Research Reflection

This research paper is from AP Language and Composition from my junior year. In this
assignment we wrote a research paper on any topic that we wanted and we worked on it for the
entire year. The topic of my research paper was if children should be allowed to have social
media. In this research paper I compared my own experience with social media to researched
experiments on how social media can affect children’s mental and physical health. I chose this
research paper because it was something that I worked on for my entire junior year and I am very
proud of it. I also was able to learn about something that is very relevant in society today
because the generation gap between when I was born and a person being born a few years later is
very different.
The research process was very long and grueling for this project because this project
needed to have a lot of sources in it. It made me realize how important research is when
answering a scientific question. It also made me realize the value of hard work over time
because I am so much more proud of my research paper now that I had researched and wrote it
over a long period of time. The research skills that I learned I will definitely be using in college
because I learned how to site sources and incorporate the research into the paper without
plagiarism. I became more familiar with finding reliable sources and being able to put the
research into the actual paper using in-text citation.
I chose this artifact because it was my favorite research paper that I have written. I was
also very interested in what I was writing at the time. Through this research paper, I learned to
look through multiple sources before choosing the sources that I will use in the research paper. I
also learned that it is very important to find a topic that is controversial as well as something that
I am interested in. Having a topic that is controversial is very important because it allows you to
have different sides of the issue and introduce a new perspective on an issue that you may not
have seen before. I learned that it is very important always include the other side of an issue to
make the paper seem more credible.
This artifact made me explore the realm of technology and how it affects people
physically and mentally. This made me rethink my view of technology and made me think about
my future as a parent. Since I will not be a parent for a long time, there is most likely going to
be even more technology that exists then and I will need to make sure that my own children will
be able to live without technology. After writing this paper, I learned that it is very important to
take a break from technology to ensure your own sanity. I think that it is important to
incorporate technology into our lives to keep improving, but it is also important to not become
reliant on it.
This research paper that I chose was very meaningful to me in that it dealt with real life
topics and issues of today. In researching this topic I learn the importance of research because it
allows a person to see all perspective on a situation instead of just focusing on their own
perspective. I also learned that it is very important to choose a topic for a research paper that is
controversial and relevant, so that you can learn about a lot of perspectives on the topic. I also
learned from the actual paper that it is important to take a break from our phones and focus on
the real world before it’s gone. Research is a very important skill to learn because it allows you
to explore many facets of a topic and learn more about things that you are interested in.