reading reflection assignment

Peterborough

How to Write a Reflection Paper

Why reflective writing, experiential reflection, reading reflection.

A note on mechanics

Reflection offers you the opportunity to consider how your personal experiences and observations shape your thinking and your acceptance of new ideas. Professors often ask students to write reading reflections. They do this to encourage you to explore your own ideas about a text, to express your opinion rather than summarize the opinions of others. Reflective writing can help you to improve your analytical skills because it requires you to express what you think, and more significantly, how and why you think that way. In addition, reflective analysis asks you to acknowledge that your thoughts are shaped by your assumptions and preconceived ideas; in doing so, you can appreciate the ideas of others, notice how their assumptions and preconceived ideas may have shaped their thoughts, and perhaps recognize how your ideas support or oppose what you read.

Types of Reflective Writing

Popular in professional programs, like business, nursing, social work, forensics and education, reflection is an important part of making connections between theory and practice. When you are asked to reflect upon experience in a placement, you do not only describe your experience, but you evaluate it based on ideas from class. You can assess a theory or approach based on your observations and practice and evaluate your own knowledge and skills within your professional field. This opportunity to take the time to think about your choices, your actions, your successes and your failures is best done within a specific framework, like course themes or work placement objectives. Abstract concepts can become concrete and real to you when considered within your own experiences, and reflection on your experiences allows you to make plans for improvement.

To encourage thoughtful and balanced assessment of readings, many interdisciplinary courses may ask you to submit a reading reflection. Often instructors will indicate to students what they expect of a reflection, but the general purpose is to elicit your informed opinions about ideas presented in the text and to consider how they affect your interpretation. Reading reflections offer an opportunity to recognize – and perhaps break down – your assumptions which may be challenged by the text(s).

Approaches to Reflective Inquiry

You may wonder how your professors assess your reflective writing. What are they looking for? How can my experiences or ideas be right or wrong? Your instructors expect you to critically engage with concepts from your course by making connections between your observations, experiences, and opinions. They expect you to explain and analyse these concepts from your own point of view, eliciting original ideas and encouraging active interest in the course material.

It can be difficult to know where to begin when writing a critical reflection. First, know that – like any other academic piece of writing – a reflection requires a narrow focus and strong analysis. The best approach for identifying a focus and for reflective analysis is interrogation. The following offers suggestions for your line of inquiry when developing a reflective response.

It is best to discuss your experiences in a work placement or practicum within the context of personal or organizational goals; doing so provides important insights and perspective for your own growth in the profession. For reflective writing, it is important to balance reporting or descriptive writing with critical reflection and analysis.

Consider these questions:

Contextualize your reflection: What are your learning goals? What are the objectives of the organization? How do these goals fit with the themes or concepts from the course?
Provide important information: What is the name of the host organization? What is their mission? Who do they serve? What was your role? What did you do?
Analytical Reflection: What did you learn from this experience? About yourself? About working in the field? About society?
Lessons from reflection: Did your experience fit with the goals or concepts of the course or organization? Why or why not? What are your lessons for the future? What was successful? Why? What would you do differently? Why? How will you prepare for a future experience in the field?

Consider the purpose of reflection: to demonstrate your learning in the course. It is important to actively and directly connect concepts from class to your personal or experiential reflection. The following example shows how a student’s observations from a classroom can be analysed using a theoretical concept and how the experience can help a student to evaluate this concept.

For Example My observations from the classroom demonstrate that the hierarchical structure of Bloom’s Taxonomy is problematic, a concept also explored by Paul (1993). The students often combined activities like application and synthesis or analysis and evaluation to build their knowledge and comprehension of unfamiliar concepts. This challenges my understanding of traditional teaching methods where knowledge is the basis for inquiry. Perhaps higher-order learning strategies like inquiry and evaluation can also be the basis for knowledge and comprehension, which are classified as lower-order skills in Bloom’s Taxonomy.

Critical reflection requires thoughtful and persistent inquiry. Although basic questions like “what is the thesis?” and “what is the evidence?” are important to demonstrate your understanding, you need to interrogate your own assumptions and knowledge to deepen your analysis and focus your assessment of the text.

Assess the text(s):

What is the main point? How is it developed? Identify the purpose, impact and/or theoretical framework of the text.
What ideas stood out to me? Why? Were they new or in opposition to existing scholarship?

Develop your ideas:

What do I know about this topic? Where does my existing knowledge come from? What are the observations or experiences that shape my understanding?
Do I agree or disagree with this argument? Why?

Make connections:

How does this text reinforce my existing ideas or assumptions? How does this text challenge my existing ideas or assumptions?
How does this text help me to better understand this topic or explore this field of study/discipline?

A Note on Mechanics

As with all written assignments or reports, it is important to have a clear focus for your writing. You do not need to discuss every experience or element of your placement. Pick a few that you can explore within the context of your learning. For reflective responses, identify the main arguments or important elements of the text to develop a stronger analysis which integrates relevant ideas from course materials.

Furthermore, your writing must be organized. Introduce your topic and the point you plan to make about your experience and learning. Develop your point through body paragraph(s), and conclude your paper by exploring the meaning you derive from your reflection. You may find the questions listed above can help you to develop an outline before you write your paper.

You should maintain a formal tone, but it is acceptable to write in the first person and to use personal pronouns. Note, however, that it is important that you maintain confidentiality and anonymity of clients, patients or students from work or volunteer placements by using pseudonyms and masking identifying factors.

The value of reflection: Critical reflection is a meaningful exercise which can require as much time and work as traditional essays and reports because it asks students to be purposeful and engaged participants, readers, and thinkers.

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Academic Writing

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

Last Updated: May 1, 2024 Fact Checked

Sample Outline and Paper

Brainstorming, organizing a reflection paper, as you write, 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 3,826,924 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.

Step 2 Jot down material that stands out in your mind.

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.

Step 4 Ask yourself questions to guide your response.

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...”

Step 4 Explain your conclusions in the body.

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.

Step 2 Maintain a professional or academic tone.

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.

Step 3 Review your reflection paper at the sentence level.

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."

Step 5 Relate relevant classroom information to the experience or reading.

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.

↑ 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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24 Reflecting on What You Read

Allison Kilgannon

Whenever you finish a piece of reading, it’s worth your time to stop and reflect on it. This not only helps you think about the content and what it means to you, but it also helps cement it within your memory, allowing you to recall the key ideas later and to apply them in other reading and writing situations. You can also use these later for gathering ideas for your assignments.

Here are two ideas for post-reading reflection:

Write in a personal reading journal.
Angelo and Cross suggest writing a “minute paper.” To do this, take one minute to jot down a few sentences about something you learned or discovered while reading. Or ask yourself a question about the reading and write an answer.

When you work with a text, you enter into a conversation with it, responding with your thoughts, ideas, and feelings. The way each of us responds to any text has a lot to do with who we are: our age, education, cultural background, religion, ethnicity, and so forth. As you explore a text, be aware of how you’re responding to it.

Are you reading or exploring easily and fluidly, or are you finding it difficult to navigate the text? Why do you think this is happening?
Do you find yourself responding with some sort of strong emotion? If so, why do you think that may be feeling this way?
Do formatting or structural issues (examples: unusual use of punctuation, use of dialect or jargon) affect your navigation of the text?
Can you identify with the text’s central idea or the information it’s sharing?
Have you had any experiences like those being described? Can you identify with the story?
Are you able to identify the surface meaning?
Have you explored the text’s deeper, hidden messages?
Do you need to look up any words to do any quick research? If so, does this help you better understand the text?
What questions do you have about the work?

