A reflection paper is rather easy to write. Well, at least many students believe that they can handle it easier because it is about their feelings and emotions. However, is it really so simple? Anyway, you will need some guidelines to assure that you have selected a proper topic and you are moving in the right direction.

Have you ever thought that sharing your experiences about a movie, a book or any other things that have impressed you could be so helpful in writing your reflection paper? That is not a joke. When you are sharing with your friends your emotions after you have watched a movie, you are practising writing such kind of paper.

What Is a Reflection Paper: Definition and Explanation

Now, try to remember what you are usually saying in such situations, and write it down. You might be wondering why you should do so. Well, because a reflection paper is sharing your thoughts and feelings about an event or a phenomenon.

So, when you are writing a reflection paper, you are describing your feelings, emotions, explaining them, giving reasons why you feel like this. And this is something that should not be too complicated. However, when you are writing, you should follow these rules; otherwise, you will get a mess instead of a well-arranged essay:

  • Be consistent: jumping from one opinion to another, from one emotion to another will bring nothing good but confuse the reader.
  • The reflection paper definition gives a clear idea about the content: write about your emotions without any statistical data or research data. Emotions are the keyword.
  • Connect the ideas and thoughts, but express each of them in a separate paragraph.

How to Start a Reflection Paper to Hook the Reader

In the reflection paper introduction, tell about the book or the movie that has made you emotional. Explain why it has caused such emotions. You can base your explanation on a story from your life. Actually, you can take any exciting story, but make sure you don’t plagiarize it. The reflection paper meaning is in this actually: to tell about your feelings based on a book or a movie, or similar, and to elaborate on why you feel like this.

What to Write in the Body

Well, here, you write about all that you feel. Your main task now is to explain your feelings, your emotions, to explain their causes if you can do it. Do you agree or disagree with the author of the book? What do you think about the message of a movie? Discuss it, substantiate your impressions and write everything down.

Nice Conclusion Improves the Impression

In conclusion, sum up everything that you have written, but in more general words now. Was the book good or bad? What about the movie? Did it make any influence on your life, your views, your ideas, and opinions? What are your impression and your assessment?

Reflection Paper Format: Check It Here

Usually, a reflective paper is a paper about you. So, it doesn’t need any special formatting, just the standard rules apply. However, sometimes your teacher may ask you to write an APA style reflection paper. That is a formatting requirement. However, don’t worry, there is nothing complicated in it. Just take care that you:

  • Use the space twice throughout the entire text.
  • Write with the margins – 1 inch for each side of the sheet.
  • Use the right font that is 10-12 Times New Roman.
  • Use the title as a header – at the sheet's top, the corner on the left.
  • Have page numbers inserted (the sheet top, the corner on the right).
  • Put a title page with the title, personal name and surname, and the school name.
  • Have made an “Abstract” page – don’t change any text there! In that page, write a summary of the paper.
  • Have a reference page that concludes your paper.

How to Make a Reference Page

Do you know how to make a reference page? Well, if you have to write an APA style paper, references are needed. So, if you haven’t used any materials, this is a problem. So, quickly look for some relevant sources, and here we go:

  • Write the author`s name, firstly, write his surname, and then, the name.
  • Publication year.
  • Title of the work, to which you are referring (here, you use italics).
  • Publisher and its location.

And that’s it. Your reference page is ready. Recheck all the data once more to avoid errors, and proofread the paper.

Reflection Paper Outline Peculiarities

So, from the information provided above you already know how a reflection paper outline should look. If it is not an APA style paper, then, you write just an introduction, the main part, and a conclusion. If you are required to write an APA style paper, you add a title page, an abstract page, and a list of references. Moreover, you should appropriately format your paper:

  • Introduction: Hook your readers by inserting a quote or a question in the first sentence of the introduction paragraph. Give a brief preview of the story that you are going to tell in your paper. Create a thesis statement which should include information about a person, place or event that had an impact on you.
  • Body: Compose at least three paragraphs with a chronology of events that influenced you. Reveal the story of meeting an important person and your experience with him or her. Tell the details of the story to make the readers understand how and why you have such strong emotions.
  • Conclusion: The last paragraph of the reflection paper should be a nice finishing touch. Summarize all ideas and your experience to make the readers make their own judgment of your writing.

So, what is a reflection paper? First of all, this is a paper about yourself, your emotions and feelings in a particular situation, your life and your principles. The primary target of such paper is to show you and your inner world. Once you manage to do it, you might believe that other objectives are secondary. Anyway, if you need some writing help, you could ask our experts from college paper service and they will help you with any kind of writing paper!