I am aware that annotation scaling is useful for different viewport scaling and text sizing but I have no clue how to use it or whether or not it is within my drawings. I do know that it is messing up my drawings and have no idea how to disable it or locate what in the drawing is set up in this manner. Can someone please help?!

Text, multiline text, blocks, and tables can be annotative or non-annotative in a drawing.  To see if you have any annotative objects in your drawing you can use QSELECT.  Type QSELECT at the command line and look at the types of objects you have as options.  If you have TEXT objects select that as your object type and then Annotative as the property.  For the Operator pick Select All.  If you have any annotative text in the drawing they'll be selected.  If you find any, open the Properties palette and you'll likely find *VARIES in the Annotative line of the Text section.  Change it to NO.

Do the same for MText, Tables, Dimensions also if you you have them.  For each change the Annotative to NO and you should be set.

There's a trick to understanding how Annotative scaling operates and it's a bit difficult at the start.  Personally I use it all the time and would never go back to working out scale factors.  But everyone's mileage is different depending on what they do.  If you want to learn more about how to get started with Anno scaling let me know.

Dave

It's true that dimensions can go in either paper or model space.  It's also true that if they're placed in model space the layer for them can be frozen in individual viewports in paper space.  Another advantage is that if you dimension or annotate in model space you only have to do it once with annotative scaling if you need layouts on different sheets at different scales.

In the end, it's a personal choice.  Everyone has unique tastes and needs.

Dave.