It is of paramount importance to learn how to write a reflection paper on a book, as during your studies you may be asked to complete such papers as a part of your home assignment. A reflection paper is a 2-3-page essay, which aims at sharing personal thoughts after reading a book or watching a movie. In this paper, you can apply all your knowledge and educational experience.
A reflection paper on a book refers to an academic writing, though it is more informal. It has to be based on your personal experience, thus, you need to express your own thoughts and feelings on a particular book. When you are writing a reflection paper on a book, you need to share your personal opinion and support it with the examples from the text. Also, you are encouraged to use citations to support your point of view.
Learn how to write a reflection paper on a book with our five tips
Getting started
The first step in writing a reflection paper is to prepare properly. If you are given a writing prompt from your teacher, pay special attention to it. Consider the prompt when you’re reading the book and use it when further writing your reflection paper. This will help you to follow thoroughly all the requirements. Analyze the prompt, and after that organize your ideas in the form of an outline, taking notes of the key points, which you are going to cover further in the paper. All the points in your outline should be arranged logically, which will help you to stay focused writing your paper.
Writing the introduction
Though a reflection paper is about expressing some personal opinions, your task is not just to write down your thoughts and ideas. As it is an academic paper, you should include a thesis statement in your introduction. One of the best ways of how to write the introduction is to describe what you initially expected and the attitude you had having read the book. Just inform your readers about the first impression you got from the book.
Including a thesis statement
Like all academic assignments, your reflection paper should contain a central idea, which will unify all parts of the paper in the introduction. Thus, prepare a good thesis statement for your reflection paper where you will be able to indicate everything you’ve learned after reading the book. Your thesis statement will serve as a theme, which you will build your reflection paper on.
Building the body
Your thesis statement should be elaborated in the body, which you stated in the introduction. Your experiences should be expressed in the body without any general information. On the contrary, you should demonstrate the logical flow of your thoughts and show how you reached certain conclusions. Support your arguments with some examples from the book; include some citations. Using citations, you present good illustrations to the topic, which makes the latter clearer and easier to understand.
Writing the conclusion
When you are done with your thesis statement, supported in the body with the specific examples from the basic book of your reflections, present a conclusion, which has to unite all the key points. The conclusion should be in the form of a short summary of all your thoughts and should be supported with the evidence from the text. Make your conclusion easy to comprehend, that is when others read it, they should get a brief idea of what your reflection paper is about.
When you get the idea of how to write a reflection paper on a book, you will have no difficulties with expressing your thoughts and views in the paper. If you practice writing reflection papers more, you will become more efficient and will acquire more writing skills.
Main features of a good reflection paper on a book
There are some features, which can help to identify easily whether the reflection paper is good or not. If you consider all these characteristics and try to include them in your paper, you can be sure that you will become a proficient writer of reflection papers.
These features include:
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Purposefulness
Your reflection paper should not include just some primitive ideas written down on a sheet of paper in the way they first appeared in your head. It is not a personal diary either. On the contrary, your paper should have a reflective form of writing serving academic purposes. The main objectives of such writing should be as follows: accomplishing, learning, demonstrating or improving writing skills.
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Personalism
A good reflection paper on a book explores or demonstrates some of your personal experiences or feelings concerning the book you’ve just read. Also, it has to show your life position as opposed to the main ideas of the book.
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Perceptiveness
A reflective paper’s main objective is not just to tell a story, but rather serve as an indicator of a well-developed ability to think critically. You should demonstrate that you analyze the book, synthesize its content, and evaluate it exposing your personal attitude towards it. Such papers should meet the main objective of reflective writing, which is to express personal feelings and thoughts based on a certain book.
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Well-Polished
There exist several standards of high quality writing: clarity, conciseness, correctness, and precision, which have to be met in a good reflection paper. Thus, revise and edit your paper carefully in order to make sure your paper meets all the mentioned above quality standards.
Additional tips and reminders on how to write a reflection paper on a book
- Though you are encouraged to express your personal feelings and thoughts on the book you are to read, do not put much stress on them alone.
- Do not write simply a summary of your reading. A reflection paper on a book is not just a disordered flow of your thoughts and feelings.
- Make sure your reflective paper is concise and consists of ideas, which can easily be supported with the evidence from the book.
- Before including the information about what you have learnt from the book into your paper, make sure it is really important, as all opinions and feelings expressed in reflective papers are usually subjective.
- Check whether the central theme of your reflection book is clearly defined and stated in your paper. You may find out what the main theme of a book is after reading all the notes taken by you while reading the book.
- Don’t hesitate to use a sample reflection paper, which will serve you as a guide for writing. A good sample gives you an opportunity to learn the ways of structuring your reflection paper on a book properly.
Get help with a reflection paper on a book
If you have any difficulties with writing a reflection paper on a book, contact us and get immediate help. Visiting the homepage of our website, you can get detailed information on our writing service. As an alternative, you can continue reading our additional guidelines on how to write a reflection paper on a book as well as find many helpful samples of reflection papers on our blog.
