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Hypothesis 
Vol. 32 No.1  

Fall/Winter 2020 

Challenges of the two-year manuscript: Engaging in reflective 
practice with a manuscript about reflective practice 
 
Jolene M Miller, MLS, AHIP 
Director, Assistant Professor 
Mulford Health Science Library 
The University of Toledo 
Toledo, OH 
 

In January, one of my manuscripts was published in the Journal of the Medical 
Library Association [1]. I was thrilled that the manuscript was published by my first-
choice journal; I was not thrilled that it took me over two years to write and submit it. 
After reflecting on my process, I realized that if there is a concept of writing 
management (similar to time management), I was sorely lacking those skills. Given that 
my research focused on reflective practice, sharing my reflective process to better 
understand my challenges with the two-year manuscript with the readers of Hypothesis 
is a natural next step.  

Natural next steps are not necessarily easy ones. “Why would I want to tell 
anyone that I failed, let alone publish it in a journal with substantial readership? I don’t 
want my colleagues, and especially not my boss, to know that my project didn’t work, so 
no way would I want to tell the world” [2]. Indeed, why would anyone do such a thing? I 
cannot deny that I am more than a little uncomfortable sharing the results of my 
reflection - after all, I want you to think that I am competent and have it together all the 
time. That said, I hope that this column will help other librarians who encounter similar 
writing management problems, allowing them to intervene sooner rather than later.
 Since I used reflective practice to review my writing process and will be talking 
about the process in this column, I’d like to share a bit about reflective practice before 
delving into my writing woes. Reflective practice is intentionally doing what we all do 
naturally: thinking about situations (often those with surprising or disappointing 
outcomes) to figure out what happened. It is different from ruminating, when someone 
replays a negative situation in their head repeatedly but never reaches the point of 
figuring out what went wrong and how to make improvements. The goal of reflective 
practice is to identify and make changes that can improve future performance including 
doing something differently, thinking about something or someone differently, or 
updating understanding of one’s role and/or identity. 

Reflective practice has three basic steps [3-5] though many models of reflective 
practice add additional steps, questions, and alternative perspectives: (1) describe the 
event (What happened? What did I do? What did others do? How was I feeling? What 
was I thinking?); (2) reflect on the event (What really happened? How might others have 
perceived it? What if I had done Y instead of X?); and (3) identify potential changes for 
future situations (Do I need to change a process? Do I need to change how I approach 



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a situation? Do I need to change how I think about a person, a situation, or my role as a 
librarian?). I do not always use a model for reflection, but when I do, it is Graham Gibbs’ 
model. This model was developed as a “full structured debriefing to the stages of the 
experiential learning cycle” that teachers can use with their learners [6]. It works for 
reflective practice because reflection helps us learn from our experiences. The Gibbs 
model expands the basic three steps described above to six steps: Description, 
Feelings, Evaluation, Analysis, Conclusion, and Action Plan. This model underpins the 
analysis of my writing challenges. It is my hope that not only will readers learn how to be 
more expedient when preparing manuscripts, but that they will also see how a model of 
reflective practice can be applied to library work. 
 Using intentional reflection to improve professional practice can be an individual 
pursuit through pondering and/or writing alone or it can be communal by having 
conversations with a peer, coach, mentor, or a small group. I started individual reflective 
work about eighteen months into the research project, when it felt like I would literally 
never finish the manuscript. At about the same time, I began talking with trusted others: 
a colleague, my therapist, and my spiritual director. Each had a different perspective, 
which led to different observations and suggestions. My colleague approached my 
situation from perspective of a tenured librarian who has experienced this themselves. 
They were able to share what worked for them. My therapist approached it from a time- 
and stress-management perspective, with the stress management skills being more 
helpful than I expected. My spiritual director approached it from a values-based view, 
inviting me to consider why I was doing research and writing for publication in the first 
place in order to clarify my motivation. This column moves my reflection to a broader 
community. I am sharing the experience with you in hopes that it will help you. I am also 
hoping that you might share your observations with me in return. 
 
THE GIBBS REFLECTION MODEL IN ACTION 
Description  
 The first step in the Gibbs model is a non-judgmental description of the situation. 
It always includes one’s own perceptions and understandings, but it can also include 
others’ feedback and external documentation such as evaluation forms. 

 
In spring of 2017, I surveyed health science librarians using an online 

questionnaire about their engagement in reflective practice and what they 
identified as the benefits of and barriers to engaging in reflective practice. It took 
two years to write up the results and submit the manuscript for publication. I 
would work regularly on it for a time, then I would set it aside for weeks or 
months as urgent library projects took priority. When I returned to the manuscript, 
it took time to remember where I was in the project and where I was headed. My 
reflective conversations provided additional information to consider, such as the 



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role that stress played in the situation and how I had been treating the 
manuscript as one more hoop for the tenure process, rather than as an 
opportunity to better understand our profession. 

