countries” between January 2022 and May 2023. Uzbek citizens likely account for the highest percentage of crimes because there are more migrants from Uzbekistan in Russia than migrants from other Central Asian and South Caucasus countries.[17] Matveev stated that the MVD’s report excludes migrants with naturalized Russian citizenship, implying that migrants commit more crimes than reflected in the MVD’s official findings.[18] Russian Investigative Committee Head Alexander Bastrykin similarly claimed in September 2023 that the number of serious crimes that foreign citizens committed in Russia increased by 32 percent from 2022 to 2023.[19] Russian authorities’ deliberate attempts to highlight migrant crimes and portray migrants as a danger to Russian society are likely part of an ongoing effort to appease the pro-war Russian ultranationalist community that also routinely expresses xenophobia toward migrant and diaspora communities and to coerce migrants into Russian military service by limiting work opportunities in Russia.

Sakha Republic Head Aisen Nikolaev and other Russian sources claimed that unspecified foreign actors may have incited protests in Yakutsk, Sakha Republic, after a naturalized citizen from Tajikistan allegedly murdered a Russian citizen.[20] Nikolaev suggested that foreign agents may have encouraged these protests to incite conflict and divide Russian society.[21] Nikolaev instructed Sakha Republic authorities to monitor migrants and investigate the circumstances under which the murder suspect obtained Russian citizenship.[22] Nikolaev’s response of both condemning the protests as externally conceived and maintaining a harsh stance against a naturalized Russian citizen likely reflects the wider struggle Russian ultranationalists continue to face in attempting to portray non-ethnic Russian diaspora communities as an internal threat to Russian society while the Kremlin continues to portray Russia as a harmonious multiethnic society.

The Ukrainian Main Military Intelligence Directorate (GUR) reported that Ukrainian hackers recently conducted cyberattacks on Russian intelligence and communications infrastructure.  The GUR reported on January 24 that Ukrainian hackers conducted a successful cyberattack against the Russian “Planet” Scientific Research Center of Space Hydrometeorology's Far East branch, specifically targeting the center’s database, servers, and supercomputers.[23] The GUR reported that the attack destroyed a database that received and processed satellite data and contributed to products for over 50 Russian government agencies, including the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD), General Staff, and Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD). The GUR noted that the database contained two petabytes (two million gigabytes) of data potentially worth over $10 million. The GUR reported that the attack also rendered the center’s supercomputers inoperable and unable to be completely restored and brought down the center’s servers and physical infrastructure. The GUR stated that the attack will leave dozens of unspecified strategic defense companies without “critically important information” for a long time. The GUR reported on January 23 that unspecified “cyber volunteers” attacked Russian internet provider Akado-telecom, which services the Russian Presidential Administration, Federal Security Service (FSB), Federal Protective Service, Moscow Oblast governing bodies, Russian state-owned bank Sberbank, and others, causing a large-scale internet failure on January 21 and 22.[24]

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg stated during the 18th Ukraine Defense Contact Group at Ramstein Air Base in Germany that recent Russian missile strikes against Ukraine underscore the need to strengthen Ukraine’s air defenses.  Stoltenberg noted on January 23 that NATO has already transferred a variety of air defense systems to Ukraine, including Patriots, IRIS-T, and NASAMS, and that NATO is supplying Ukraine with additional demining equipment, winter equipment, and fuel as part of its Comprehensive Assistance Package.[25] Ukrainian Ministry of Defense (MoD) Press and Information Department Head Illarion Pavlyuk stated that Ukrainian and Western officials discussed increasing the supply of long-range weapons to Ukraine, including adapting Western anti-aircraft missiles to Soviet-era launch platforms and expanding the production and supply of ammunition and artillery systems to Ukraine.[26] ISW previously assessed that Russian forces likely continue to experiment with new strike packages with different means of penetrating Ukrainian air defenses and to pressure Ukrainian air defense deployments following recent Ukrainian adaptations to prior Russian strike packages.[27] ISW continues to assess that Western provisions of air defense systems and missiles remain crucial in defending Ukraine‘s growing defense industrial base (DIB) against Russian strikes.[28]

Russian and Chadian officials met in Moscow on January 24, suggesting that Chad may be the Kremlin’s next target among former French colonies on the African continent.  Russian President Vladimir Putin met with Chadian junta leader Mahamat Idriss Deby to discuss counterterrorism efforts in Chad and announced an upcoming agreement expanding Russian–Chadian cooperation.[29] Russian Deputy Defense Ministers Colonel General Alexander Fomin and Colonel General Yunus-Bek Yevkurov also met with Chadian Minister of the Armed Forces, Veterans Affairs, and War Victims Dago Yacouba to discuss bilateral military and military-technical cooperation and regional security.[30] Fomin and Yevkurov previously met with Nigerien National Defense Minister Major General Saliufou Modi.[31] ISW previously reported that Russia and the Central African Republic (CAR) are in negotiations to construct a Russian military base in CAR.[32] Russia appears to be attempting to expand its involvement with and influence on authoritarian regimes in western and central Africa, particularly focusing on former French colonies in the Sahel such as Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger.

