HOW TO WRITE A REFLECTION PAPER

HOW TO WRITE A REFLECTION PAPER

Have you ever watched a movie you were totally impressed by? Do you want to share your opinions and impressions? Then, crafting a reflection paper will be a piece of cake for you. It is not a persuasive essay – your task is to express yourself regardless of whether the readers support you or not. In this article, we will give you some recommendations on how to deal with this sort of paper.

WHAT IS A REFLECTION PAPER?

It is an analytical kind of academic writing, which represents student’s opinions about something like a movie, book, person, etc. You can discuss just anything: the most vivid childhood recollection, date, trip, concert of a favorite band, and other topics.

HOW TO CRAFT A CRITICAL REFLECTION PAPER

This type of paper is the most important stage of the critical thinking process. It demonstrates that a student can observe, ask questions, assess the experience, and apply academic content to raise awareness of his/her personal experience. 

Lay and McGuire put forward the most widespread model in 2010. It looks as follows:

Stage 1: A student dwells on the experience by giving details on the episode or object that evoked this review.

Stage 2: A student looks into the experience by means of integration of own experience and academic content using such methods as assumption evaluation, knowledge of context, and comprehensive analysis, etc.

Stage 3: A student expresses learning. He or she should give answers to the following questions:

• What did I draw from this?
• How will this experience affect my education, practice, or job?
• How should the readership perceive my experience?

HOW TO WRITE A REFLECTION ESSAY ON A BOOK

Being aware of how to write a reflection essay is indispensable for every journalist or reviewer. Moreover, many bloggers will find this knowledge particularly helpful because a lot of people read books or watch movies according to the recommendation of bloggers. Remember these elements when you intend to create such posts or videos:

• Book’s title
• Brief information about the author
• Plot summary
• Analysis of main figures in the book
• Your impressions

HOW TO WRITE A COURSE REFLECTION PAPER

Some students may want to critique certain courses. If a student wishes to share his/her experience of taking a college course, he/she needs to understand how to write a course review essay. This paper enables students to express their negative impressions on certain topics, the whole course, or tutors that conducted them. Whether your impressions positive or negative, follow this guideline:

Stage 1: Tell the reader about the course. Enumerate the topics discussed in-class, explain how instructions were delivered, and tell what your motivation to take the course was.

Stage 2: Provide definitions of the theories and main concepts. Interpret every theory with your own words.

Stage 3: Explain how you felt about the covered theories and concepts of the course and give your evaluation based on real-life experience/examples.

Stage 4: Tell whether the taken course was of any good or not.

HOW TO WRITE A REFLECTION PAPER ON A PROJECT

Although the project may be pretty large and complex, writing a paper on a project is a piece of cake. Take a look at the stages described in the previous section. All you need is just to write the word “project” instead of “course”.

REFLECTION PAPER STRUCTURE

Similarly to other papers, a reflection paper has a three-part structure. You are free to change the structure since it is a personalized type of paper in which you just need to describe and analyze your experience.

Reflection Paper Outline

1. Introductory part (the topic of an essay, the main focus of the paper, the importance of the topic, the way to describe it).
2. Body paragraphs where you will provide an elaborate description of the subject, evaluation of the topic, and in-depth analysis of the chosen theme.
3. Concluding part.

WRITING AN INTRODUCTION OF A REFLECTION PAPER

Do not get down to your reflection paper without having a powerful topic and example at your disposal. You will always benefit from analyzing your life experience since it happened to you and you know for sure how you felt about it.