 
Feelings 

One of the benefits of the Gibbs model is that it explicitly asks about emotions to 
provide insight into a situation. Remembering the feelings experienced during a 
situation and paying attention to those feelings while reflecting invariably enriches my 
results while ignoring the emotions experienced in a situation leads to missed cues that 
could have helped me understand what happened. On the other hand, if a situation was 
highly emotional, I might need to give myself some space before reflecting, so emotions 
do not derail the reflection. 
 

While working on the two-year manuscript, my feelings varied. There were 
times early on when I felt great. In hindsight, I was feeling great because I was 
regularly spending time in a local coffee shop working on the manuscript (very 
cool and academic). During that time, however, I had no clue how little progress I 
had to show for my time. When I finally compared my progress to the amount of 
time that had passed, I felt frustrated with the project and angry with myself. In 
this situation, feelings helped me identify the aspect of the process that needed 
my attention. My therapist was particularly helpful at the frustration and anger 
part of my reflection. With careful application of self-compassion, I was able to 
see beyond where I was to where I wanted to be - a submitted manuscript.  

 
Evaluation 

The first two stages of the Gibbs model are purely descriptive. At the evaluation 
stage, judgment finally plays a role: What was good or bad about the experience, in 
terms of the overall experience and in terms of specific parts of the experience?  
 

In my case, while I was pleased by the positive outcome of a published 
manuscript, I was not happy with my performance, specifically that it took so long 
to prepare the manuscript. For this column, I am reflecting on what I perceived to 
be a negative aspect of the situation: I didn’t manage my writing well. Reflective 
practice can also center on positive aspects and situations. 

 
Analysis 

The analysis step of this model is where deeper exploration of the situation takes 
place. In previous steps, information was gathered and judgements made. This step 
looks at the information to determine why some things went well and why other things 
didn’t go so well. To quote Gibbs, “What was really going on?” [6]. 



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As I looked back over my writing process, both while I was working on the 

manuscript and when it was completed, I identified one primary factor 
contributing to the slow speed of my process: writing management. Specifically, I 
had difficulty staying focused on and engaged with my writing in the midst of 
competing work and home demands. My professional situation is not unique; we 
all have more projects than we can reasonably fit into the workweek. I have 
responsibilities in a variety of areas: providing information and research support 
to my liaison areas; coordinating information and access services at my library; 
dealing with administrative issues, including shepherding the library renovations 
that took place while I was writing; representing my library in University Libraries 
meetings; assisting with program accreditation; committee service; etc. On top of 
work demands, I had purchased a new home that required minor renovations 
and, at the same time, I had an old home that needed work to be ready for 
market. More often than I anticipated, these work and personal responsibilities 
led me to put my writing aside, sometimes for months at a time. This obviously 
delayed the completion of the manuscript, but the delay was compounded by the 
fact that for every break, I had to take extra time to review my work and 
remember where I was in the project. 

 
Conclusions 

In this step, the Gibbs model invites conclusions as a result of the previous steps. 
The model calls for both general conclusions (such as the challenges librarians face in 
terms of managing their writing) as well as those that are more personal (the challenges 
I personally face and how I think and work).  
 

While it is difficult to make general conclusions in this situation, I can 
tentatively say that given the natures of librarianship and of scholarly writing, 
completing manuscripts can be challenging for librarians. Personally, my 
reflection made it obvious to me that relying solely upon internal resources, such 
as finding time for writing and relying upon my memory to help me pick up where 
I left off, was not enough to help me manage my writing in an effective way. I 
needed to identify one or more external tools to support my writing. In other 
areas of my work life, I use external tool such as a calendar for my schedule and 
my Bullet Journal [7] to keep on top of tasks and projects. Perhaps something 
similar would help with writing management. 

 
Action plan 

In the action plan step, Gibbs invites us to identify what needs to change (if 
anything) based on the results of analysis and conclusions. At this point, it is important 



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that the action plan reflects the conclusions so that selected strategies will target the 
actual issues and not assumed ones.  
 