First, read the Canadian Running article “ Junk miles: Are “easy” runs sabotaging your training? ”

Next, write a minute paper (see description above) by jotting down a few sentences in response to one of these questions:

What do you think of the idea that you run “wrong”?
Do you have any emotional response to the idea of being a hard-core runner, or even of getting fit? Explain.
Do you have any experience with running? If no, does that affect your ability to pay attention to the more detailed parts of the text? If yes, do you find you absorb this material better?

Text Attributions

This chapter was adapted from “ Reflect ” in The Word on College Reading and Writing by Carol Burnell, Jaime Wood, Monique Babin, Susan Pesznecker, and Nicole Rosevear, which is licensed under a CC BY-NC 4.0 Licence . Adapted by Allison Kilgannon.

Media Attributions

“ Water Reflection ” by Yuma Hori is licensed under a CC BY 2.0 Licence .

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Want to create or adapt books like this? Learn more about how Pressbooks supports open publishing practices.

17 Reflective Writing

In this type of writing, your instructor wants to see that you are making personal connections between the course content and experiences in your life. Reflective writing is inextricably linked to critical thinking.

Like discussion board posts, reflective writing uses first person pronouns, and writers are encouraged to support opinions and analysis by referring to personal experiences.

Formal reflective writing assignments differ from discussion board posts by being longer and more detailed. Also, instructors usually want you to use APA formatting (correct font, spacing, indentation, and title page). You may be specifically required to paraphrase and cite information from secondary sources.

Learning Objectives

After you complete this chapter, you will be able to

describe the purpose and structure of a reading reflection assignment
describe the purpose and structure of an experiential reflection assignment

Formal Reflective Writing Assignments

Self-reflection is a humbling process. It’s essential to find out why you think, say, and do certain things… then better yourself.

– Sonya Teclai (recording artist)

Watch this brief video to get a general overview of reflective writing [1] :

Incorporating the 4Rs for Indigenous Ways of Knowing in your Reflection

At Confederation College, we acknowledge the value and legitimacy of Indigenous ways of knowing, and we encourage students to incorporate the “four Rs” into their reflective writing responses. This approach values the individual’s experience, as well as the ideas of others. In this way, knowledge is seen as ongoing, changing, and interrelated [2] .

In Indigenous cultures, critical thinking includes these four parts when analyzing new information:

Two Types of Reflective Writing Assignments

1. reading reflection.

In this type of reflective writing assignment, you will need to review course materials (read an article or chapter or watch a video or movie) and write a response.

Your response should

demonstrate your understanding of the reading by providing a concise summary using your own words
make thoughtful and balanced assessment of the materials you’ve reviewed
make connections between the course materials and your own experiences and/or to other sources of information on the topic
identify lack of knowledge or personal bias without fear of losing marks; this is part of the reflection process
recognize opinions that you may not agree with, and consider these with respect
consider how what you’ve learned from the course materials has changed or confirmed your previous thinking about a topic
identify steps you may take to add to your understanding of this topic
end with a conclusion that explains how you will use the knowledge you have acquired

Description : These are the details about your writing topic. What happened? When? Where? Why?

Feelings : Describe the emotions, thoughts, and responses you felt and thought towards this topic. Often emotions are evidence of our own discomfort, lack of knowledge, or bias towards the topic.

Evaluation : Compare your previous knowledge of this topic with the new knowledge or experience. Where did you get your information from? Consider the new details and their relation to your previous knowledge

Conclusions : Identify new views and ideas; develop questions for future examination.

Action : Identify changes in your approach or actions towards this topic. For example, more research, more practice, discussion with others, etc.

Steps to complete a reading reflection

Summarize the most important information from the assigned reading, video or audio. Concisely explain the topic and the most important details, not all of the small examples.

In this video, Shaun Macleod explains the essentials to writing a summary [3] :

2. Reflect on the article by assessing the text, developing your ideas, and making connections:

Identify where your ideas originated from; you may include personal experiences, cultural beliefs, APA-cited facts, etc. Use paraphrases to demonstrate your understanding of the material that you read or watched. Include APA documentation style to cite ideas from the source. You are encouraged to write about your own experiences and knowledge about the topic. You may or may not have APA citations for this part.

2. Experiential Reflection

In this type of reflective writing assignment, you will need to participate in an experience, like a lab or placement, and write a response. This type of writing is often used in programs that require students to participate in hands-on, experiential learning, like business, nursing, and education programs.

make connections between theory and practice
describe your experience
assess a theory or approach based on your observations
evaluate and critique your experience based on class learning
evaluate your level of knowledge and skills based on your experience
determine how you might act differently next time you are in a similar situation

Source: Correlation between Critical Thinking and Reflection adapted from p. 1348 of Wetmore, A.O., Boyd., L.D. & Bowen D.M. (2010). Reflective blogs.

Academic Skills, The University of Melbourne. (2017, June 1). Reflective writing [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SntBj0FIApw . ↵
Kirkness, V. J., & Barnhardt, R. (2001). First Nations and higher education: The four R's - respect, relevance, reciprocity, responsibility. In Knowledge across cultures: A contribution to dialogue among civilizations (pp. 1-15). https://www.uaf.edu/ankn/publications/collective-works-of-ray-b/Four-Rs-2nd-Ed.pdf ↵
Smrt English. (2012, November 15). How to write a summary [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGWO1ldEhtQ . ↵

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Reflective Writing

“Reflection is a mode of inquiry: a deliberate way of systematically recalling writing experiences to reframe the current writing situation. It allows writers to recognize what they are doing in that particular moment (cognition), as well as to consider why they made the rhetorical choices they did (metacognition). The combination of cognition and metacognition, accessed through reflection, helps writers begin assessing themselves as writers, recognizing and building on their prior knowledge about writing.” —Kara Taczak, “Reflection is Critical for Writers’ Development” (78) Naming What We Know: Threshold Concepts of Writing Studies

Reflective writing assignments are common across the university. You may be asked to reflect on your learning, your writing, your personal experiences in relation to a theory or text, or your personal experiences in an internship or other type of experience in relation to course readings. These are assignments, as Kara Taczak notes, that offer opportunities to solidify knowledge about our experiences and how they might relate to others’ experiences and existing research. Moreso, reflection can lead to more informed understandings of our own experiences and course content in ways that may make that knowledge more useful in future classes and practice. However, often reflective writing is not taught as an explicit writing skill and can be problematically treated as a less rigorous form of writing. Below are some broad writing tips that can help not only your reflective writing to be stronger, but also the reflective inquiry to be more meaningful.

Collect relevant evidence before you start writing.

Yes–we recommend using evidence in reflective writing! When connecting personal experiences to the readings, that means selecting quotes from the readings and then coming up with specific moments in your life that relate to those quotes. When reflecting on learning or growth, that might mean locating evidence (quotes) from your previous papers that showcase growth.

Be specific.

It’s really easy to see reflective writing as more informal or casual, and thus, as requiring less attention to details; however, strong reflective writing is very precise and specific. Some examples of statements that are too vague and meaningless include, “I learned a lot about writing this semester.” Or, “I feel like my experiences are exactly as Author B says in this quote.” Neither of these statements tells us much–they are a bit devoid of content. Instead, try to name exactly what you learned about writing or exactly how your experiences are related to the quote. For example, you might reflect, “At the beginning of the semester, unsure of how to summarize a text well, I was just describing the main the idea of the text. However, after learning about Harris’ concept of capturing a writer’s “project,” I believe I have become better at really explaining a text as a whole. Specifically, in my last essay, I was able to provide a fully developed explanation of Author A’s argument and purpose for the essay as well as their materials and methods (that is, how they made the argument). For example, in this quote from my last essay,...”

