While integrating sources into my essay, I tried to think about using each source to back up my own claims instead of building my essay off of the quotes of others. I have had a lot of trouble with this and very little practice with it in the past, so this aspect of the essay was definitely the most difficult for me. Barclay’s formula helped me work on this skill. I adapted the formula and changed it slightly to fit my writing style. It helped me go back and revisit the way I structured my essay and integrated sources into my claims.

 

Here is an example of a source backing up my own claim:

The idea of multiple personas on multiple platforms is nothing new on the internet, but has recently developed into teens creating a different self for each social media site they use. Not only is this a confusing misrepresentation of the user, but it allows for teens to believe they have to live up to these created personas in their real lives. In her book Mind Change, author Susan Greenfield discusses the implications of focusing our attention on “the secondhand lives of… these golden individuals” (119). Greenfield points out that these individuals create “false norms of desirable lifestyles” which are not necessarily true to who they are in real life. Since they only show carefully chosen parts of themselves online, teens assume this is what their real life is like, and what their own lives should be like. This assumption is often detrimental to teens as they begin valuing their online personas more than who they are as a real person, since their online personas can more easily be similar to those they look up to on social media.