What I learned through this reflection is that I cannot rely solely on what I 
had been doing: writing when I had time and assuming that I would remember 
my thought process when I paused my project. As noted in the conclusion 
section, I needed one or more external tools to keep me on track. I implemented 
two actions. First, I started a weekly “Write on Site” session at my library to help 
support student and faculty writing including my own. For an hour each week, the 
library offers a drop-in session for students and faculty. Following the Pomodoro 
Technique® [8], we have two 25-minute work sprints, with a 5-minute break 
between. “Write on Site” provides informal accountability. Participants do not 
report on progress toward writing goals as would happen in writing groups, but 
each week, we show up and write. When I show up and write, sometimes I end 
up with a “shitty first draft” [9] of a section, and other times, I end up with a solid 
piece of writing. For me, the most important benefit of this program is staying 
engaged with my writing. I never go more than a week without working on it 
(unless there is a global pandemic; in 2020, I am cutting myself some slack, and 
you should cut yourself some too). This regular engagement reduces wasted 
time reviewing the project to remember where I was and what I was thinking. 

Another tool that I adopted near the end of the project was a research 
log. Research logs (or diaries) have long been used in qualitative research as a 
way to help researchers clarify assumptions and biases that may have an impact 
on the research, improving transparency [10]. The goal for my research log was 
to capture where I was in my writing process, including what I expected my next 
actions to be. Initially, my use of the log was haphazard, with scattered brief 
notes to myself about the project or ideas for future projects, with little or no 
follow-up. I am now using it in an intentional way to better capture my process 
with narrative descriptions of research ideas, summarizing the direction of the 
project to make it easier when I return to it, and reflecting on my research and 
writing process using guiding questions (Table 1). As you can see from the 
questions, I’ve incorporated some Gibbs-inspired questions in order to identify 
issues before they cause larger problems. I write my research log longhand 
because it physically slows me down, which leads to a mental slowing down. The 
mental slow-down allows me to think more deeply about my project. 

Why did I decide on these two interventions? I selected “Write on Site” 
because I had been searching the web for something to help me stay focused on 
writing. When I found the “Shut Up and Write!” post on the blog The Thesis 
Whisperer [11], I was intrigued by the idea of getting together to write every 
week. We scheduled a time and advertised it to campus. Usually there were a 



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couple of us, but before the library closed due to the pandemic in March 2020, 
there were three of us getting together regularly. In terms of the research log, this 
was something I adapted from a technique that I promote to my physician 
assistant students when they begin their scholarly projects. While I retained part 
of what I recommend for the students (jotting down thoughts and ideas during the 
research process), I generated the questions shown in Table 1 to help me focus 
on the information that I felt would help my writing the most.  

 

 
Table 1. Guiding questions for my research log 
 
FUTURE PLANS 
 While “Write on Site” and the research log have been helpful, there are additional 
tools I would like to explore. One is a mental shift - I need to treat writing projects like 
any other project. I mentioned above about how I use my Bullet Journal to manage 
projects, but I have yet to apply the tool to writing in a meaningful way. Also, I would like 
to increase my accountability to others beyond the informal accountability of “Write on 
Site”. A colleague and I tried email accountability for a couple of months, but our 
technique (sending each other emails once a week with a report on what we did and 
what our goals were for the upcoming week) was not particularly helpful for either of us. 
Participating in a writing accountability group that met regularly might be helpful, not 
only report on progress on writing projects but also to discuss writing challenges and 
solutions and to celebrate achievements [12-14]. Given that so many of us are now 
familiar with an assortment of videoconferencing software, the time might be right to 
explore an online medical/health science librarian writing accountability group using one 
of these platforms. 
 
META-REFLECTION 

One thing that I value about reflective practice is its iterative nature. As I write 
this column, and again as I make revisions, I am engaging in meta-reflection – reflecting 
on my reflection – and understanding more about the situation. As I reread what I wrote 
in the analysis section, I see that I gave away my agency: “responsibilities led me to put 
my writing aside.” I can’t help but wonder how much of an impact that this thought 
pattern had on my two-year manuscript. How much time did I not claim for writing 
because my brain was telling me I was too busy? I will need to pay attention in the 

• What did I accomplish during this work period? 
• Where am I headed with this project? 
• What is my next action? 
• What challenges am I encountering? 
• What might be the reason for these challenges? 
• How can I overcome these challenges? 
• How could I prevent them in the future? 



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future for that way of thinking, in order to explore it and make a more informed choice 
about how I am spending my time. 
 
CONCLUSION 

Despite the challenges with writing the two-year manuscript, I was pleased to 
discover how much I enjoy doing research and enjoy scholarly writing. Engaging in 
reflective practice about the manuscript and implementing changes to my writing 
process has resulting in positive changes. Since the two-year manuscript was accepted 
in June 2019, I have authored this column and coauthored a paper published in July 
2020. My initial choice of tools seems beneficial for now. Future reflection may suggest 
other areas and changes for improvement. 