Focus on a small moment from your experiences.

It’s hard to not want to recap our entire childhood or the full summer before something happened for context when sharing a personal story. However, it’s usually more effective to select a very specific moment in time and try to accurately describe what happened, who was involved, and how it made you feel and react. When writing about a moment, try to place readers there with you–help readers to understand what happened, who was involved, where it happened, why it happened, and what the results were. If this is a more creative assignment, you might even include some sensory descriptions to make the moment more of an experience for readers.

Fully explain the quote or focus of each point.

In reflective writing, you are usually asked to share your experiences in relation to something–a perspective in a text, learning about writing, the first-year experience, a summer internship, etc. When introducing this focal point, make sure you fully explain it. That is, explain what you think the quote means and provide a little summary for context. Or, if you’re reflecting on writing skills learned, before you jump to your learning and growth, stop to explain how you understand the writing skill itself–”what is analysis?,” for example. Usually, you want to fully explain the focus, explain your personal experiences with it, and then return to the significance of your experiences.

Use “I” when appropriate.

Often, in high schools, students are taught to abandon the first-person subject altogether in order to avoid over-use. However, reflective writing requires some use of “I.” You can’t talk about your experiences without using “I”! That being said, we’ve saved this advice for the bottom of the list because, as we hope the above tips suggest, there are a lot of important things that likely need explaining in addition to your personal experiences. That means you want to use “I” when appropriate, balancing your use of “I” with your explanation of the theory, quote, or situation you were in, for example.

Reflection conclusions can look forward to the future.

In the conclusion, you may want to ask and answer questions like:

What is the significance of my experiences with X?
What did I learn from reflecting on my experiences with Y?
How might this reflective work inform future decisions?
What specific tools or strategies did this activity use that might be employed in the future? When and why?

Write the reflection introduction last.

We always recommend writing introductions after you’ve drafted your entire essay–this allows you to actually introduce the specific essay you’ve already written (it’s easier to do and more likely to be strong). Reflective introductions have a little bit more flexibility. You do want to introduce the focus of your essay right away–and you might do that by naming it, by sharing a related anecdote, by naming a previously held idea/belief that has changed through learning happening during this course, or by explaining a reading or class discussion that make you curious about the focus you selected.

A Link to a PDF Handout of this Writing Guide

Organizing Your Social Sciences Research Assignments

Annotated Bibliography
Analyzing a Scholarly Journal Article
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Dealing with Nervousness
Using Visual Aids
Grading Someone Else's Paper
Types of Structured Group Activities
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Multiple Book Review Essay
Reviewing Collected Works
Writing a Case Analysis Paper
Writing a Case Study
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Writing a Reflective Paper
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Acknowledgments

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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Last Updated: May 7, 2024 9:45 AM
URL: https://libguides.usc.edu/writingguide/assignments

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11 Reflecting on What You Read

Here are two ideas for post-reading reflection:

Write in a personal reading journal.
Angelo and Cross suggest writing a “minute paper.” To do this, take one minute to jot down a few sentences about something you learned or discovered while reading. Or ask yourself a question about the reading and write an answer.

Are you reading or exploring easily and fluidly, or are you finding it difficult to navigate the text? Why do you think this is happening?
Do you find yourself responding with some sort of strong emotion? If so, why do you think that may be feeling this way?
Do formatting or structural issues (examples: unusual use of punctuation, use of dialect or jargon) affect your navigation of the text?
Can you identify with the text’s central idea or the information it’s sharing?
Have you had any experiences like those being described? Can you identify with the story?
Are you able to identify the surface meaning?
Have you explored the text’s deeper, hidden messages?
Do you need to look up any words to do any quick research? If so, does this help you better understand the text?
What questions do you have about the work?

First, read the Canadian Running article “ Junk miles: Are “easy” runs sabotaging your training? ”

Next, write a minute paper (see description above) by jotting down a few sentences in response to one of these questions:

What do you think of the idea that you run “wrong”?
Do you have any emotional response to the idea of being a hard-core runner, or even of getting fit? Explain.
Do you have any experience with running? If no, does that affect your ability to pay attention to the more detailed parts of the text? If yes, do you find you absorb this material better?

Text Attributions

This chapter was adapted from “ Reflect ” in The Word on College Reading and Writing by Carol Burnell, Jaime Wood, Monique Babin, Susan Pesznecker, and Nicole Rosevear, which is licensed under a CC BY-NC 4.0 Licence . Adapted by Allison Kilgannon.

Media Attributions

“ Water Reflection ” by Yuma Hori is licensed under a CC BY 2.0 Licence .

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Summarizing and Reflecting on a Text

Once you have finished reading and annotating the text—and responding to it either in your annotations or in a separate writing—it’s a good idea to put that text into the context of the course and your learning. Doing work like this helps cement the ideas in our memory.

When you take the time to summarize, you are gathering up what you know about the author’s main point and putting it into words. Elsewhere in this textbook, I have more guidance for writing summaries , but even if you aren’t being asked to write a formal summary, taking the time to answer key questions about the text will help you use the text more effectively later.

Read back through your annotations and notes, and jot down answers to questions like the following:

What is the author’s main point?
What are the supporting points that lead to that main point?
What evidence does the author provide to support those points?
What examples does the author use, and how well do those examples explain and clarify the point?

I’m not going to write a full-blown summary here so that you have the opportunity to write your own if your instructor has decided to assign this. However, here are my answers to the questions:

Main point: Mitchell argues that we need to choose between “segregated coexistence,” where people of different races and ethnicities live in enclaves but mostly stay separated from one another, and “living in community,” which he calls integration. He favors the latter.
Supporting points: Mitchell explains that we have been living in segregated coexistence for a long time and argues that this status feeds inequity and racism in our society. He claims that living in community is difficult to achieve and that we can only do this if we decide that we don’t want to live in conflict any more.
He uses statistical demographic data from the Othering and Belonging Institute to support his claim that we currently live in enclaves.
He uses Eric Yamamoto’s description of the process of interracial justice that leans to racial reconciliation. Eric Yamamoto is a professor of law and social justice at the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa. He’s internationally known as an expert on racial justice.
He gives Detroit and Baton Rouge as examples of cities that appear to be demographically diverse but that are really made up of enclaves.
He gives the example of “equitable funding for schools” as something that the government must do if we are going to be able to live in community.

Again, using the article you have chosen to work with, answer the questions that are listed earlier to help you summarize the main point and understand how the supporting points, evidence, and examples work in that article.

Reflect on Your Purpose

In your notes from when you were focusing your reading, you should have information about why you were assigned this text in the first place. Take a moment and review those notes. Then think about how this text can be used in light of that focus.

You might find it helpful to jot down answers to questions like the following:

Given what I know now, why was I asked to read this text?
What parts of the text will be most useful for the purposes I’ve identified? Make sure to note specific passages where appropriate.
How does this text fit in with other texts that we’re reading in this course or that I’m reading for this assignment?

