Mills 1 Quincy Mills Critical Reflection Essay April 25, 2014 English 111; Melody Wentworth

I began with the shell of an academic piece, through considerable searching for sources that were having the same general thoughts as myself, organization, conversations within my head as well as on paper, and feedback from several intelligent English instructors in addition to fellow students, I believe I have written an academic level, well-organized, problematized multisource essay. Embarking upon the multi-source essay I personally viewed it as a slightly daunting task. I relied heavily upon my prior knowledge of writing to start, which turned out was not as much as I had assumed. I began with a topic of the digital divide believing to be somewhat familiar with it due to the fact I had researched and written a short paper on it in a previous semester. When I began reviewing the previously completed A scored paper, it was something of a blow when I realized it was an actual disgrace to what I had already learned and been applying to my writing. Beginning with a piece that personal growth was already viewed in both relieved pressure in the beginning, and made it more difficult within the writing process. Perhaps the most difficult part of the process personally was organizing the many sources needed and used within my multi-source essay. Finding them was rather difficult in the very beginning, I was convinced the perfect sources had been acquired to complete my paper and began reading and annotating texts, several hours into annotations I discovered the majority of what I had was inadequate, other than a paragraph or two. I also encountered while searching for sources, the way your search is worded has a lot to do with the results received. Once a second round of source searching had been undertaken, I re-worded the way I was looking, as well as

Mills 2 what was being searched for, from strictly digital divide searches, to academic divide searches, and how it affected higher education, I was in source utopia. I started with about ten different sources altogether and used seven within my paper, reading each one carefully and highlighting as well as annotating. The majority of my thoughts within the texts have to do with personal relations within the discouraging nature of being affected by needing to rely heavily on technology to pass classes, and just flat out not having it, as well as not having the funds available to purchase them. The next most abundant annotation is the fact that my problem pointed out much larger social problems. It was difficult to keep my problem of higher education relies too heavily upon technologies in courses is hurting students of higher education, and education institutions as well, when all students do not have adequate access to informational resources. Finding sources, in addition to reading and annotating them was by far the easier part when incorporating them into a multi-source essay. Organization has never personally been a strong point of mine naturally, it is something that requires much work and focus for me to accomplish. I had all of the sources laid out in MLA format numbered one through ten as well as on the corners of each printout prior to starting the actual writing on my paper. The numbering of sources began to get rather confusing when I started removing sources and deciding not to use them due to the inadequate or unusable information. However it was nice to have too much information once my writing began and not a lack of, something I will remember as well for future papers to come. MLA format has been something of a mystery to me as well until the end of this paper. Throughout the entire class I have been being questioned on my MLA format and not necessarily comprehending what I was doing wrong. Through the help of my review from my own English professor as well as a fellow professor, I was able to figure out that I was not formatting my

Mills 3 name and date blocks correctly, not citing my quotes adequately, putting periods inside of parenthesis when they were supposed be out, placing first and last names of authors in the wrong order, as well as a number of other things. At this point, I do believe I fully understand MLA and will hopefully no longer have an issue with writing papers and using MLA format. I began with what I believed to be a solid first draft that was highly informational but did not problematize my issue, or really any issue for that matter. I found it very difficult to decipher and relay so much information from so many different points of view as well as my own without writing in a report style manner. I relied heavily on my own problems within higher education regarding technologies, which was also hard to convey in an academic manner without sounding petty and making broad generalizations about others. Organization of sources and learning to allow the authors chosen to speak their points of view as well as my own without reporting, and MLA format were the biggest lessons learned throughout this paper. An intense feel of satisfaction comes to my disorganized brain being forced to methodically place intellectual thoughts down on paper, review them, and question them. Conversing within my own questions, as well as others and bringing one specific problem to attention was my goal while writing this essay. Writing has always been a passion of mine, and will continue to be throughout my life. I believe strongly that the lessons imparted on me throughout this paper, as well as in this class will stick with me, and be used in my journey through higher education and life into a successful adult.