Task: Choose one of your formal papers, either the Six-Source Essay or the MultiSource Essay/Literature Review, and write a reflection on the essay in terms of both process and product.
Length: 500 words (2 double-spaced pages)
Format: APA 7
Point of view: The essay reflection will be written in the first person point of view.
The reflective essay is an opportunity for writers to critically assess the progress
they have made in thinking, researching, and writing about a chosen topic.
Writing a reflective essay allows a writer to tell the unique story of how a topic idea, cultivated through research, grew into a paper. It is a chance to think in a sustained way about the context, objectives, and process of a writing project.
Here are some questions that will help you to prepare for a reflective paper:
Context:
● What was the purpose of the essay? Do I think I achieved that purpose?
● What do research sources say about my chosen topic? Did the research say different things than I expected it to say?
● How did the readers react to the paper? What was interesting, surprising, or difficult about the reactions to the paper?
Objectives:
● What are my learning goals for the course? How did researching and writing the essay help me to further those goals? What obstacles presented themselves that hindered my progress towards those goals?
● What ideas did I have about my topic when I began? How did the research sources affect those ideas? Did my ideas change as a result of the thinking, researching, and writing process?
● Did researchers from different fields report different findings on the topic?
● What information did I want readers to have as a result of reading the paper? What information do I want readers to have now?
Process:
● What was my experience of researching the topic?
● What was my experience of writing the paper?
● What challenges did I face as I did the work? What successes did I achieve?How did I respond to these challenges and successes?
● How did responses from other readers and writers change my process?
Addtional labor asks you to incorporate APA quotes and citations from your research into this reflection.
Helpful Resources:
“How to write a reflection paper.” (2021). How to guide. Trent University.
https://www.trentu.ca/academicskills/how-guides/how-writeuniversity/how-approach-any-assignment/how-write-reflectionpaper
“Examples from Reflection Essays.” (n.d.) Texas Undergraduate
Studies.University of Texas.
https://ugs.utexas.edu/sites/default/files/documents/pdf/Reflection
_Essay_Examples.pdf