When I go back to the assignment , I see that I am being asked to think about Mitchell’s terms and apply those to one of the readings from the list in the assignment. The assignment lists three terms, so I need to make sure I understand the following:

“Segregated coexistence”
“Living in community”
“Quality of diversity”

If I’m going to use this text successfully, I must make sure I understand what Mitchell means by these terms—not just what I think they mean. In my annotations, I have already marked some passages that deal with these terms, but it would be helpful for me to write my own paraphrases of them.

As for why I was asked to write about Mitchell, this assignment is a kind of analysis in which the professor wants me not only to understand terminology from a text, but also to apply those terms in a context where they are not necessarily used.

Some of my reflection will depend on what else has been going on in the class. Here are some examples:

If we’ve covered quotations and paraphrases , then the professor is probably expecting me to use those well.
If we’ve covered paragraph development , then the professor is probably expecting me to make sure I am using enough evidence and enough explanation to make my point clear.
If we’ve covered thesis statements , then the professor is probably expecting me to develop a clear thesis that makes an arguable claim and that provides the reader with some idea of the reasoning behind that claim.

One way to reflect on what I should be focusing on would be to review the syllabus and my notes up to that point.

Notice that this part of my reflection isn’t about Mitchell’s text. This is a writing class after all, so a good part of the purpose of the assignment would be to practice skills relevant to writing in college.

Again, using the article you have chosen to work with , answer the questions that are listed earlier to help you link the article to the purpose you were given for reading the article. Focus not only on the assignment, but also look over the syllabus to think about what you have been working on in class.

Reflect on Your Learning

Many of the texts we read hold meaning for us in ways we don’t expect and that aren’t necessarily related to our coursework and projects.

Explore this possibility through questions such as the following:

What did you learn from this text or from the experience of reading this text?
What surprised you about this text?
What would you like to learn more about?

Reading Mitchell’s article taught me a number of things:

I hadn’t really thought about diversity in something other than demographic terms before. The possibility of “living in community” is intriguing to me, and I am thinking about what I can do to foster that kind of integration in my teaching, in the university, and in my work in the community. For example, as I am writing this textbook, I am thinking about assignments and activities that would help all of my students feel represented in what they read here. Specifically, I am considering having students add images and examples to this text that speak to them.

I already knew that I was pragmatic, but Mitchell helped me solidify my desire to understand concrete changes and actions that I can take. My resentment at the vagueness of how we get to “living in community” makes me want to talk to people who do this kind of work to get better ideas. I would like to learn more about how I can support this kind of change.

Using the article you have chosen to work with , answer the questions that are listed earlier to help you think about what you have learned both from the content of the article and your experience reading the text.

To make sure that you understand what you are reading, be sure to summarize the text, focusing on the main point, but also including some of the details.
Go back to the notes you have on the purpose for reading the text to make sure that you are able to address that purpose as fully as possible.
Take a moment to reflect on your learning, including your experiences with the text. This can help you generate ideas and remember the text better when you need to.

Text Attribution

This chapter contains material taken from the chapter “Reflect” from The Word on College Reading and Writing by Carol Burnell, Jaime Wood, Monique Babin, Susan Pesznecker, and Nicole Rosevear and is used under a CC BY-NC 4.0 license.

A rewording of someone else's ideas so that the ideas are accurately represented, but the language and sentence structure are different.

Reading and Writing Successfully in College: A Guide for Students Copyright © 2023 by Patricia Lynne is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Course Design

The Little Assignment with the Big Impact: Reading, Writing, Critical Reflection, and Meaningful Discussion

May 6, 2013
Geraldine Van Gyn PhD

Several years ago, I came across the Purposeful Reading Assignment that was reported to encourage students to read, reflect, and write about readings assigned for class. Research (Roberts and Roberts, 2008) and experience tell us that supporting students’ reading, writing, and reflective practices is one of the most challenging aspects of learning and teaching. Although this assignment appeared to be simple, it has proven to be an influential tool for learning and has increased engagement and participation among my students.

The basic assignment, also called the 3-2-1, has three requirements:

Requirement 1: Students read what is assigned, then choose and describe the three most important aspects (concepts, issues, factual information, etc.) of the reading, justifying their choices.
Requirement 2: Students identify two aspects of the reading they don’t understand, and briefly discuss why these confusing aspects interfered with their general understanding of the reading. Although students may identify more than two confusing elements, they must put them in priority order and limit themselves to the two most important ones. Students seldom understand everything in a reading and, knowing that they must complete this part of the assignment, will reflect on their level of understanding of all the reading’s content.
Requirement 3: Students pose a question to the text’s author, the answer to which should go beyond the reading content and does not reflect the areas of confusion in requirement 2. The question reflects students’ curiosity about the topic and reveals what they think are the implications or applications of the reading content. This last requirement lets you know how well students understood the article’s intention.

The completed assignment is submitted on an electronic template before the class when the reading will be discussed. I grade and return the assignment electronically before the class, as well, although this is not critical if you find yourself short on time to complete the grading. With larger numbers of students, I review the assignments before class to identify the areas of difficulty and misunderstanding, and grade later. The grading process is minimal; three marks for part 1, two for part 2 and one for part 3, all based on a simple rubric, also provided to students.

Using my graduate course on teaching and learning as a ‘test bed’ for this assignment, I was amazed at the impact of this seemingly ‘little’ assignment on students’ engagement and empowerment. Their responses were thoughtful and reflected full engagement in the reading. In class, discussions were sophisticated and more in-depth than formerly. Students made meaningful comments and debated the most significant aspects of the readings, all with substantially less input from me. The benefit to teaching was that I could clearly identify areas where students were experiencing difficulty and those that they handled well. Requirement 3 gave me a sense of the connections they were making. I was able to be much more specific in the ways I helped students to fully understand the concepts. This process is similar to “just-in-time-teaching” (Novak, 2011).

After using the 3-2-1 several times in this course, we discussed its use as a tool for learning. Students were unanimous in their agreement that the three questions made them think deeply and critically about the readings. They reported greater confidence in their capability to discuss the reading and to achieve this they had to read the article for general understanding and then again to enable them to complete the report.

Following on that experience, I have used this assignment in other graduate and undergraduate courses. I have discovered I need to be judicious, particularly in first and second year courses, about the number of 3-2-1 reports assigned, as they are challenging. A 3-2-1 should only be assigned when the reading is difficult; otherwise, it may be perceived as ‘busy work’.

Since the first graduate class in which I used the 3-2-1, I have analyzed the mid- and end-of-term course feedback to the question, “What aspects of the course were of greatest benefit to your learning?” The purposeful, 3-2-1 reading report is the most frequently cited in all courses (mid-term =72% of all students, n= 549, end of term = 65% of students, n= 513). A typical response is revealing: I hate to admit it because they required quite a bit of effort, but the 3-2-1 reports were really helpful. Students appreciate their effectiveness, but don’t particularly enjoy doing them; therefore, it is important to assign a grade to the report that is consistent with the effort required and to ensure that the reading discussion draws on the content of their reports.

I encourage you to try this powerful but simple assignment as it has both an intellectual benefit for student learning and a practical benefit to the instructor. At the very least, it means never having to say I hope you are ready to discuss the reading for today.

An extended version of this assignment is available here »

References Novak, G. M. (2011), Just-in-time teaching. New Directions for Teaching and Learning, 2011: 63–73. doi: 10.1002/tl.469.

Roberts, J. C. and. Roberts, K. S. (2008). Deep reading, cost/benefit, and the construction of meaning: Enhancing reading comprehension and deep learning in sociology Courses.” Teaching Sociology 36(2):125-4.

