How to Write a Reflection Paper in Literature without a Mess in Your Head?

As with any good job, writing Reflection Paper in Literature requires organization. It is thanks to these skills that students get incredible works that deserve special attention from the teacher. And yes, talent occupies only a small percentage of success, so therefore everyone has the opportunity to do a paper of high quality.

The organization is both a simple and complex task. On the one hand, all you need to do is draw up a consistent plan, and carry out all the steps in order. However, on the way to the last point, each student may encounter a number of obstacles. After all, student life is the most active period in which everything goes according to the plan quite rarely. A lot of extracurricular events and no less homework take a lot of energy. Therefore, organizational abilities are an integral part of students’ skills.

If your goal is not only to successfully finishing a home task but also to save time and effort, follow the next plan:

• Add it to your to-do list immediately after receiving your homework. This will help not to forget about this work and to undertake its implementation in advance.
• Determine how much time you personally need in order to do quality work. Basically, you need to build on the deadlines set for finishing paper. However, your personal rhythm of work should also be taken into account. After all, this paper is not the only task. Despite the small size of text (about 500 words), remember that you need to take time to collect information, form your thoughts, and adjust the work.
• Do not postpone work indefinitely. Too often the life situations, as well as our own unwillingness, can cause us to postpone writing for tomorrow or the day after tomorrow. But, based on experience, this “tomorrow” is likely to come on the last night before the deadline. What do you think will happen to your plan for efficiency and maintaining your own strength? That’s right, it will be destroyed, as well as your moral and physical condition due to sleepless nights and nerves.

Things to Know About How to Write a Reflection Paper in Literature

The work on reflection paper in literature is not only the need to tell about a work of fiction that is included in your topic. This type of paper suggests that the student conduct his or her own analysis of the work. This homework will help you learn to ask questions and look for answers in the lines of the author.
It also allows a violation of the formal style of writing, which gives some freedom to express your emotions regarding the read work. However, despite this, slang expressions are also not allowed in it.

Valuable skills that a student can get while doing homework:

• The ability to perceive other people’s opinions and be able to analyze them;
• The ability to understand the author’s thoughts and find the answer between the lines of the work;
• Perceive literary works not only superficially, but really understand what you just read, and be able to express own thoughts about this piece of art.

Also, students should avoid the following mistakes:

• Perform retelling. It is important to pay attention to the fact that this type of work does not imply a brief retelling of the work. The emphasis should be on the essence of the problem and its analysis, the way you understand the events of the book.
• Rely on personal opinions. Despite the fact that this paper assumes that the student does an analysis of the work, the entire text should not be based solely on personal opinion. The basis of the work should be facts. And personal opinion can be used as an expression of one’s own consent or disagreement with them.
• Describing the characters. It does not make sense to concentrate on the character image when performing this task. Most importantly, pay attention to how these characters behave. If you need to point out hostility to a negative character, focus on his/her actions. Analyze them and tell what pushes you away from his/her image. It is not necessary to describe the robes or appearance in detail. This will not help to convey with reasonably your attitude toward the protagonist of the work.
• Stretch the story. Reflection paper loves brevity, and therefore, you should try to enclose your thoughts in 500 words, and also not forget about the conclusions. The size of the text may vary depending on the instructions of the teacher.

How Not Miss the Important: Follow Simple Tips for Writing Great Paper

When working on a literature task, it is important not only to correctly express your thoughts but also to monitor the consistency of your analysis. After all, the works of fiction are completely different, and not in each of them you can clearly see the chronological development or correctly indicate the author’s thought.

In order to not only understand the writer’s idea but also to make your paper capacious and astounding, it is important to follow the plan for writing the work. This plan will help you immerse yourself in the work, discover new boundaries for the possible and finish in the given time frame.

1. Select or get a theme

The topic is an important moment of any work. It serves as the basis around which all arguments, assumptions, and conclusions will be built. Each student has several options for how to get a topic.

• The first option – a list of topics is provided by the teacher. In this case, it is important to choose the one that means a little more to you than just a set of letters. Try to pay attention to the work of fiction, which deals with the subject, and how you feel in its relation. Our brain is designed in such a way that it doesn’t want to waste its resources on things that are indifferent to our souls, and therefore you will have to fight with yourself for every line in your paper. At the same time, when it comes to a work that causes you sincere emotions (no matter positive or negative), the words will add up to sentences on their own, and clothe your thoughts in excellent text.
• The second option – you are directly given a specific topic. This deprives you of the right to choose, and therefore you will have to adapt to the given conditions. This may insignificantly complicate the task of writing, but with the competent organization of your work, you can do it perfectly.

