Reflective Writing

At UTS, we want to give you authentic experiences of professional life. These complex situations require you to apply academic knowledge, think on your feet, respond to the unexpected, manage professional relationships, and reflect on your mistakes. These experiences should help you “connect head and heart”.

A key way to assess how you’re progressing academically and professionally from such experiences is through reflective writing, a technique also used in elite leadership development.

But what does “good reflective writing” look like? It turns out that a lot of students struggle with this question, having never written any serious reflections before.

This is where AcaWriter comes in, since it offers a visual language to summarise the key features:

Rhetorical moves in personal reflection

AcaWriter reflection rhetorical moves

How AcaWriter can help

AcaWriter highlights parts of your text where it perceives you have made appropriate moves. This may help you evaluate your writing and improve successive drafts.

AcaWriter's feedback in personal reflection

First, the reflective rhetorical moves have been assigned a highlighter colour so that they are easily identified. You can see this in the example below:

Reflection 1

Feedback is given on a text when moves are missing and when moves are in the incorrect order. You can see this in the example below:

Reflection 2

The Resources Tab provides you with information to understand the feedback generated by AcaWriter. You can see this in the example below:

Reflection 3
Acknowledgement of Country

UTS acknowledges the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation, the Boorooberongal people of the Dharug Nation, the Bidiagal people and the Gamaygal people, upon whose ancestral lands our university stands. We would also like to pay respect to the Elders both past and present, acknowledging them as the traditional custodians of knowledge for these lands.