Author’s note: Until recently, I had been referencing the Purposeful Reading Assignment as one that John Bean of Seattle University had suggested on a visit to our campus. In a conversation with him, in preparation for this article, he told me that it didn’t come from him. Despite significant effort, I can’t find the original source of this assignment. If you can help me to find the originator of this writing assignment, I would be grateful so that I can acknowledge her or him.

Dr. Geraldine Van Gyn is a professor in the School of Exercise Science at the University of Victoria.

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General tips for academic reflections

An overview of key things to keep in mind for academic reflections.

Make sure you know what the assessor is asking for

Your main consideration when producing written or any kind of academic reflection is to know exactly what is expected of you. Therefore, you should ask your assessor what kind of language and structure they are expecting. With that in mind, the characteristics described here and in the sections on language and structure for academic reflections are what is often sought after.

Language of academic reflections

Structure of academic reflections

Using private reflections as foundations for academic reflections

Academic reflective writing is often used to evidence that you have done reflection. Therefore, it is often beneficial to first do a private reflection where you can be as informal and unstructured as you want, and then readapt that into a piece of academic writing.

By using a private reflection initially, you can ensure that you get the full learning opportunity without censoring yourself or being conscious of language, before deciding how best to present your reflections to your assessor. This is similar to figuring out what your argument is and taking notes before writing an essay, or to all the background work you do to solve a technical/mathematical problem that you do not include in your hand-in.

Just as developing your argument and working through each step of a problem can be essential for the final essay or hand-in, for some people doing a private reflection can be very helpful in writing an effective academic reflection. For others, writing their reflection in a formal and structured way from the outset helps them structure their thoughts.

The core elements of academic reflective writing

Academic reflective writing is a genre and just like an essay has characteristics, so does academic reflective writing.

Academic reflective writing requires critical and analytic thought, a clear line of argument, and the use of evidence through examples of personal experiences and thoughts and often also theoretical literature.

You should aim for a balance between personal experience, tone, and academic practice and rigor.

Academic reflective writing should:

develop a perspective or line of reasoning
develop a link between your experience or practice and existing knowledge (theoretical or personal)
show understanding and appreciation of different perspectives to your own
show recognition that your own understanding is likely incomplete and situations are rarely clear-cut and simplistic
show learning resulting from the reflection (either by discovering something new or confirming existing knowledge) and how you plan to use it
be written in an appropriate style with language relevant to your academic discipline
sometimes, but not always, use theoretical literature to inform your understanding.

People can have misconceptions about academic reflective writing – some of the common ones are described below.

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.

Eberly Center

Teaching excellence & educational innovation, instructor: marsha lovett course: 85-392: human expertise, psychology department, college of humanities and social sciences assessment: reading reflection exercise to prepare for class discussion.

Although almost all of the students in this course are upper-level psychology majors, they still have difficulty completing the reading by the due date and in a way that prepares them for class discussion. I also was not able to assess the quality of their reading other than their contributions to class discussions; this was an issue for students who were not comfortable participating in class for a variety of potential reasons. Knowing how effectively students had read would help me give positive feedback to prepared students and give constructive feedback to students who had difficulty with the readings.

Implementation:

I created a three- to four-question reading reflection for each reading in the course. Two questions appeared in every reading reflection and asked students (1) to state the reading’s main point and (2) to identify a strength or weakness in the reading. The other one or two questions focused on specific aspects of the reading. Students wrote one-page responses to these questions, which they could refer to during class discussion and handed in at the end of class. I gave brief written feedback on these responses and scored them as check-minus, check, or check-plus; the reading reflections collectively counted for a small percentage of the final course grade.

Students’ performance on the reading reflections was consistently satisfactory or above. Students came to class much more prepared with ideas and reflections to share. Also, if many students showed a misconception or difficulty in the reading reflections that had not arisen during class discussion, I could address it in the following class period.

I was not sure whether the students would need to continue to submit these reading reflections for the entire semester. At mid-semester, I asked for students’ anonymous feedback on if the reading reflections were still helpful or had become unnecessary. All of the students responded that they wanted to continue the reading reflections because it structured their preparation for class and gave them extra incentive to do so effectively.

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6 Tips to Writing a Solid Reflection Paper (With a Sample Essay)

A reflection paper is an essay that focuses on your personal thoughts related to an experience, topic, or behavior. It can veer toward educational as a reflection of a book you've read or something you've been studying in class. It can also take a more professional slant as you reflect on a certain profession or your experiences within that profession.

A lot of students enjoy writing this type of essay, especially if they find it easy to discuss their feelings and experiences related to a topic or profession. However, some students find this type of subjective writing to be difficult and would rather a more objective writing assignment.

Whether you're the former or the latter, for this article, we're going to look at 6 tips for writing a solid reflection paper that will help you get through the outlining and writing processes. We've also provided a sample reflection paper so you can see these tips in action.

A reflection paper is an essay that focuses on your personal thoughts related to an experience, topic, or behavior.

Tip #1—Choose a topic you're passionate about

However you choose to focus your reflection paper, if you're able to choose your own topic, choose one that is highly interesting to you or that you find important. You'll find that your paper will be much easier to outline and draft if you do. There are a range of potential topics that have been used or have the potential of turning into a great reflection paper. Here are a few suggestions:

Describe your internship experience.
Discuss a recent book you read that changed you.
What is "family" to you and why?
What are some of the qualities demonstrated by your favorite employers and/or managers? What makes them your favorite?
Discuss music that has altered your way of thinking or made you see the world from a different perspective.
Reflect on your favorite memory of a pet or loved one.

Tip #2—Outline your reflection paper before you write

Be sure to outline your reflection paper first before you start to write. Even though this sort of essay is written as a personal reflection, you'll still need to make sure you stay on topic and organize your writing in a clear, logical way. As with other traditional essays, there should be an introduction with a thesis statement, a body, and a conclusion. Each paragraph within your body should focus on a different sub-topic within the scope of your overall topic.

Tip #3—Write in first-person singular

Write in first-person singular. Format the essay according to your teacher's instructions, using whatever citation style required. Your teacher will likely request that it is double-spaced, with 1" indentation in each margin, in 12 pt. font. Also keep in mind that most reflection papers will be around 750 words or less.

Tip #4—Avoid too much description

Avoiding adding too much description of events. This is not the kind of essay where you need to discuss a play-by-play of everything that happens. Rather, it is the kind of essay that focuses on your reflection of the topic and how you felt during these experiences.

Tip #5—Avoid colloquial expressions or slang

Avoid colloquial expressions or slang—this is still an academic assignment. Also, be sure to edit your essay thoroughly for any grammar or spelling mistakes. Since a reflection paper is written in first-person point of view, it's easy to mistake it for an informal essay and skip the editing. Regardless of the type of essay you submit to your professor, it should always be edited and error-free.

Tip #6—Critical reflection goes deeper

If your assignment asks you to write a critical reflection paper, it is asking for your observations and evaluations regarding an experience. You'll need to provide an in-depth analysis of the subject and your experience with it in an academic context. You might also provide a summary, if the critical reflection paper is about a book or article you've read.

Sample reflection paper

My student teaching experience with the Master's in Education program has been a great learning opportunity. Although I was nervous at first, it didn't take long to apply lessons I have been learning in my academic program to real-world skills such as classroom management, lesson planning, and instruction.