The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) controlled Africa Corps published photos on January 24 claiming to show Africa Corps personnel arriving in Burkina Faso. [33]  The Africa Corps claimed that 100 Russian personnel will perform executive protection and conduct counterterrorism operations in Burkina Faso and that another 200 personnel will arrive in the country in the near future.[34] ISW previously reported that the Kremlin is likely attempting to expand Russia’s influence in Africa through the Russian MoD and the MoD-controlled Africa Corps and assessed that the Kremlin is likely attempting to expand the Africa Corps’ operations in Niger, Burkina Faso, and Mali.[35] The Kremlin may also eventually set conditions to expand the Africa Corps’ operations in Chad, given January 24 Russian–Chadian government meetings.

NATO announced on January 24 that the Steadfast Defender 2024 exercises have started and will run until May 31, 2024. [36]   NATO reported that the exercises will occur in the High North, Central Europe, and Eastern Europe.[37] ISW continues to assess that Russia will attempt to misrepresent these exercises as a threat against Russia despite the exercises’ defensive nature in response to real Russian aggression against Ukraine and overt Russian threats to NATO states.[38]

Key Takeaways:

• A Russian Il-76 military transport aircraft crashed in Belgorod Oblast on January 24.
• Russian information space actors are seizing on the Il-76 crash to sow domestic discontent in Ukraine and undermine Western will to continue giving military support to Ukraine.
• Russian law enforcement authorities are codifying xenophobic profiling methods suggesting that migrants are predisposed to criminal activity against the backdrop of continued conflicts between Russian citizens and naturalized migrants.
• The Ukrainian Main Military Intelligence Directorate (GUR) reported that Ukrainian hackers recently conducted cyberattacks on Russian intelligence and communications infrastructure.
• NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg stated during the 18th Ukraine Defense Contact Group at Ramstein Air Base in Germany that recent Russian missile strikes against Ukraine underscore the need to strengthen Ukraine’s air defenses.
• Russian and Chadian officials met in Moscow on January 24, suggesting that Chad may be the Kremlin’s next target among former French colonies on the African continent.
• The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) controlled Africa Corps published photos on January 24 claiming to show Africa Corps personnel arriving in Burkina Faso.
• NATO announced on January 24 that the Steadfast Defender 2024 exercises have started and will run until May 31, 2024.
• Positional engagements continued throughout the theater.
• Chechen Republic Head Ramzan Kadyrov continues efforts to bolster the reputation of Chechen forces.
• Russian occupation authorities are setting conditions to coerce voter turnout in the upcoming March 2024 presidential elections.

We do not report in detail on Russian war crimes because these activities are well-covered in Western media and do not directly affect the military operations we are assessing and forecasting. We will continue to evaluate and report on the effects of these criminal activities on the Ukrainian military and the Ukrainian population and specifically on combat in Ukrainian urban areas. We utterly condemn Russian violations of the laws of armed conflict and the Geneva Conventions and crimes against humanity even though we do not describe them in these reports.

• Russian Main Effort – Eastern Ukraine (comprised of two subordinate main efforts)
• Russian Subordinate Main Effort #1 – Capture the remainder of Luhansk Oblast and push westward into eastern Kharkiv Oblast and encircle northern Donetsk Oblast
• Russian Subordinate Main Effort #2 – Capture the entirety of Donetsk Oblast
• Russian Supporting Effort – Southern Axis
• Russian Mobilization and Force Generation Efforts
• Russian Technological Adaptations
• Ukrainian Defense Industrial Base Efforts
• Activities in Russian-Occupied Areas

Russian Information Operations and Narratives

• Significant Activity in Belarus

Russian Main Effort – Eastern Ukraine

Russian Subordinate Main Effort #1 – Luhansk Oblast  (Russian objective: Capture the remainder of Luhansk Oblast and push westward into eastern Kharkiv Oblast and northern Donetsk Oblast)

Ukrainian Joint Forces Commander Lieutenant General Serhiy Nayev reported on January 24 that Russian sabotage groups attempted to cross the international border between Russia and Ukraine, likely referring to Russian claims that Russian forces captured Pletenivka, Kharkiv Oblast, less than two kilometers from the Kharkiv-Belgorod Oblast international border, on January 23.[39] A prominent Kremlin-affiliated Russian milblogger amplified claims that characterized the January 23 Russian attack on Pletenivka as a “daring raid“ after which Russian forces withdrew to their original positions.[40] ISW has not observed visual evidence supporting the claim that Russian forces captured Pletenivka and continues to assess that Russian forces may conduct small-scale, tactical-level attacks across the Belgorod-Kharkiv Oblast border to fix and divert Ukrainian forces away from the Kupyansk direction.[41]

Russian forces reportedly advanced in the Kupyansk direction on January 24, but there were no confirmed changes to the frontline in this area. Russian milbloggers claimed that Russian forces advanced to Berestove and along the P07 Svatove-Kupyansk highway toward Tabaivka (both northwest of Svatove), although ISW has not observed visual confirmation of these claims.[42] Russian and Ukrainian sources stated that positional engagements continued northeast of Kupyansk near Synkivka.[43] Elements of the 1st Guards Tank Army (Western Military District) reportedly continue to operate in the Kupyansk direction.[44]

