What's a Good Journal?

A journal is primarily a place for reflection. The word -reflection- contains the notion of giving back, of returning. When one reflects about something, one considers it, one ponders it, and often tries to consider its meaning in a larger context. Reflection is additive in nature. You add something to your observations or your experiences so that they take on meaning.

It thus is not the experience but the meaning of the experience that the journal should convey. Conveying this meaning is not easy to do, particularly when you haven't had much practice at it. Allow yourself the time necessary to think hard about what you have seen, heard, felt, thought, and done in various situations, and why you reacted the way you did.

It may be helpful to consider some of the ways a journal differs from similar forms of writing.

Diary. In a diary one typically records reflections and emotions on a variety of personal topics, often with an emphasis on emotions. While historically the writer of a diary has not always dwelt on feelings, today we commonly understand a diary to be a place in which we can reveal our deepest emotional responses to people and events. Although your reflections may certainly have an emotional component, your journal is expected to go beyond your emotional responses to the people and activities in the course as a more intellectual exercise.

Log , or recounting of events. A good journal goes beyond listing or recording of events, and instead selects from them and reflects on their meaning. You may, for example, have had a conversation with other students about their experiences. Rather than record the conversation in a "he said," "she said" fashion, for your journal you would think about what their remarks had in common, reflect on what they reveal about the topics and the perspective you gained about what was happening. Your journal would recount only enough about the event to enable the reader to understand it. Primarily, it would be a reflection on and analysis of the event, rather than a recounting.

Listing of problems or grievances. It certainly is appropriate to use the journal as a place to reflect on problems that arise or to weigh alternative courses of action to resolve an issue, but what you write should go beyond a recounting of gripes to an analysis of the problem or an exploration of alternative solutions.

You may be tempted to believe that if a journal is your thinking about the meaning of your experiences, then one journal should be as good as another, since your experiences are very personal. Unfortunately, although your thoughtful fact-based opinions about matters are certainly as valuable as anyone's, your journals are not just your opinion, but rather a formal articulation of what you have learned about the meaning of your experiences. It is the articulation and demonstration of learning which is being evaluated, not your opinion.

Journals can and do differ in terms of quality and can be evaluated on reasonably concrete bases as follows.

The care and quality of the writing.

Are the entries slap-dash, just thrown together, or does the writer put them together thoughtfully. Are they well organized and grammatical, with accurate spelling and punctuation?

The nature of the subject .

Do the entries suggest that some serious thought has been given in deciding which issues and topics to raise, or does the author select only the most obvious topics to write about?

The nature of the reflection.

Has the writer given consideration to the issues and topics raised or immediately responded with the trite and the hackneyed?