During my first week of student teaching, I was assigned a mentor who had been teaching middle school grades for over 12 years. She assured me that middle school is one of the most difficult grades to teach and that there is a high turnover rate of teachers, which worried me. However, once the week got started and I began to meet the students, my fears abated. These young people were funny, inquisitive, and eager to begin reading the assigned book, Lord of the Flies —especially after we started with a group project scenario that included kids being stranded on an island without adults.

The first few weeks of applying classroom management skills I had read about in my Master's program were a definite learning experience. I had read enough about adolescent development to know that they were not yet at the age where they were able to control all of their impulses, so there were moments when some would yell out an answer or speak without raising their hand first. So, at my mentor's suggestion, I worked with the students to create their own classroom rules that everyone would agree to abide by. Since they played a role in coming up with these rules, I believe it helped them take more personal responsibility in following them.

When we finished that initial group project, I began to see how tasks such as lesson planning—and plans that have to be turned in to the administration weekly—can easily become overwhelming if not worked out on the front-end of the semester. My mentor explained that most seasoned teachers will work on their lesson plans over the summer, using the proper state curriculum, to have them ready with the school year begins. Having scrambled to get my lesson planning done in time during the first few weeks, I saw the value in this and agreed with her that summertime preparation makes the most logical sense. When the school year gets started, it's really a whirlwind of activities, professional development and other events that make it really difficult to find the time to plan lessons.

Once the semester got well underway and I had lesson planning worked out with as little stress as possible, I was able to focus more on instructional time, which I found to be incredibly exciting. I began to see how incorporating multiple learning styles into my lesson, including visual, auditory and kinesthetic learning styles, helped the students stay more actively engaged in the discussion. They also enjoyed it when I showed them short video clips of the movie versions of the books we were reading, as well as the free-write sessions where they were able to write a scene and perform it with their classmates.

Finally, my student teaching experience taught me that above all else, I have truly found my "calling" in teaching. Every day was something new and there was never a dull moment—not when you're teaching a group of 30 teenagers! This lack of boredom and the things I learned from the students are two of the most positive things for me that resulted from the experience, and I can't wait to have my own classroom in the fall when the school year begins again.

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Examples of Reflective Writing

Types of reflective writing assignments.

A journal requires you to write weekly entries throughout a semester. May require you to base your reflection on course content.

A learning diary is similar to a journal, but may require group participation. The diary then becomes a place for you to communicate in writing with other group members.

A logbook is often used in disciplines based on experimental work, such as science. You note down or 'log' what you have done. A log gives you an accurate record of a process and helps you reflect on past actions and make better decisions for future actions.

A reflective note is often used in law. A reflective note encourages you to think about your personal reaction to a legal issue raised in a course.

An essay diary can take the form of an annotated bibliography (where you examine sources of evidence you might include in your essay) and a critique (where you reflect on your own writing and research processes).

a peer review usually involves students showing their work to their peers for feedback.

A self-assessment task requires you to comment on your own work.

Some examples of reflective writing

Social science fieldwork report (methods section), engineering design report, learning journal (weekly reflection).

Brookfield, S 1987, Developing critical thinkers: challenging adults to explore alternative ways of thinking and acting , Open University Press, Milton Keynes.

Mezirow, J 1990, Fostering critical reflection in adulthood: a guide to transformative and emancipatory learning , Jossey-Bass, San Francisco.

Schön, DA 1987, Educating the reflective practitioner , Jossey-Bass. San Francisco.

We thank the students who permitted us to feature examples of their writing.

Prepared by Academic Skills, UNSW. This guide may be distributed or adapted for educational purposes. Full and proper acknowledgement is required.

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
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Guide on How to Write a Reflection Paper with Free Tips and Example

A reflection paper is a very common type of paper among college students. Almost any subject you enroll in requires you to express your opinion on certain matters. In this article, we will explain how to write a reflection paper and provide examples and useful tips to make the essay writing process easier.

Reflection papers should have an academic tone yet be personal and subjective. In this paper, you should analyze and reflect upon how an experience, academic task, article, or lecture shaped your perception and thoughts on a subject.

Here is what you need to know about writing an effective critical reflection paper. Stick around until the end of our guide to get some useful writing tips from the writing team at EssayPro — a research paper writing service

What Is a Reflection Paper

A reflection paper is a type of paper that requires you to write your opinion on a topic, supporting it with your observations and personal experiences. As opposed to presenting your reader with the views of other academics and writers, in this essay, you get an opportunity to write your point of view—and the best part is that there is no wrong answer. It is YOUR opinion, and it is your job to express your thoughts in a manner that will be understandable and clear for all readers that will read your paper. The topic range is endless. Here are some examples: whether or not you think aliens exist, your favorite TV show, or your opinion on the outcome of WWII. You can write about pretty much anything.

There are three types of reflection paper; depending on which one you end up with, the tone you write with can be slightly different. The first type is the educational reflective paper. Here your job is to write feedback about a book, movie, or seminar you attended—in a manner that teaches the reader about it. The second is the professional paper. Usually, it is written by people who study or work in education or psychology. For example, it can be a reflection of someone’s behavior. And the last is the personal type, which explores your thoughts and feelings about an individual subject.

However, reflection paper writing will stop eventually with one very important final paper to write - your resume. This is where you will need to reflect on your entire life leading up to that moment. To learn how to list education on resume perfectly, follow the link on our dissertation writing services .

Unlock the potential of your thoughts with EssayPro . Order a reflection paper and explore a range of other academic services tailored to your needs. Dive deep into your experiences, analyze them with expert guidance, and turn your insights into an impactful reflection paper.

Free Reflection Paper Example

Now that we went over all of the essentials about a reflection paper and how to approach it, we would like to show you some examples that will definitely help you with getting started on your paper.

Reflection Paper Format

Reflection papers typically do not follow any specific format. Since it is your opinion, professors usually let you handle them in any comfortable way. It is best to write your thoughts freely, without guideline constraints. If a personal reflection paper was assigned to you, the format of your paper might depend on the criteria set by your professor. College reflection papers (also known as reflection essays) can typically range from about 400-800 words in length.

Here’s how we can suggest you format your reflection paper:

How to Start a Reflection Paper

The first thing to do when beginning to work on a reflection essay is to read your article thoroughly while taking notes. Whether you are reflecting on, for example, an activity, book/newspaper, or academic essay, you want to highlight key ideas and concepts.

You can start writing your reflection paper by summarizing the main concept of your notes to see if your essay includes all the information needed for your readers. It is helpful to add charts, diagrams, and lists to deliver your ideas to the audience in a better fashion.

After you have finished reading your article, it’s time to brainstorm. We’ve got a simple brainstorming technique for writing reflection papers. Just answer some of the basic questions below:

How did the article affect you?
How does this article catch the reader’s attention (or does it all)?
Has the article changed your mind about something? If so, explain how.
Has the article left you with any questions?
Were there any unaddressed critical issues that didn’t appear in the article?
Does the article relate to anything from your past reading experiences?
Does the article agree with any of your past reading experiences?

Here are some reflection paper topic examples for you to keep in mind before preparing to write your own:

How my views on rap music have changed over time
My reflection and interpretation of Moby Dick by Herman Melville
Why my theory about the size of the universe has changed over time
How my observations for clinical psychological studies have developed in the last year

The result of your brainstorming should be a written outline of the contents of your future paper. Do not skip this step, as it will ensure that your essay will have a proper flow and appropriate organization.

Another good way to organize your ideas is to write them down in a 3-column chart or table.

