In project 2, I used my sources by Carr and Anderson to illustrate how they are connected, and to further illustrate how my views on the impact of technology are supported. Something I struggled with in high school was properly introducing quotes. During this project, I made sure that I wasn’t dropping quotes out of nowhere, and I made sure that there was a nice flow from the topic sentence into the quote, and later on the analysis. One example of this is in my first body paragraph when I introduce a quote from Carr to set up the disagreement I planned to discus, and I write, “Carr provides insight into his cynical idea by connecting his regular use of the internet to a loss of attention span and critical thinking that he has been experiencing. According to Carr…” In this example, I clearly state how I am going to be analyzing Carr in the context of his view is one side of the argument I am setting up, and then I transition from that sentence which provides context into the quote itself. In class, we discussed the templates for introducing quotes given to us in the “They Say/I Say” book, but I chose not to use those templates exactly because I felt that they made my transitions into the quote run-on sentences, and affected the readability of my project. In my method, I feel as if I was able to break up the setting up of the quote better and not have it seem too lengthy. I then used a good-sized quote that properly represented the ideas I wanted to discuss. I did not use a short snippet or paraphrase what was said, and the passage I used was relevant to my topic. I also did not just put in the quote and move on. I took the time to explain what the quote means, particularly in the context of how it relates to my argument. This comes directly after my quote when I said, “The point Carr is making here is that with extensive use of the internet, our minds are mimicking the ways in which the internet functions.” This is a good example of not adding a “hit-and-run” quote, as I took the time to work with the quote and make sure that it is adding to my argument, not just fulfilling a requirement for the project.
