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 ЎV in fact, you wonЎ¦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 Ў§ownershipЎЁ 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 ЎV that comes later! In this part of the paper, just identify and explain the relevant concept/idea/theory. Also, donЎ¦t assume that I know it! The point is not whether I know it ЎV the point is whether you know it. Also, there is a tendency in this part of the reflection paper to try to explain as many concepts or ideas as seem relevant. DonЎ¦t fall into this trap! If you try to explain too many ideas, you will