Do you want your task look awesome?

If you would like your reflection paper to look professional, feel free to check out one of our articles on how to format MLA, APA or Chicago style

Writing a Reflection Paper Outline

Reflection paper should contain few key elements:

Introduction

Your introduction should specify what you’re reflecting upon. Make sure that your thesis informs your reader about your general position, or opinion, toward your subject.

State what you are analyzing: a passage, a lecture, an academic article, an experience, etc...)
Briefly summarize the work.
Write a thesis statement stating how your subject has affected you.

One way you can start your thesis is to write:

Example: “After reading/experiencing (your chosen topic), I gained the knowledge of…”

Body Paragraphs

The body paragraphs should examine your ideas and experiences in context to your topic. Make sure each new body paragraph starts with a topic sentence.

Your reflection may include quotes and passages if you are writing about a book or an academic paper. They give your reader a point of reference to fully understand your feedback. Feel free to describe what you saw, what you heard, and how you felt.

Example: “I saw many people participating in our weight experiment. The atmosphere felt nervous yet inspiring. I was amazed by the excitement of the event.”

As with any conclusion, you should summarize what you’ve learned from the experience. Next, tell the reader how your newfound knowledge has affected your understanding of the subject in general. Finally, describe the feeling and overall lesson you had from the reading or experience.

There are a few good ways to conclude a reflection paper:

Tie all the ideas from your body paragraphs together, and generalize the major insights you’ve experienced.
Restate your thesis and summarize the content of your paper.

We have a separate blog post dedicated to writing a great conclusion. Be sure to check it out for an in-depth look at how to make a good final impression on your reader.

Need a hand? Get help from our writers. Edit, proofread or buy essay .

How to Write a Reflection Paper: Step-by-Step Guide

Step 1: create a main theme.

After you choose your topic, write a short summary about what you have learned about your experience with that topic. Then, let readers know how you feel about your case — and be honest. Chances are that your readers will likely be able to relate to your opinion or at least the way you form your perspective, which will help them better understand your reflection.

For example: After watching a TEDx episode on Wim Hof, I was able to reevaluate my preconceived notions about the negative effects of cold exposure.

Step 2: Brainstorm Ideas and Experiences You’ve Had Related to Your Topic

You can write down specific quotes, predispositions you have, things that influenced you, or anything memorable. Be personal and explain, in simple words, how you felt.

For example: • A lot of people think that even a small amount of carbohydrates will make people gain weight • A specific moment when I struggled with an excess weight where I avoided carbohydrates entirely • The consequences of my actions that gave rise to my research • The evidence and studies of nutritional science that claim carbohydrates alone are to blame for making people obese • My new experience with having a healthy diet with a well-balanced intake of nutrients • The influence of other people’s perceptions on the harm of carbohydrates, and the role their influence has had on me • New ideas I’ve created as a result of my shift in perspective

Step 3: Analyze How and Why These Ideas and Experiences Have Affected Your Interpretation of Your Theme

Pick an idea or experience you had from the last step, and analyze it further. Then, write your reasoning for agreeing or disagreeing with it.

For example, Idea: I was raised to think that carbohydrates make people gain weight.

Analysis: Most people think that if they eat any carbohydrates, such as bread, cereal, and sugar, they will gain weight. I believe in this misconception to such a great extent that I avoided carbohydrates entirely. As a result, my blood glucose levels were very low. I needed to do a lot of research to overcome my beliefs finally. Afterward, I adopted the philosophy of “everything in moderation” as a key to a healthy lifestyle.

For example: Idea: I was brought up to think that carbohydrates make people gain weight. Analysis: Most people think that if they eat any carbohydrates, such as bread, cereal, and sugar, they will gain weight. I believe in this misconception to such a great extent that I avoided carbohydrates entirely. As a result, my blood glucose levels were very low. I needed to do a lot of my own research to finally overcome my beliefs. After, I adopted the philosophy of “everything in moderation” as a key for having a healthy lifestyle.

Step 4: Make Connections Between Your Observations, Experiences, and Opinions

Try to connect your ideas and insights to form a cohesive picture for your theme. You can also try to recognize and break down your assumptions, which you may challenge in the future.

There are some subjects for reflection papers that are most commonly written about. They include:

Book – Start by writing some information about the author’s biography and summarize the plot—without revealing the ending to keep your readers interested. Make sure to include the names of the characters, the main themes, and any issues mentioned in the book. Finally, express your thoughts and reflect on the book itself.
Course – Including the course name and description is a good place to start. Then, you can write about the course flow, explain why you took this course, and tell readers what you learned from it. Since it is a reflection paper, express your opinion, supporting it with examples from the course.
Project – The structure for a reflection paper about a project has identical guidelines to that of a course. One of the things you might want to add would be the pros and cons of the course. Also, mention some changes you might want to see, and evaluate how relevant the skills you acquired are to real life.
Interview – First, introduce the person and briefly mention the discussion. Touch on the main points, controversies, and your opinion of that person.

Writing Tips

Everyone has their style of writing a reflective essay – and that's the beauty of it; you have plenty of leeway with this type of paper – but there are still a few tips everyone should incorporate.

Before you start your piece, read some examples of other papers; they will likely help you better understand what they are and how to approach yours. When picking your subject, try to write about something unusual and memorable — it is more likely to capture your readers' attention. Never write the whole essay at once. Space out the time slots when you work on your reflection paper to at least a day apart. This will allow your brain to generate new thoughts and reflections.

Short and Sweet – Most reflection papers are between 250 and 750 words. Don't go off on tangents. Only include relevant information.
Clear and Concise – Make your paper as clear and concise as possible. Use a strong thesis statement so your essay can follow it with the same strength.
Maintain the Right Tone – Use a professional and academic tone—even though the writing is personal.
Cite Your Sources – Try to cite authoritative sources and experts to back up your personal opinions.
Proofreading – Not only should you proofread for spelling and grammatical errors, but you should proofread to focus on your organization as well. Answer the question presented in the introduction.

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Daniel Parker

is a seasoned educational writer focusing on scholarship guidance, research papers, and various forms of academic essays including reflective and narrative essays. His expertise also extends to detailed case studies. A scholar with a background in English Literature and Education, Daniel’s work on EssayPro blog aims to support students in achieving academic excellence and securing scholarships. His hobbies include reading classic literature and participating in academic forums.

is an expert in nursing and healthcare, with a strong background in history, law, and literature. Holding advanced degrees in nursing and public health, his analytical approach and comprehensive knowledge help students navigate complex topics. On EssayPro blog, Adam provides insightful articles on everything from historical analysis to the intricacies of healthcare policies. In his downtime, he enjoys historical documentaries and volunteering at local clinics.