Positional engagements continued in the Lyman direction on January 24, but there were no confirmed changes in this area. Russian and Ukrainian sources stated that positional engagements continued northwest of Kreminna near Makiivka, Yampolivka, and Terny; west of Kreminna near Torske; southwest of Kreminna in the Serebryanske forest area and Dibrova; and south of Kreminna near Hryhorivka (the Hryhorivka 15km southwest of Kreminna and not the one northwest of Bakhmut).[45]

Russian Subordinate Main Effort #2 – Donetsk Oblast  (Russian objective: Capture the entirety of Donetsk Oblast, the claimed territory of Russia’s proxies in Donbas)

Positional fighting continued near Bakhmut on January 24, but there were no confirmed changes to the frontline in this area. Russian milbloggers claimed that Russian forces advanced west of Bakhmut near Ivanivske and from Khromove, southwest of Bakhmut near Klishchiivka, although ISW has not observed visual evidence of these claims.[46] Russian and Ukrainian sources stated that positional fighting continued northeast of Bakhmut near Bilohorivka and from Vesele towards Vyiimka and Spirne; north of Bakhmut near Vasyukivka; northwest of Bakhmut near Bohdanivka; west of Bakhmut near Ivanivske; southwest of Bakhmut near Klishchiivka; and northwest of Horlivka near Shumy.[47] Elements of the Russian 102nd Motorized Rifle Regiment (150th Motorized Rifle Division, 8th Guards Combined Arms Army, Southern Military District) and the 85th Separate Motorized Rifle Brigade (2nd Luhansk People’s Republic [LNR] Army Corps) are reportedly operating near Bakhmut, and elements of the Russian 200th Separate Motorized Rifle Brigade (Northern Fleet) are reportedly operating on Bakhmut’s northern flank.[48]

Positional fighting continued near Avdiivka on January 24, but there were no confirmed changes to the frontline in this area. A prominent Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces marginally advanced southwest of Avdiivka near Pervomaiske, although ISW has not observed visual evidence of this claim.[49] Ukrainian and Russian sources stated that positional fighting continues northwest of Avdiivka near Novobakhmutivka and Stepove; in southeastern Avdiivka near the “Tsarska Okhota” restaurant area; west of Avdiivka near Sieverne and Tonenke; and southwest of Avdiivka near Vodyane, Pervomaiske, and Nevelske.[50] Ukraine-based open-source organization Frontelligence Insight reported that Russian shelling has destroyed most of the buildings in Avdiivka‘s southeastern residential area and that Russian forces continue to shell northwest of Avdiivka near Stepove, Berdychi, Novobakhmutivka, and Novokalynove.[51] Frontelligence Insight reported that the situation on Avdiivka’s flanks is more stable, allowing Ukrainian forces to continue defending Avdiivka in the face of ongoing shell and manpower shortages.[52] Russian milbloggers claimed that the Russian “Veterany” Reconnaissance and Assault Brigade (Volunteer Assault Corps) participated in assaults in the “Tsarska Okhota” area on January 17, using underground tunnels to penetrate the area.[53]

Positional fighting continued west and southwest of Donetsk City, but there were no confirmed changes to the frontline in this area. Russian milbloggers claimed that Russian forces marginally advanced near Heorhiivka (west of Donetsk City) but ISW has not observed evidence of this claim.[54] Ukrainian and Russian sources stated that there were positional engagements west of Donetsk City near Heorhiivka and southwest of Donetsk City near Novomykhailivka.[55] Russian milbloggers claimed that Russian forces are attempting to bypass Novomykhailivka from the south to attack the Vuhledar area.[56] Elements of the Russian 5th Motorized Rifle Brigade (1st Donetsk People’s Republic [DNR] Army Corps) are reportedly operating near the Trudovska mine area near Marinka (west of Donetsk City).[57]

Russian Supporting Effort – Southern Axis  (Russian objective: Maintain frontline positions and secure rear areas against Ukrainian strikes)

Positional fighting continued in the Donetsk-Zaporizhia Oblast border area on January 24, but there were no confirmed changes to the frontline in this area. Russian and Ukrainian sources reported positional fighting south of Velyka Novosilka near Urozhaine and north of Staromayorske and southeast of Velyka Novosilka near Novodonetske and east of Zolota Nyva.[58] Limited positional fighting also continued south of Chervone (southeast of Hulyaipole).[59]

Positional fighting continued in western Zaporizhia Oblast on January 24, but there were no confirmed changes to the frontline. Positional fighting continued near Robotyne, south of Robotyne near Novoprokopivka, and east of Robotyne near Verbove.[60]

Positional fighting continued on the east (left) bank of Kherson Oblast near Krynky on January 24, but there were no confirmed changes to the front in this area.[61] The Russian “Aksai” detachment, possibly of the volunteer “Don” Cossack Brigade, is reportedly operating on the Kinburn Peninsula in occupied Kherson Oblast.[62]

Crimean-based Ukrainian partisan group “Atesh” reported on January 24 that Russian forces redeployed a Ropucha class large landing ship to Hrafska Bay in Sevastopol.[63] Atesh reported that Russian forces camouflaged the ship and will likely deploy it to the Black Sea for combat missions.

