How to Write a Reflection Paper

How to Write a Reflection Paper Definition of a reflection paper A great deal of time is spent thinking; thinking about what you might have read, what people have said about you, what you are thinking about yourself and how your thinking has changed over time. The thinking process involves critical and reflective evaluation. Reflection is the personal response to situations, experiences, new information, or events. A reflective essay is a type of essay that reflects your personality and they are normally subjective and personal. It’s your response to feelings and thoughts, a way of thinking to explore learning, an opportunity for gaining self-knowledge, and a chance to reinforce and develop writing skills. It involves the experiences you have been through and the influence they have on you, the people you have met, and the places you have been. This article provides tips on how to write a reflection paper. Writing a reflective paper gives you the opportunity to tell your reader who you really are, the reasons behind what you are, and how you have grown, changed or developed from your experiences. This type of essay helps you think more about yourself. It’s a way of communicating with your instructor about how a particular lesson shaped your understanding. In most cases, other types of essays require research, figures, and facts. For the case of the reflection essay writing process, you need to adopt a naturally personal, and fluid approach, both in style and structure. Any reflective essay should maintain a professional and academic tone with an organization that is cohesive thorough. You can achieve this by keeping your thoughts sensible and organized by not dragging other people down in your paper. If a person’s influence made you feel down, unpleasant or rejected, you should have limits as you describe the influence the person had on you. Are you wondering about how to start a reflective paper? A reflection paper requires one to use “I” so as to relate your subjective opinions and feelings with evidence. You should also use correct grammar and spellings as well. Some abbreviations should be avoided since this is an academic paper. You should therefore check your grammar and spelling after you finish writing your reflective paper. A reflection paper could be of an imagination, experience, a special object, special place or something that you have watched or read. It should be reviewed at sentence level by; making sure your sentences are focused with multiple ideas not squeezed in one sentence. Often, avoid sentence fragments but make sure that each sentence should have both subject and verb. To make your paper more natural and conversational, vary the length of your sentences by including each complex sentence with multiple clauses and each simple sentence with a single verb and a single subject. This also prevents your reflection letter from being wooden. Use of transitions in your reflective paper is essential. They allow you to link your understandings and conclusions directly with the experience or lesson. It is also recommendable to relate class information to your experience While writing a reflective paper, you should be able to reveal your information wisely. This is because a reflection paper includes personal information, subjective opinions and feelings and you should only write what you feel is appropriate. To write effectively, you should focus on your course perceptions and content, ideas, observations and experiences based on your topic and what you find inspiring, interesting, difficult, or confusing. Your reflection paper format should include an introduction, body and conclusion Outline To start a reflection paper, you need an outline. For a great reflective essay, proper planning is required based on the information any either topic you choose. A reflective essay needs to be organized. This is you can’t just talk about everything or anything without order. An outline helps you lay out what to use before writing, this prevents you from forgetting crucial elements in your essay. It also provides you with the right roadmap. The structure of a reflective essay is different from other essays e.g. argumentative essay. An organized reflection paper should be; Sweet and short and this involves word count and other instructions from your instructor. A great reflective essay includes; Identification of the main themes, the reason as to why the experience or event stands out in your mind and not any other, creating a chart if necessary; list the key points in first column, your response to the points in the second column by mentioning how beliefs, experiences and subjective values influenced your response and a description of how much your response is for the purpose sharing in the reflection paper. The outline format involves: Introduction; this involves an identification and explanation of the subject, a statement of your reaction to the statement, that is, what is agreeable or disagreeable? Was there change of mind? Was your expectations met by the subject? What did you learn from the experience? Body; This consists of three paragraphs: Paragraph 1; this should include the topic sentence and three supportive sentences. Body paragraph 2 which is made of a topic sentence and three supportive sentences. And body paragraph 3 which has a topic sentence and two supportive sentences. Conclusion; summarizes the main ideas covered in the body and introduction sections. Writing the actual Reflective paper Introduction After you have created the outline for your reflective paper, it is time you started writing the actual paper. The introduction gives an over view of your reaction by identifying the subject. It should be interesting as it prepares a ready on what they are to read. It involves describing the experience briefly without giving it all. This makes the reader keep reading until conclusion .The introduction includes; Hook; this gives a preview of the interesting part of your story to grab the attention of your readers. Thesis statement development; this comes at the end of your introduction. It includes a quick statement of the contents of your essay and how the story has influenced you, be it of a place, person or experience and its influence on you. It’s an explanation of whether your expectations were actually met and what you learned. It provides a transition to the body of your paper and is later revisited in conclusion. It provides cohesion and focus of your paper. A transition sentence makes your paper flow logically and easily readable. Body The body comes after the introduction and is the most crucial part of the essay. It identifies the key points that support the thesis statement. It can be confusing and muddled but organizing it correctly makes your reflective essay great. You should always use adjectives tor describing all that you saw, heard, felt or smelled. The body can also be narrative; you can narrate all that happened in your experience. The body is also made of the effects whether personal or to a group, friends or family. It should also answer what changed or