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How to Write a Reading Reflection Paper [A Full Guide]
Write your reflection paper outline beforehand to make the essay well-structured. This will make the actual writing very easy as you won't get carried away. Here is a useful template, which you may fill in with your notes: Let's go through some of the most important sections of your reading reflection format: Title.
How to Write a Reflection Paper
Develop your point through body paragraph (s), and conclude your paper by exploring the meaning you derive from your reflection. You may find the questions listed above can help you to develop an outline before you write your paper. You should maintain a formal tone, but it is acceptable to write in the first person and to use personal pronouns.
How to Write a Reflection Paper in 5 Steps (plus Template and Sample
Use these 5 tips to write a thoughtful and insightful reflection paper. 1. Answer key questions. To write a reflection paper, you need to be able to observe your own thoughts and reactions to the material you've been given. A good way to start is by answering a series of key questions. For example:
PDF Writing a Reflection Paper
A reflection paper is an assignment where you analyze what you have read or experienced and incorporate your ideas or opinions on the subject. The purpose is to learn from a text or experience and make connections between it and your insights. Although you may be asked to include reflection in
How to Start a Reflection Paper: Examples & Templates
1. Keep it short and sweet. A typical reflection paper is between 300 and 700 words long. 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. 2.
PDF Reading Reflection
5 points Responses are not specific, do not clearly indicate reflection, or are submitted soon after deadline. 0 points No response, or response submitted more than one class period late. Reading Reflection After completing the reading assignment, write brief responses (i.e., at least several sentences) to 2 out of 3 questions: 1.
Reflecting on What You Read
Here are two ideas for post-reading reflection: Write in a personal reading journal. Angelo and Cross suggest writing a "minute paper.". To do this, take one minute to jot down a few sentences about something you learned or discovered while reading. Or ask yourself a question about the reading and write an answer.
Reading Reflections
Description of the activity/assignment. Reading reflections are designed to encourage students to complete readings before coming to class, to reflect more deeply on the content of the reading, to make personal meaning from the meaning, and to develop their metacognitive skills for lifelong learning. The reflections consist of three questions ...
Reflective Writing
Two Types of Reflective Writing Assignments 1. Reading Reflection. In this type of reflective writing assignment, you will need to review course materials (read an article or chapter or watch a video or movie) and write a response. Your response should. demonstrate your understanding of the reading by providing a concise summary using your own ...
Reflective Writing
Reflective writing assignments are common across the university. You may be asked to reflect on your learning, your writing, your personal experiences in relation to a theory or text, or your personal experiences in an internship or other type of experience in relation to course readings. These are assignments, as Kara Taczak notes, that offer ...
Organizing Your Social Sciences Research Assignments
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.
Reading Reflection
The reading reflection assignment is meant to encourage students to reflect metacognitively on what they have read. It allows students to begin to internalize the information by summaring it in their own words. It also specifically begins to build bridges to the material based on what they already know in a constructivist apporach.
Reflecting on What You Read
You can also use these later for gathering ideas for your assignments. Here are two ideas for post-reading reflection: Write in a personal reading journal. Angelo and Cross suggest writing a "minute paper." To do this, take one minute to jot down a few sentences about something you learned or discovered while reading.
Introducing reflection as an assignment
Using reflective assignments can be a great way of synthesising learning and challenging the status quo. This page outlines some of the things to keep in mind when posing reflective assignments. Overview. In higher education or professional develop initiatives it is very common to have some sort of assignment. These are typically written but ...
Summarizing and Reflecting on a Text
As for why I was asked to write about Mitchell, this assignment is a kind of analysis in which the professor wants me not only to understand terminology from a text, but also to apply those terms in a context where they are not necessarily used. Some of my reflection will depend on what else has been going on in the class. Here are some examples:
The Little Assignment with the Big Impact: Reading, Writing, Critical
The basic assignment, also called the 3-2-1, has three requirements: Requirement 1: Students read what is assigned, then choose and describe the three most important aspects (concepts, issues, factual information, etc.) of the reading, justifying their choices. Requirement 2: Students identify two aspects of the reading they don't understand ...
General tips for academic reflections
Academic reflective writing requires critical and analytic thought, a clear line of argument, and the use of evidence through examples of personal experiences and thoughts and often also theoretical literature. You should aim for a balance between personal experience, tone, and academic practice and rigor. Academic reflective writing should:
Reading Reflection Exercise to Prepare for Class Discussion
Instructor: Marsha Lovett Course: 85-392: Human Expertise, Psychology Department, College of Humanities and Social Sciences Assessment: Reading Reflection Exercise to Prepare for Class Discussion Purpose: Although almost all of the students in this course are upper-level psychology majors, they still have difficulty completing the reading by the due date and in a way that prepares them for ...
PDF Reading Reﬂection Information and Sample
Reading Reflection Information and Sample. In this class, for each reading (or in one case video) that you are assigned, you are required to fill out a "reading reflections" survey. The questions are generic, and are not specific to the particular reading or topic. They are, in fact, the kinds of questions you should be thinking about as ...
6 Tips to Writing a Solid Reflection Paper (With a Sample Essay)
Tip #6—Critical reflection goes deeper. If your assignment asks you to write a critical reflection paper, it is asking for your observations and evaluations regarding an experience. ... They also enjoyed it when I showed them short video clips of the movie versions of the books we were reading, as well as the free-write sessions where they ...
Examples of Reflective Writing
Types of reflective writing assignments. A journal requires you to write weekly entries throughout a semester.May require you to base your reflection on course content. A learning diary is similar to a journal, but may require group participation. The diary then becomes a place for you to communicate in writing with other group members.
10 Unique and Creative Reflection Techniques & Lessons for the
3. Model your own reflection. I take the opportunity to model my learning and my reflecting whenever possible. After an activity or lesson, I will model my own reflection for students. I will also let students see when I make a mistake, so I can express what I have learned from this.
How to Write a Reflection Paper: Guide with Examples
Never write the whole essay at once. Space out the time slots when you work on your reflection paper to at least a day apart. This will allow your brain to generate new thoughts and reflections. Short and Sweet - Most reflection papers are between 250 and 750 words. Don't go off on tangents.

How to Write a Reflection Paper

Types of Reflective Writing

Approaches to Reflective Inquiry

Consider these questions:

Assess the text(s):

Develop your ideas:

Make connections:

A Note on Mechanics

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

Sample Outline and Paper

How to Start a Reflection Paper

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24 Reflecting on What You Read

Text Attributions

Media Attributions

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17 Reflective Writing

Learning Objectives

Formal Reflective Writing Assignments

Incorporating the 4Rs for Indigenous Ways of Knowing in your Reflection

Two Types of Reflective Writing Assignments

Steps to complete a reading reflection

Summarize the most important information from the assigned reading, video or audio. Concisely explain the topic and the most important details, not all of the small examples.

2. Reflect on the article by assessing the text, developing your ideas, and making connections:

2. Experiential Reflection

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Reflective Writing

Collect relevant evidence before you start writing.

Be specific.

Focus on a small moment from your experiences.

Fully explain the quote or focus of each point.

Use “I” when appropriate.

Reflection conclusions can look forward to the future.

Write the reflection introduction last.

Organizing Your Social Sciences Research Assignments

Benefits of Reflective Writing Assignments

How to Approach Writing a Reflection Paper

Structure and Writing Style

Writing Tip

Another Writing Tip

11 Reflecting on What You Read

Text Attributions

Media Attributions

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Summarizing and Reflecting on a Text

Reflect on Your Purpose

Reflect on Your Learning

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The Little Assignment with the Big Impact: Reading, Writing, Critical Reflection, and Meaningful Discussion

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General tips for academic reflections

Make sure you know what the assessor is asking for

Using private reflections as foundations for academic reflections

The core elements of academic reflective writing

Eberly Center

Implementation:

6 Tips to Writing a Solid Reflection Paper (With a Sample Essay)

Tip #1—Choose a topic you're passionate about

Tip #2—Outline your reflection paper before you write

Tip #3—Write in first-person singular

Tip #4—Avoid too much description

Tip #5—Avoid colloquial expressions or slang

Tip #6—Critical reflection goes deeper

Sample reflection paper

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