Russian Mobilization and Force Generation Efforts  (Russian objective: Expand combat power without conducting general mobilization)

Chechen Republic Head Ramzan Kadyrov continues efforts to bolster the reputation of Chechen forces. Kadyrov posted footage on January 23 reportedly showing the “Baysangur Benoyevsky” Chechen Rosgvardia battalion and the “Sheikh Mansur” battalion completing training at the Russian Spetsnaz University in Gudermes, Chechnya.[64] Kadyrov claimed that Spetsnaz instructors worked with the Chechen battalions for three months and trained them in tactical fire, machine gun operation, combat medicine, and drone operation. Kadyrov also posted footage of the “Sheikh Mansur” battalion receiving Niva SUVs from the Chechen Regional Public Fund.[65] Kadyrov’s sixteen-year-old son Adam Kadyrov, who “oversees” the “Sheikh Mansur” battalion, accepted the Niva SUVs.[66] The conduct of Chechen fighters in Ukraine has recently drawn criticism from the Russian information space, as ISW reported on January 22.[67] Kadyrov likely continues to amplify the skill, training, and equipment of Chechen formations to distract from criticism of Chechen forces and to bolster his own reputation.

Russian Technological Adaptations  (Russian objective: Introduce technological innovations to optimize systems for use in Ukraine)

Russia’s defense industrial base (DIB) continues attempting to adapt to Ukraine’s increased use of drones. Russian media reported on January 23 that Russia is completing tests of anti-drone “mini-missiles” that Russian forces will fire using modernized Pantsir-SM air defense systems to protect critical military assets against Ukrainian drone and quadcopter strikes.[68] The “mini-missiles” are reportedly much smaller than standard Pantsir missiles, allowing Russian forces to equip Pantsir-mounted combat vehicles with 48 of the smaller missiles as opposed to the typical 12 standard-sized missiles.[69]

Ukrainian Defense Industrial Efforts   (Ukrainian objective: Develop its defense industrial base to become more self-sufficient in cooperation with US, European, and international partners)

Several countries announced new military aid packages to Ukraine following the 18th Ukraine Defense Contact Group at Ramstein Air Base in Germany on January 23. Canadian Defense Minister Bill Blair announced that Canada will provide 10 Zodiac multi-purpose boats worth $20 million CAD (about $14.7 million) to Ukraine and provide instructors and aircraft to support Ukrainian soldiers training on F-16 fighter jets.[70] German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius announced that Germany will provide six multipurpose Sea King Mk41 helicopters to Ukraine.[71] The Danish Ministry of Defense (MoD) announced on January 24 that Denmark will contribute 91 million Danish kroner (about $13.3 million) to support the Ukrainian MoD and military cyber defense as part of the IT coalition for Ukraine.[72] UK Ambassador to Ukraine Martin Harris stated on January 23 that the recently announced 200 million GBP (about $254 million) of UK military assistance allocated for producing and procuring drones will go toward reconnaissance, long-range, and first-person view (FPV) drone production in Ukraine and the UK.[73]

Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Dmytro Klimenkov stated on January 24 that the Ukrainian MoD is implementing new weapons and equipment procurement standards in accordance with NATO standards.[74] Klimenkov also reported that Ukraine is creating supervisory councils to oversee the Ukrainian State Operator of the Rear and Defense Procurement Agency, both of which conduct weapons and equipment procurement.[75]

Activities in Russian-occupied areas  (Russian objective: Consolidate administrative control of annexed areas; forcibly integrate Ukrainian citizens into Russian sociocultural, economic, military, and governance systems)

Russian occupation authorities are setting conditions to coerce voter turnout in the upcoming March 2024 presidential elections. Zaporizhia Oblast occupation election commission chairperson Galina Katyushchenko announced on January 24 that residents of occupied Zaporizhia Oblast will be able to vote in the presidential elections with Ukrainian passports.[76] Katyushchenko’s announcement is notable given that Russian occupation authorities have recently intensified passportization efforts in occupied areas in preparation for the upcoming presidential elections.[77] Russian occupation authorities may face greater resistance to passportization efforts than anticipated and may be softening the Russian passport requirement for the election to encourage Ukrainian passport holders to vote. The Kremlin likely seeks to generate high voter turnout in occupied Ukraine in order to create a guise of widespread local legitimacy of the Russian occupation of Ukraine and likely is realizing that authorities will have to lower the barriers to voting in order to accomplish the desired voter turnout.

The European Union (EU) Foreign Policy Service published a report on Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (FIMI) on January 23 stating that Ukraine was the most-targeted country of all information attacks in 2023.[78] The EU Foreign Policy report also noted that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is one of the most targeted individuals in 2023. EU High Representative Josep Borrell stated that rapid action is essential to preventing manipulated information from spreading and that it must be debunked before it goes viral and admonished Russia’s role in facilitating information operation attacks against Ukraine.[79]

Kremlin mouthpieces continue to attack post-Soviet states for enacting perceived anti-Russia policies. Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs Spokesperson Maria Zakharova claimed that Bulgaria is trying to “rewrite history” by editing textbooks that allegedly “generate gratitude towards Russia.”[80] A Kremlin-affiliated milblogger accused a Kazakh media outlet of generating anti-Russian sentiment by discussing the Kazakh famine of 1930 to 1933 and describing the famine as a “genocide” at the behest of Western actors.[81]

