Instructors may set up a rotating schedule so that both they and their students know exactly how many journals the instructor will read a week. Students, too, can offer powerful and influential readings and responses to each others journals. Instructors may wish to specify the appearance they want the journal to take. There are several internal formats for journal writing to choose from. Journal texts may consist of informal jottings, or a log or of formal short papers collected together with an introduction.
Some instructors prefer single entry and others the double-entry style journal.
Typically in double-entry journals facts are written on the left and interpretations or reactions on the right. More discussion of double-entry journals is included below. They are useful in helping students distinguish between facts and application or analysis. In double-entry journaling, students are usually asked to write the facts of the reading or lecture or observation on the left side of their journals. The writing may be fragments and phrases, a summary or a paraphrase, depending on the instructor s preferences and the subject matter.