Librarians who are struggling with writing management may want to consider 
using reflection (individually or in conversation with one or more others) to uncover the 
underlying issues in order to select the best strategies for their situations. Participating 
in “Write on Site” sessions may sound like a great idea, but for someone whose writing 
challenges are structuring a document or wrestling with grammar, working with a writing 
tutor might be more appropriate solution. Once issues have been identified, it is easier 
to look for solutions or ask colleagues for solutions.  

Why would someone admit their failure publicly like I did in this column, besides 
the obvious reason to help readers better understand writing management and 
reflective practice? I am reminded of those reflective conversations with my spiritual 
director - why do research and write for publication at all? It is important for me as a 
health science librarian to do what I can to learn more about what we do and how we 
can do it better. In this way, perhaps I am moving the profession forward a little bit by 
helping librarians learn to apply reflective practice in and beyond their writing practice. I 
believe in this enough to overcome my discomfort and write this column. 

PS - I am interested in taking the reflection even further: What questions would 
you ask me about my initial writing process that might help me understand the situation 
more clearly? Is there something that I didn’t consider? If you’ve found yourself in a 
similar situation, what helped you?  
 
REFERENCES 
1. Miller JM. Reflective practice and health science librarians: engagement, benefits, 

and barriers. J Med Libr Assoc. 2020 108(1):17-28. 
https://dx.doi.org/10.5195/jmla.2020.777. 

2. Holmes HN. Coming soon! Hypothesis: Failure. Hypothesis [Internet]. 2018 Fal-Win 
[cited 2019 Oct 1]; 30(1):5. <https://www.mlanet.org/d/do/13566>. 

3. Constable G. Reflection as a catalyst in the development of personal and 
professional effectiveness. In: Mantell A, Scragg T, editors. Reflective practice in 
social work. 5th ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications; 2019. p. 63-79. 

http://www.mlanet.org/d/do/13566
http://www.mlanet.org/d/do/13566
http://www.mlanet.org/d/do/13566


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4. Driscoll J. Chapter 2, Supported reflective learning: the essence of clinical 
supervision? In: John Driscoll, editor. Practising clinical supervision: a reflective 
approach for healthcare professionals. 2nd ed. Philadelphia, PA: Elsevier; 2007. p. 
27-50. 

5. Jasper M. Beginning reflective practice. 2nd ed. Andover, Hampshire; 2013. Chapter 
1: What is reflective practice?; p. 1-31. 

6. Gibbs G. Learning by doing: a guide to teaching and learning methods. Oxford, UK: 
Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning Development; 1988 [cited 12 Mar 2020]. 
<https://shop.brookes.ac.uk/product-catalogue/oxford-centre-for-staff- learning-
development/books-publications/ebooks/learning-by-doing-a-guide-to- teaching-and-
learning-methods-by-graham-gibbs-ebook>. 

7. Carroll R. The Bullet Journal Method: track the past, order the present, design the 
future. New York, NY: Portfolio/Penguin; 2018. 

8. Cirillo F. The Pomodoro Technique [Internet] [rev. 2019; cited 23 Mar 2020]. 
<https://francescocirillo.com/pages/pomodoro-technique>. 

9. Lamott A. Bird by bird: some instructions on writing and life. New York, NY: Anchor; 
1995. Chapter 3, Shitty first drafts; p. 20-6. 

10. Ortlipp M. Keeping and using reflective journals in the qualitative research process. 
Qualitative Report [Internet]. 2008 Dec [cited 2020 Feb 20];13(4):695- 705. 
<https://nsuworks.nova.edu/tqr/vol13/iss4/8>. 

11. Mewburn I. Shut up and write [Internet]. 2011 Jun 14. [cited 2020 Aug 13]. 
<https://thesiswhisperer.com/shut-up-and-write/> 

12. Houfek JF, Kaiser KL, Visovsky C, Barry TL, Nelson AE, Kaiser MM, Miller CL. 
Using a writing group to promote faculty scholarship. Nurse Educ. 2010 Jan-
Feb;35(1):41-5. DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.1097/NNE.0b013e3181c42133. 

13. Pennamon RE, Moss LJ, Springer SI. Scholarly writing groups: a source of support 
for early career counseling faculty and doctoral students. VISTAS Online [Internet]. 
2016 [cited 2020 Mar 20]:article 72. <https://www.counseling.org/knowledge-
center/vistas/by-year2/vistas-2016/docs/default-source/vistas/article_72_2016>. 

14. Skarupski KA, Foucher KC. Writing accountability groups (WAGs): a tool to help 
junior faculty members build sustainable writing habits. J Fac Dev [Internet]. 2018 
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<https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/fac_development/career_path/skarupski-wags-
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