A prominent, Kremlin affiliated milblogger continued to attack Armenia for rejecting the Russian narrative attempting to portray Russia as the only mediator capable of creating a lasting peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan.[82]

Significant Activity in Belarus  (Russian efforts to increase its military presence in Belarus and further integrate Belarus into Russian-favorable frameworks and Wagner Group activity in Belarus)

Kremlin newswire  TASS  reported on January 24 that the deputy head of the Belarusian General Staff Military Academy’s Faculty, Colonel Andrei Bogodel, stated that Belarus’ updated military doctrine identifies the Baltic states, Poland, the US, Ukraine, and NATO as “unfriendly countries and organizations" to Belarus.[83]

The Belarusian Ministry of Defense (MoD) reported on January 24 that elements of the Belarusian 6th Separate Guards Mechanized Brigade (Western Operational Command) participated in fire training exercises at the Gozhsky Training Ground in Grodno, Belarus, and that elements of the 120th Guards Mechanized Brigade conducted training exercises at the 227th Combined Arms Training Ground in Borisov, Belarus.[84]

Note: ISW does not receive any classified material from any source, uses only publicly available information, and draws extensively on Russian, Ukrainian, and Western reporting and social media as well as commercially available satellite imagery and other geospatial data as the basis for these reports. References to all sources used are provided in the endnotes of each update.

[1] https://t.me/bbcrussian/59669 ; https://t.me/bbcrussian/59670; https://t.me/breakingmash/51124 ; https://t.me/dva_majors/33262; https://twitter.com/blinzka/status/1750087623203307623; https://twitter.com/bayraktar_1love/status/1750080611799245200; https://twitter.com/bayraktar_1love/status/1750081196527169618; https://twitter.com/bayraktar_1love/status/1750082034259652738; https://twitter.com/bayraktar_1love/status/1750084319408721956; https://twitter.com/bayraktar_1love/status/1750086115934241003; https://twitter.com/bayraktar_1love/status/1750088949807431879; https://twitter.com/bayraktar_1love/status/1750089662587359684; https://twitter.com/bayraktar_1love/status/1750091046791548980; https://twitter.com/666_mancer/status/1750097034542010805; https://twitter.com/GirkinGirkin/status/1750085267073929291;  https://t.me/milinfolive/114920 ; https://t.me/milinfolive/114919; https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1750120406155935909; https://t.me/rybar/56312 ; https://t.me/voenkorKotenok/53473 ; https://t.me/voenkorKotenok/53475

[2] https://t.me/mod_russia/34967 ; https://t.me/mod_russia/34968; https://t.me/tass_agency/227807 ; https://t.me/MID_Russia/34372; https://t.me/vrogov/13980; https://t.me/SolovievLive/236297

[3] https://t.me/mod_russia/34967 ; https://t.me/mod_russia/34968; https://t.me/tass_agency/227807 ; https://t.me/MID_Russia/34372; https://t.me/vrogov/13980; https://t.me/SolovievLive/236297

[4] https://t.me/margaritasimonyan/13603 ; https://t.me/dva_majors/33275; https://t.me/wargonzo/17776 ; https://t.me/RVvoenkor/60891; https://x.com/666_mancer/status/1750141587328282754?s=20 ; https://www.bbc.com/russian/articles/cge7yvjw07do ; https://t.me/bletgorod/11106 ; https://t.me/voin_dv/6733 ; https://t.me/prigozhin_2023_tg/7042 ; https://t.me/voenkorKotenok/53487 ; https://t.me/sashakots/44645 ; https://t.me/milinfolive/114934 ; https://t.me/epoddubny/18915; https://t.me/svobodnieslova/3869 ; https://wartears dot org/record/290549

[5] https://t.me/dmytro_lubinetzs/4780; https://t.me/Koord_shtab/3935

[6] https://www.radiosvoboda dot org/a/news-hur-obmin-polonenymy/32789955.html

[7] https://t.me/DIUkraine/3356

[8] https://www.facebook.com/GeneralStaff.ua/posts/pfbid02d3aJKUYjbbWyU9S1a7FC4W3VWn71v5vFJxGbpZNApYRdrwJ1ti81NDTCQPmN4y7Jl

[9] https://www.pravda.com dot ua/rus/news/2024/01/24/7438639/

[10] https://t.me/shot_shot/61745 ; https://t.me/dva_majors/33267 ; https://t.me/RVvoenkor/60878 ; https://t.me/voenkorKotenok/53480 https://t.me/notes_veterans/15185 ; https://t.me/russkiy_opolchenec/39438

[11] https://t.me/medvedev_telegram/439; https://t.me/vrogov/13979

[12] https://meduza dot io/news/2024/01/24/rossiya-zaprosila-srochnoe-zasedanie-sovbeza-oon-iz-za-krusheniya-il-76 ; https://t.me/smotri_media/71091 ; https://t.me/tass_agency/227892; https://t.me/tass_agency/227887 ; https://suspilne dot media/668908-rosia-zaprosila-provedenna-radbezu-oon-cerez-trosu-il-76-u-belgorodskij-oblasti-mzs-rf/ https://webtv.un.org/en/asset/k1j/k1jct71x39

