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Reflection Tips

REFLECTION PAPER HINTS & GUIDELINES

The purpose of a reflection paper is to demonstrate what you have learned about principles
(theories, concepts) of bargaining and negotiation. A reflection paper has three elements. You
might do well to think about these as roughly one page per element in your write-up.

(1) A brief summary of what happened. This might include what you negotiated, and what the
outcome was. It might also include a summary of your strategy going into the negotiation, your
perceptions as the negotiation unfolded, what behaviors you (or the other side) engaged in during
the negotiation, and how the two negotiators influenced each other during the negotiation. It is
important that your summary cover not only the facts of what happened, but also your
perceptions and impressions of those facts as they unfolded. It might also be relevant to compare
what happened in your negotiation to what happened in other negotiations like yours, or other
negotiations in which you have participated.
Remember that the purpose is to demonstrate what you have learned. In the summary, you do
not need an exhaustive description – in fact, you won’t have the space to provide one! You will
need to decide what facts of what happened are relevant to the important lesson(s) you learned.
Those are the facts that you will need to present.

(2) Identify and explain relevant conceptual material (theories, concepts) from our course.
In this part of the reflection paper, the point is to demonstrate your “ownership” of the
concept/idea/theory that you identify. The first half of ownership is being able to describe and
explain the concept/idea/theory. In the best of all reflection papers, the element of the paper
should be able to stand alone as an explanation of some concept/idea/theory from our course.
The identification of this relevant conceptual material should not make reference to the situation
you are going to analyze – that comes later! In this part of...