We suggest that you consider several options:

• Terry Pratchett as the main reason for realizing happiness, even in the most inappropriate place.
• Harry Potter – Is this a story about magic or about the importance of mutual support and courage?
• Why is Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” the best thing to read before Christmas?
• Is the beauty of Dorian Gray worth his lost inner world?
• How brave do you have to be to get to know the art of Stephen King?

2. Listen to your desires

Any creative work requires inspiration, and this, as you know, is a very unstable thing. Therefore, as soon as at least a couple of lines are generated in your head, relative to your task, you need to urgently write them down. Even if you are already sleeping. Take a short note on your phone so that in the morning you can remember what you were thinking about and then move these lines to paper.
But, quite often, our laziness can block any desire to take up the task. And in order to avoid unproductivity, you need to allocate in your daily routine the time at which you will be required to start writing. If in the process of working on paper, you feel that your head cannot generate ideas, then you should postpone the writing and relax. Take a break for tea or for a short walk. This will help to effectively cope with the task and avoid bad mood and headache due to overstrain.

3. Study the examples

Starting from scratch is a very difficult task. Students are often get lost due to ignorance of how their work should look. Yes, they may have a general idea of some of the nuances of reflection paper, but this does not always help. Therefore, examples come to the rescue, thanks to which a student can confirm own theoretical knowledge and get a complete picture of what the final work should look like.

4. Immerse yourself in the work

For high-quality and interesting paper, you will need to cast aside your worries about the timing and complexity of the work. This is an important point for achieving inner harmony, thanks to which your text will be rich, sincere and memorable.
Deadline is definitely a frightening word, but if you constantly convince yourself that you can’t do it, it will definitely happen. In any written work, self-confidence is important.

5. Collect the materials

Before start writing, you need to take care of the basis for the text. The first step is to study the literary work that relates to your topic.
For example, if your topic starts with a question, then you need to make a couple of main arguments that will help answer it. These arguments will serve as your starting point. You can also support them by expressing your opinion on the views of the author, or you can appeal by giving a couple of personal arguments.
Next, determine the sequence of your thoughts. Bring out your main ideas in separate paragraphs. This will serve as a reference plan for you, which will help not to lose the idea and logically draw up your paper.

6. Start writing

Having completed all the preparatory work, it will be quite easy for you to turn individual points of the plan into a single text. Take your time to do everything in one day. Some points may require clarification from the work, and therefore you may need to refer to the source and conduct one more analysis. Do not neglect this, because with a competent organization you can manage before the onset of the deadline.

7. Come up with an introduction

Yes, this item is best left for the last. This approach will help you competently focus on what your work will be about. Knowing how you ended your story and what conclusion you came to, you can easily interest the reader by attracting his/her attention with just a couple of lines about the most important.
For example, you can insert the main question, the answer to which the reader will receive only during the reading. You can also use a quote from the work of fiction that you will be talking about.

8. Carry out a check

Regardless of how quickly you completed the task and how easy it was for you, be sure to check your work.
The verification should be carried out in stages. This will help evaluate your work in several ways and not miss the slightest mistake.

• The first step is a grammar and punctuation test. This is a basic viewing of the text, which will help to eliminate all mechanical mistakes, as well as correct punctuation.
• The second stage is a check for logicality and consistency. In the course of writing, you can lose the direction of your thoughts, and despite the plan, go astray from the necessary path of development of your story idea. If you find any flaws, you should make corrections, add more specific sentences that will return the meaning in the right direction.
  It is also necessary to monitor whether all questions have been answered. If the paper involves a counter-question in the conclusion, you need to pay attention to the fact that this question should concern your thoughts and encourage the reader to draw his/her own conclusions.
• The third stage is the final proofreading. This is the final step that separates your home task from getting a teacher’s mark. It should be carried out sometime after the previous stage. Your head should be rested in order to be able to look at text with renewed vigor.

Summing Up

Writing reflection paper in literature is not an easy task. But, as in any complex case, you need to be able to break the one complex thing into simple components. Consistency and organization are the best friends of any student. They will help to cope with any task, not only in college but also outside its walls.