Monthly Archives: April 2018

Cover Letter Update

 

My Cover Letter is the first thing the readers will see when they click on WRT 102.72. Below is my cover letter; and the link is right before it.

https://stonybrook.digication.com/benjamin_donofrio/WRT_102.72/

Dear Portfolio Readers,

While writing my papers, I encountered many struggles and influences. First, my Rhetorical Analysis was influenced by my own life and my love for music. A band known as Bastille has always had a special place in my heart, for their music has gotten me through a lot of tough times. So, I felt that their song teaching their audience about learning from their mistakes was a great song to choose from because I have made many mistakes. In writing this essay, I had some struggles with defining their specific message, for the song goes back and forth several times. However, with the help of my peers and professor, I was able to conclude their specific message into my thesis and further explain that message throughout the essay.

Second, my argument paper was influenced by the people around me. Every time the clock “sprung ahead” or “fell back” someone in my life complained or jumped for joy. So, I decided to write my argument about how beneficial Daylight Savings Time is. In writing this essay, I struggled with organization. Since Daylight Savings Time has an unbelievable amount of effects I got a little overwhelmed with information and struggled to organize it in a logical and coherent matter. However, I edited it several times and finally organized it into an easy-to-follow way.

Last, I wrote my research paper. I have always been interested in the medical side of life, so I started with an idea in the medical world. Then I thought about how my parents divorced, so I thought how that could have played a role in my development. Finally, I came to the conclusion of how divorce affects child’s performance in school since I am curious if there is any, and if I would have performed better (or worse) had my parents stayed together. This paper is where I struggled the most. It took a lot of time to find some concrete research on this topic and then it took me even longer to figure out how to incorporate that research without getting too scientific or statistical. Thankfully I managed to organize it in a way that had some statistical and scientific evidence but didn’t make it too complicated to understand by using direct quotes and paraphrased quotes to vary the sharing of information.

Overall, I enjoyed writing these papers. I learned many things about writing, like with grammar, punctuation, citing, etc; and many things about myself, like my writing style, how the best way to write for me is, etc;

I hope you enjoy!

Benjamin Donofrio

RE: Society and Body Images

Dear Ms. Jones,

Your essay was very strong and conveyed many wonderful ideas in a logical and coherent matter. Your introduction provided a strong thesis about how society is given a certain ‘ideal body.’ This thesis was then extremely relevant throughout the entire essay. I really enjoyed how you included men as well in this essay because typically females are thought to have been portrayed in a certain way, but men are too. Your introduction to the authors of the sources was strong, which was important in establishing their credibility. Lastly, the conclusion beautifully summed up the entire essay, as opposed to restating the introduction. Your works cited appears to be in an appropriate format, so good job there too!

There are minor changes I would suggest. There are some sentence-level corrections here and there, but besides that, the essay is very well thought-out. Perhaps the paragraphs could be slightly shorter and cut up, but the flow was nice! All in all, that was an excellent paper! Great job!

Have an amazing day,

Ben

A Political Attempt At Humor……

In posting my Halloween tweet, I attempted to target many people. At the time, it was around the time many politicians were running for president. I hoped that it would target humor-lovers for in times of stress from politicians. I hoped my audience would like and retweet my tweet, which they in fact did since i got over 150 retweets and 300 likes, my most popular tweet to date. I also hoped they would enjoy the humor of me saying that a Trump sign is as terrifying as a yard with scary decorations specified for Halloween. I decided to post this on Twitter because Twitter is the only place I believe is appropriate for humorous posts. Facebook is where my family is, and some of them would not approve of my political views. Instagram is more polished and isn’t the right place for humor. Snapchat isn’t necessarily the best place to post a long post like I did, so that only leaves twitter! The combination of a series of pictures along with the caption brings the post together. The caption added depth to the set of pictures by explaining that certain presidents can be scary at times, much like a scary halloween decorated yard. I believed this needed to be posted because at the time I was truly terrified of Donald Trump. I was scared he would take the rights away from many people and turn the world cold. So, to cope, I attempted humor in the form of a tweet. I hoped everybody would see the tweet. Even people who like Trump, I would want them to see it because it shows that even I have a voice.:)