Using Browns eight questions to prompt reflective writing

When submitting a portfolio to the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP) - albeit for Certification, Chartership, or Fellowship - all evidence pieces must be reflective. The rough guidance for these pieces is to collect 3-4 per each of the evaluative criteria. CILIP prefers these evidence pieces to short and sweet, somewhere in the range of two pages or less. I don't blame them, reading through that many evidence pieces is a lot work, and as well as reflection there's something to be said for developing brevity as a skill.

Photo by Erik Eastman on Unsplash

Reflective writing can be a difficult skill to cultivate. Especially if you are used to writing in an academic or business setting, both of which tend to require descriptive and impersonal language and content. While my reflective writing skills have certainly improved over the years, I'm not going to lie and say it's something that I'm perfect at. So it's useful to think about ways that I can continue to grow this skill. Some people work well when given a framework to use for guidance and comparison, for example. So I've been exploring ways in which I can rough out a framework for reflective writing.

Brown’s eight questions are traditionally used to help authors draft an abstract for publication, with a total of 300 words that can be written in about half an hour. I've used this tool before to help others write abstracts for publications and dissertations, so I know how useful it can be. The questions are designed to prompt a very specific type of writing - concise, descriptive, and focused. They are;

1. Who are the intended readers? List three by name.
2. What did you do? (50 words)
3. Why did you do it? (50 words)
4. What happened? (50 words)
5. What do the results mean in theory? (50 words)
6. What do the results mean in practice? (50 words)
7. What is the key benefit for readers? (25 words)
8. What remains unsolved? (no limit)
From Brown (1994) Write right first time, Literati Newsline, Special Issue, 1-8.

I began to wonder if it was possible to re-frame the questions in such a way that they could prompt a different type of writing - concise, reflective, and focused. You can find my reworked questions here.

Like my reflective writing skills, it's not perfect by any means. It's not a tool that's right for everyone. But it's a start, and I wanted to share that with others. Have a look and let me know if you use it, and how it can be improved.