happened after the experience. Reflections or realizations should be included in the body. The realization is easy to write since it’s all about thoughts and no research is needed. You should also include your perception on the experience, whether bad or good. It should include lessons which the reader can also learn from, benefits, or what you lost from the experience. Here are a few tips for a great body: Use of correct chronology. This involves putting all your important ideas in an orderly way to avoid confusion. Inclusion of the impact the person, experience, or place has on you if any and your lessons from it. It should be a long section involving a description of the person, place, or event. It’s what interests the reader most as it shows all about you. Creation of guiding questions to your response. These include questions about the event and its relation to you. Examples of this questions include; How does the experience affect you? Is it culturally, socially, theologically or emotionally? And if yes, how and where? Why is it a bother or why has it grabbed your attention. Has your way of thinking been affected by the experience? Was it in accordance with your beliefs and what made you change to what you are now? Was anyone involved in your experience and what was his or her contribution? Conclusion The body paragraphs explain your understandings or conclusions gained at end of experience or lesson. It’s the final touch that brings your whole story together. It includes the summary of main points as in the body and an overall view of your reflection. The summary includes your thoughts, realizations, and experience. However, you should rely on facts and do not include new ideas here that were not covered in the text. Each main idea should be written in a separate paragraph. The topic sentence clearly identifies key points, understanding, or conclusions. How to Write a Reflection Paper How to start a reflection paper? What is a reflection paper? A good reflective paper is about some facts or experiences together with your personal thoughts and insights. You can write about what you think or what you believe in. Or you can describe any of your observations. This kind of paper is not too difficult to write as you express your own thoughts and ideas. There are no strict rules about how to start the reflection paper, so you can make the introduction the way you see it. However, we advise you to write a general statement about the topic of the paper in the introduction part to inform the reader. And you should state the thesis in the first part of the paper as well. Otherwise, the reader can feel confused. And besides a good beginning, there should be a fine narration with your thoughts, facts and the conclusion at the end. You should your own thoughts and observations, or you can get a low grade if you use the thoughts of another person. How to write a reflection paper: format and rules We’ll give you a sample APA format reflection paper to see how you can write yours. We’ve mentioned above, there are no strict rules about the format, but you can use our guide for practicing your skills of writing. However, it’s clear from the reflection paper definition that you have to write your thoughts. Write a good introduction A good beginning of any kind of paper aims at making the reader want to read all the text. It doesn’t mean you should write something unbelievable. You should write what the reflection paper is about, what you think about it and why you have decided to choose this topic. The thesis should be short and precise not to make the introductory part too long. Write about your thoughts and experience Writing a reflection paper can become a tough task if you have no your personal opinions about anything that happens around you. Even if you think your thoughts don’t really matter, it’s not so. You should always write about your true feelings and true considerations. One more thing that should be present in your reflection paper is describing facts. You can describe what you saw, what other people did or how they looked like. You can describe what you heard, smelled and so on. The next thing to write about is the influence of the accident or that situation on you or people around you. State how important it was to experience the situation, what conclusions you’ve made and why. You can write whether the incident was good or bad despite what other people think about it. It’s not an informative essay where you just state the facts. Here you should state your thoughts towards the case. If you saw a terrible catastrophe, you should describe how it happened and your feelings during the process. What happened right after the accident as well as your actions. Conclude it right If you google the example of reflection paper, you will always find the conclusion no matter what structure and format the writer has chosen for the paper. The story will seem unfinished without the conclusion, so make sure you have it and you have written it right. What is the right conclusion? It’s the one where you include the thesis, you sum up everything that you’ve mentioned in the body paragraphs. You shouldn’t just state the same facts and ideas, you should write what you have learned from that case and what you’re going to do with it in the future. If the situation you’ve described is connected with other people, you should write how it influenced their lives and what’s going to happen with these people in the future, how their lives will change and so on. A step-by-step guide to writing a reflection paper You know the theory, so it’s time for practical tasks. We’ll give you tips on how to write a reflection paper. Find the catchy title. Everyone reads the title, and if it’s good enough, your text will be read with high interest. Track your ideas. It’s best to make a table where you will make notes with your thoughts and ideas. You can make up columns like what happened, your thoughts and the result. Ask questions. Ask yourself questions about the paper. Start with something like why your internship reflection paper should be written and how useful it is. And finish with the more precise questions like what you felt when you saw the accident or how it influenced your affection of the crime, etc. Keep it short. It’s the rule that’s actual for any kind of papers. If you can exclude the word without losing its initial sense, do it. The same works with the whole paragraphs. Wateriness is a very bad idea. Let the experts improve it. If you feel it’s too complicated or there are a lot of papers to write, it’s better to sleep well at night and let the expert authors do their job. You will give a short description of the event or nothing at all. And you will get a good piece of writing in a few days. The bottom line It often happens that there are no great good or bad events that are stuck in our memories. And even writing the reflection paper outline seems to be the most difficult task you’ve ever had. Therefore, we advise you not to waste time and order the paper online. The earlier you do it, the better work you will get, and the more nerves you will save.