One big part of our course was placing the works of different authors into conversation with each other and with our own thoughts. While I had learned about the “claim, evidence, reasoning” model in high school, great emphasis was put on deepening the integration of quotes into our writing. One method of doing this which was taught in class was a Barclays Paragraph. This template was presented as a way to take quotes from two authors and properly analyze each individually, and then place them together. It consisted of a main idea, a sentence introducing the first quote, the first quote, analysis of that quote, a transition to the second quote, the second quote, and then analysis of the two quotes together to form some connection. An example of this in my writing can be found in paragraph 2,

“Carr starts anecdotally, his essay opening with, “Over the past few years I’ve had an uncomfortable sense that someone, or something, has been tinkering with my brain, remapping the neural circuitry, reprogramming the memory” (Carr 1). Just as one might feel like they are being watched, Carr feels as if something is changing how he thinks. He theorizes, “What if I do all my reading on the web not so much because the way I read has changed, i.e. I’m just seeking convenience, but because the way I THINK has changed?” (Carr 2). In his essay Carr talks about how technology has changed how he reads, especially online, and how it’s becoming harder to get through long pieces of writing due to the efficient structure of the internet aforementioned. This sort of relates to how Anderson thinks. He backs up his claims of technology changing our brain with scientific evidence: “More than any other organ, the brain is designed to change based on experience, a feature called neuroplasticity… As we become more skilled at the 21st-century task Meyer calls “flitting,” the wiring of the brain will inevitably change to deal more efficiently with more information. The neuroscientist Gary Small speculates that the human brain might be changing faster today than it has since the prehistoric discovery of tools . Research suggests we’re already picking up new skills: better peripheral vision, the ability to sift information rapidly” (Anderson 11). Whereas Carr seems to believe that the internet has negatively impacted his brain’s processing capabilities, Anderson advocates for the many positives that have come out of this change. While Carr and Anderson are analyzing the same thing, Carr recognizes the reduction of deep reading skills while Anderson recognizes the emergence of fast information sifting.”

While I don’t exactly follow the formula piece by piece, I definitely take inspiration from it, making sure to separately analyze the quotes I took from each author before putting them together and finally explaining what it all means. The reason I chose those two quotes is because they clearly work together. Both authors discuss how technology is changing our brains, but Carr takes a more negative approach while Anderson preaches the benefits. This complication allows me to then express my opinions, and decide if the positive outweigh the negatives, or if technology has distracted us to a point where we cannot return.