[13] https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-december-16-2023; https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-december-11-2023; https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-december-10-2023; https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-december-3-2023; https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-december-16-2023; https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-december-23-2023

[14] https://t.me/tass_agency/227812; https://t.me/tass_live/4928; https://tass dot ru/politika/19804239; https://t.me/milinfolive/114926 ; https://t.me/russkiy_opolchenec/39435 ; https://t.me/astrapress/46770;

[15] https://rtvi dot com/news/izderzhki-tolerantnosti-v-mvd-rossii-nazvali-strany-grazhdane-kotoryh-chashhe-vsego-sovershali-prestupleniya/

[16] https://rtvi dot com/news/izderzhki-tolerantnosti-v-mvd-rossii-nazvali-strany-grazhdane-kotoryh-chashhe-vsego-sovershali-prestupleniya/

[17] https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2019/08/16/russias-fsb-publishes-foreign-worker-statistics-for-first-time-in-20-years-a66895 ; https://ceres.georgetown.edu/research/student-projects/why-central-asians-keep-coming-to-russia-post-war/

[18] https://rtvi dot com/news/izderzhki-tolerantnosti-v-mvd-rossii-nazvali-strany-grazhdane-kotoryh-chashhe-vsego-sovershali-prestupleniya/

[19] https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-november-29-2023

[20] https://t.me/aisen_nikolaev/5509 ; https://t.me/sashakots/44638 ; https://t.me/korifeyhab/17699; https://t.me/kremlin_sekret/13737

[21] https://t.me/aisen_nikolaev/5509 ; https://t.me/sashakots/44638 ; https://t.me/korifeyhab/17699; https://t.me/kremlin_sekret/13737

[22] https://t.me/aisen_nikolaev/5509

[23] https://gur.gov dot ua/content/znyshchyly-vorozhu-planietu-detali-kiberataky-proty-tsentru-kosmichnoi-hidrometeorolohii-rf.html; https://t.me/DIUkraine/3350;  https://t.me/DIUkraine/3353

[24] https://t.me/DIUkraine/3341

[25] https://armyinform.com dot ua/2024/01/23/gensek-nato-masovani-udary-rf-svidchat-pro-negajnu-potrebu-posylyty-ukrayinsku-ppo/

[26] https://armyinform.com dot ua/2024/01/23/ukrayina-matyme-bilshe-zbroyi-dalnogo-urazhennya/

[27] https://isw.pub/UkrWar012324 ; https://isw.pub/UkrWar012024

[28] https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-january-17-2024 ; https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-january-8-2024 ; https://isw.pub/UkrWar010624

[29] https://t.me/MID_Russia/34371 ; https://t.me/tass_agency/227836

[30] https://t.me/mod_russia/34980

[31] https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-january-17-2024

[32] https://isw.pub/UkrWar011824

[33] https://t.me/KorpusAfrica/210 ; https://t.me/milinfolive/114948

[34] https://t.me/KorpusAfrica/210 ; https://t.me/milinfolive/114948

[35] https://isw.pub/UkrWar011824 ; https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-january-17-2024

[36] https://shape.nato.int/stde24/newsroom/news-/nato-marks-the-start-of-exercise-steadfast-defender-2024

[37] https://shape.nato.int/stde24/newsroom/news-/nato-marks-the-start-of-exercise-steadfast-defender-2024

[38] https://isw.pub/UkrWar011924 ; https://isw.pub/UkrWar012324

[39] https://www.facebook.com/serhiynaiev/posts/pfbid0TiL7B3LkBtVfMppEZ67UHHf6MKJF1ieQM3RPFfbTi5D5UiovPkPJA1oeZa9JGZyNl ; https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-january-23-2024

[40] https://t.me/rybar/56307 ; https://t.me/dva_majors/33256; https://t.me/DnevnikDesantnika/6690

[41] https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-january-23-2024 ; https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-january-9-2024

[42] https://t.me/wargonzo/17762 ; https://t.me/multi_XAM/1265

[43] https://www.facebook.com/GeneralStaff.ua/posts/pfbid02yi9zbkmGT8CyLUnpKnSwFm9qm21fNaMJfTQHU4xhWrEQ6wkQXuwPrvKNBWkBq1ZWl ; https://www.facebook.com/GeneralStaff.ua/posts/pfbid02QzJWDnyoFFZbm8h2gJD3EcPonqq7JBbckppggqk6p47whGEtSTRojbu7fr6NbBZXl; https://www.facebook.com/GeneralStaff.ua/posts/pfbid02khJ6ev33ZYAtEutyv8d3MGn3a7geUmBvogkDb3ZxwnE3EUYp8Vpu7eiCcpuof32pl ; https://t.me/mod_russia/34969

[44] https://t.me/boris_rozhin/110560

[45] https://t.me/rybar/56307 ; https://t.me/dva_majors/33256 ; https://t.me/ButusovPlus/7637 ; https://www.facebook.com/GeneralStaff.ua/posts/pfbid02yi9zbkmGT8CyLUnpKnSwFm9qm21fNaMJfTQHU4xhWrEQ6wkQXuwPrvKNBWkBq1ZWl ; https://www.facebook.com/GeneralStaff.ua/posts/pfbid02QzJWDnyoFFZbm8h2gJD3EcPonqq7JBbckppggqk6p47whGEtSTRojbu7fr6NbBZXl; https://www.facebook.com/GeneralStaff.ua/posts/pfbid02khJ6ev33ZYAtEutyv8d3MGn3a7geUmBvogkDb3ZxwnE3EUYp8Vpu7eiCcpuof32pl ; https://t.me/mod_russia/34969 ; https://t.me/wargonzo/17762 ; https://t.me/z_arhiv/25885 ; https://t.me/multi_XAM/1265

[46] https://t.me/wargonzo/17762 ; https://t.me/negumanitarnaya_pomosch_Z/14268

[47] https://www.facebook.com/GeneralStaff.ua/posts/pfbid02yi9zbkmGT8CyLUnpKnSwFm9qm21fNaMJfTQHU4xhWrEQ6wkQXuwPrvKNBWkBq1ZWl ; https://www.facebook.com/GeneralStaff.ua/posts/pfbid02QzJWDnyoFFZbm8h2gJD3EcPonqq7JBbckppggqk6p47whGEtSTRojbu7fr6NbBZXl; https://www.facebook.com/GeneralStaff.ua/posts/pfbid02khJ6ev33ZYAtEutyv8d3MGn3a7geUmBvogkDb3ZxwnE3EUYp8Vpu7eiCcpuof32pl ; https://t.me/multi_XAM/1265 https://t.me/rybar/56307 ; https://t.me/dva_majors/33256; https://t.me/DnevnikDesantnika/6687 l https://t.me/wargonzo/17762 ; https://t.me/multi_XAM/1265 ; https://t.me/mod_russia/34969

[48] https://t.me/RVvoenkor/60852 (Bakhmut) ; https://t.me/boris_rozhin/110548 (Bakhmut) ; https://t.me/milinfolive/114900 (Bakhmut’s northern flank)

[49] https://t.me/wargonzo/17762

[50] https://www.facebook.com/GeneralStaff.ua/posts/pfbid02yi9zbkmGT8CyLUnpKnSwFm9qm21fNaMJfTQHU4xhWrEQ6wkQXuwPrvKNBWkBq1ZWl ; https://www.facebook.com/GeneralStaff.ua/posts/pfbid02QzJWDnyoFFZbm8h2gJD3EcPonqq7JBbckppggqk6p47whGEtSTRojbu7fr6NbBZXl; https://www.facebook.com/GeneralStaff.ua/posts/pfbid02khJ6ev33ZYAtEutyv8d3MGn3a7geUmBvogkDb3ZxwnE3EUYp8Vpu7eiCcpuof32pl ; https://t.me/rybar/56299 ; https://t.me/rybar/56307 ; https://t.me/dva_majors/33256 https://t.me/DnevnikDesantnika/6689 ; https://t.me/wargonzo/17762 ; https://t.me/voenkorKotenok/53464

[51] https://twitter.com/Tatarigami_UA/status/1749922739467477072

[52] https://twitter.com/Tatarigami_UA/status/1749922739467477072

[53] https://t.me/negumanitarnaya_pomosch_Z/14284 ; https://t.me/dva_majors/33288 ; https://t.me/RVvoenkor/60923 ; https://t.me/negumanitarnaya_pomosch_Z/14287

[54] https://t.me/wargonzo/17762 ; https://t.me/rybar/56307 ; https://t.me/dva_majors/33256; https://t.me/DnevnikDesantnika/6687

[55] https://www.facebook.com/GeneralStaff.ua/posts/pfbid02yi9zbkmGT8CyLUnpKnSwFm9qm21fNaMJfTQHU4xhWrEQ6wkQXuwPrvKNBWkBq1ZWl ; https://www.facebook.com/GeneralStaff.ua/posts/pfbid02QzJWDnyoFFZbm8h2gJD3EcPonqq7JBbckppggqk6p47whGEtSTRojbu7fr6NbBZXl; https://www.facebook.com/GeneralStaff.ua/posts/pfbid02khJ6ev33ZYAtEutyv8d3MGn3a7geUmBvogkDb3ZxwnE3EUYp8Vpu7eiCcpuof32pl ;https://t.me/voenkorKotenok/53464 ; https://t.me/wargonzo/17762 ; https://t.me/rybar/56307 ; https://t.me/dva_majors/33256; https://t.me/DnevnikDesantnika/6689

[56] https://t.me/rybar/56307 ; https://t.me/dva_majors/33256; https://t.me/DnevnikDesantnika/6689

[57] https://t.me/Sladkov_plus/9615

[58] https://www.facebook.com/GeneralStaff.ua/posts/pfbid02QzJWDnyoFFZbm8h2gJD3EcPonqq7JBbckppggqk6p47whGEtSTRojbu7fr6NbBZXl; https://www.facebook.com/GeneralStaff.ua/posts/pfbid02khJ6ev33ZYAtEutyv8d3MGn3a7geUmBvogkDb3ZxwnE3EUYp8Vpu7eiCcpuof32pl; https://t.me/voin_dv/6728; https://t.me/multi_XAM/1265

[59] https://www.facebook.com/GeneralStaff.ua/posts/pfbid02QzJWDnyoFFZbm8h2gJD3EcPonqq7JBbckppggqk6p47whGEtSTRojbu7fr6NbBZXl; https://www.facebook.com/GeneralStaff.ua/posts/pfbid02khJ6ev33ZYAtEutyv8d3MGn3a7geUmBvogkDb3ZxwnE3EUYp8Vpu7eiCcpuof32pl

[60] https://www.facebook.com/GeneralStaff.ua/posts/pfbid02yi9zbkmGT8CyLUnpKnSwFm9qm21fNaMJfTQHU4xhWrEQ6wkQXuwPrvKNBWkBq1ZWl; https://www.facebook.com/GeneralStaff.ua/posts/pfbid02QzJWDnyoFFZbm8h2gJD3EcPonqq7JBbckppggqk6p47whGEtSTRojbu7fr6NbBZXl; https://www.facebook.com/GeneralStaff.ua/posts/pfbid02khJ6ev33ZYAtEutyv8d3MGn3a7geUmBvogkDb3ZxwnE3EUYp8Vpu7eiCcpuof32pl; https://t.me/wargonzo/17762; https://t.me/rybar/56307 ; https://t.me/dva_majors/33256; https://t.me/DnevnikDesantnika/6682; https://t.me/negumanitarnaya_pomosch_Z/14268

[61] https://www.facebook.com/GeneralStaff.ua/posts/pfbid02yi9zbkmGT8CyLUnpKnSwFm9qm21fNaMJfTQHU4xhWrEQ6wkQXuwPrvKNBWkBq1ZWl; https://www.facebook.com/GeneralStaff.ua/posts/pfbid02QzJWDnyoFFZbm8h2gJD3EcPonqq7JBbckppggqk6p47whGEtSTRojbu7fr6NbBZXl; https://www.facebook.com/GeneralStaff.ua/posts/pfbid02khJ6ev33ZYAtEutyv8d3MGn3a7geUmBvogkDb3ZxwnE3EUYp8Vpu7eiCcpuof32pl; https://t.me/rybar/56307 ; https://t.me/dva_majors/33256;

[62] https://twitter.com/EjShahid/status/1749800515888902248 ; https://x.com/666_mancer/status/1749898855577960661?s=20 ; https://t.me/ssternenko/24647

[63] https://t.me/atesh_ua/3368

[64] https://t.me/RKadyrov_95/4388

[65] https://t.me/RKadyrov_95/4389

[66] https://t.me/RKadyrov_95/4389

[67] https://isw.pub/UkrWar012224

[68] https://rg dot ru/2024/01/23/drony-pancir-ne-probiut.html; https://lenta dot ru/news/2024/01/23/rackety/

[69] https://www.gazeta dot ru/army/news/2024/01/23/22169455.shtml

[70] https://www.canada.ca/en/department-national-defence/news/2024/01/minister-blair-announces-new-military-donations-for-ukraine-at-the-18th-meeting-of-the-ukraine-defense-contact-group.html

[71] https://www.deutschlandfunk dot de/militaerhubschrauber-der-bundeswehr-fuer-die-ukraine-erste-deutsche-lieferung-dieser-art-100.html

[72] https://www.fmn dot dk/da/nyheder/2024/danmark-giver-substantielt-bidrag-til-styrkelsen-af-ukrainsk-cyberforsvar-og-it/

[73] https://www.eurointegration.com dot ua/interview/2024/01/23/7177961/ ; https://isw.pub/UkrWar011224

[74] https://armyinform.com dot ua/2024/01/24/zastupnyk-ministra-oborony-vprovadzhuyemo-novu-arhitekturu-zakupivel-za-standartamy-nato/

[75] https://armyinform.com dot ua/2024/01/24/zastupnyk-ministra-oborony-vprovadzhuyemo-novu-arhitekturu-zakupivel-za-standartamy-nato/

[76] https://t.me/tass_agency/227886

[77] https://sprotyv.mod dot gov.ua/vorog-prodovzhuye-chynyty-tysk-na-ukrayintsiv/

[78] https://armyinform.com dot ua/2024/01/23/ukrayina-volodymyr-zelenskyj-i-zsu-zvit-yes-nazvav-golovni-misheni-inozemnoyi-dezinformacziyi/ ; https://www.eeas.europa dot eu/eeas/disinformation-and-foreign-interference-speech-high-representativevice-president-josep-borrell-eeas_en; https://www.eeas dot europa.eu/eeas/2nd-eeas-report-foreign-information-manipulation-and-interference-threats_en

[79] https://www.eeas.europa dot eu/eeas/disinformation-and-foreign-interference-speech-high-representativevice-president-josep-borrell-eeas_en

[80] https://t.me/MID_Russia/34375

[81] https://t.me/rybar/56311; https://rybar dot ru/velikij-kazahskij-shovinizm/

[82] https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-january-23-2024; https://t.me/rybar/56326

[83] https://t.me/tass_agency/227895 ; ; https://tass dot ru/mezhdunarodnaya-panorama/19808599

[84] https://t.me/modmilby/35569 ; https://t.me/modmilby/35583 ; https://t.me/belta_telegramm/233217 ; https://t.me/modmilby/35578 ; https://t.me/modmilby/35572 ; https://t.me/belta_telegramm/233225