Reflective cover letter

Ryan Donovan

            Dear Doctor Tinberg,

                                                The papers that I am including in my portfolio are analyzing a trend, Proposal, Application essay and annotating a scholarly article. The reasons I decided to include these four papers in my portfolio is because I know I did a good job on them and I like the voice in these papers.

            Analyzing a trend required for a trend to be identified in a thesis, document through the use of expert opinions that the trend exists. Analyze and discuss the causes and effects of the trend. And citing the sources of at least two scholarly articles in MLA style.

            The requirements of this paper was to find an collage application essay question of your choosing and respond to it.

            For this assignment I was to produce a proposal addressing a serious but solvable problem in my community. It required a intended reader, statement of an important problem, context, a possible solution, an analysis of cost and benefits a call to action. And had to be on the local level.

            For annotating a scholarly article, I had to locate a article, summarize the article in paragraph one. And in paragraph two, evaluate it’s credibility.

            At the beginning of this course after re reading some of my papers I’ve noticed that my writing lacked voice. One example of this was my application essay. It was well structured but was lacking voice. In the final draft I fixed that robotic part of the essay. 

Analyzing a trend very rough draft

Ryan Donovan

Analyzing a trend

            As we all know Obesity is a problem in all advance countries of the world more so in the U.S and UK. This is due to lack of or amount of physical actives, a high sugar, fat diet, hormonal issues.

            Since the 1960’s, obesity rates have been rising slowly at first then a huge increase in the span of four years. In my father’s day, he says seeing someone obese was quiet rare but now a days, it’s a daily thing.

            The consequences of  obesity is tiring faster,higher chance of diabetes, higher chance of heart disease, high blood pressure, bone issues, high risk for surgeries.  

1. I dislike it. I couldn't find any good sources till class was starting soon

2. Citing sources and adding alot more

3. Nope its bad.

Proposal Rough Draft

Ryan Donovan          

Global Warning Rough Draft

            Global Warming is an issue many people dismiss. It effects every part of our sick planet. The Cause of global warming are the burning of fossil fuels and trees, and the deforestation that is happening.

            Some might dispute that there is no real evidence but they need to be aware or beware. “an increase of 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) from the average global temperature recorded just before the Industrial Revolution kicked into gear. (This translates into an increase of 1.3 degrees Fahrenheit above the Earth's current average temperature, about 59 degrees.)”(nytimes.com). Not only that but under the conditions of the Kyoto Protocol, the rich countries are suppose to send money to the poorer countries so they can develop more green resources. The money sent should have been in the tens of billions but they were in the millions. Ironically Enough, the countries that caused the most of this problem are better able to protect themselves from the results. The Fast growing economic powerhouses led by China and India oppose on mandatory obligations to curb their emissions they say they will do what they can to rein in growth of emissions…. As long their economies don’t suffer.

            There is several solutions that are being developed and are possible but the solutions are one really. One solution is for nuclear power plants to be more common. They give more power than current power plants and have no Carbon Dioxide emissions. Also electric vehicles with nuclear power would help. Another solution would for there to be more plants such as growing in cities and safely growing on houses. As we all most likely know Photosynthesis requires Carbon Dioxide to work and Oxygen is releases. Solar energy is a possible solution but the solar panels around currently aren’t very effective but they’re a solution but not practical and costly.

            Both the costs and benefits are very high. On one hand it will take billions perhaps trillions of dollars for all this Carbon Dioxide to stop being produced and to be reduced. On the other hand there will be green energy some that are cheap or even free in the end the benefits outweigh the costs for they will save money.

            Unknown, “Global Warming”, nytimes.com, September 30, 2011, November 5, 2011

Post write

1.        I feel that my paper is decent but lacking something in the structure. And needs to be longer.

2.        What remains to be done is mla stuff and lengthing and edition and a call to action

3.        Is the tone good?

Application essay 2nd draft

Ryan Donovan  

Application essay rough draft

                “Select a creative work- a novel, a film a poem, a musical piece, a painting or other works of that that has influenced the way you view the world and the way you view yourself. Discuses the work and its effect on you”(New York university)

                A creative work that has influenced the way I view the world and I view myself would be Stephen King’s Dark tower series. Stephen King’s Dark tower series takes bit of pieces of all his novels and it’s self to make a grand tale. It changed the way I think when i started to read between the lines. This made me realize that that insignificance makes us significant.

                The novel deals with vast scales that made me realize were on a spec on a spec on a spec. Such insignificance made me think does this insignificance that are us makes us greater? Yes for we constantly try to out do our selves and improve who we are. And earn our goals. A man that has all he wants will never improve upon anything or gain a thing, the sky is his domain but there is much beyond the sky and he doesn’t realize it. Having all you truly want isn’t a gift but a curse for how can one improve or be happy if he truly has it all? But if a man continues to climb and climb he will surpass the ignorant man floating in the sky and go beyond. But even the universe might have an unreachable limit.

              This piece changed the way i viewed my self in that I strive to do better to improve upon my self and climb past the sky.

Application essay

Ryan Donovan  

Application essay rough draft

                “Select a creative work- a novel, a film a poem, a musical piece, a painting or other works of that that has influenced the way you view the world and the way you view yourself. Discuses the work and its effect on you”(New York university)

                A creative work that has influenced the way I view the world and I view myself would be Stephen King’s Dark tower series. Stephen King’s Dark tower series takes bit of pieces of all his novels and it’s self to make a grand tale. This made me realize that we many of our opinions are opinions of others that we heard many times before so layered that we think that it’s our own.

                The novel deals with vast scales that made me realize were on a spec on a spec on a spec. Such insignificance made me think does this insignificance that we all have make us greater for we strive to do better, reach our goals and become significant? I believe it does. A man that has all he wants will never improve upon anything or gain a thing, the sky is his domain but there is much beyond the sky and he doesn’t realize it. Having all you truly want isn’t a gift but a curse for how can one improve or be happy if he truly has it all? But if a man continues to climb and climb he will surpass the ignorant man floating in the sky and go beyond. But even the universe might have an unreachable limit.

This i belive essay

Ryan Donovan

"This I believe" essay

                I believe that seeing isn’t truly believing but, knowing is. This I believe. What I mean is that most people base perception on sight alone when there is four maybe even five other senses that they’re ignoring. And they don’t know what they see often. For an example, you could place three people in a room with some new technology that isn’t known by them even slightly. There would be four opinions on what they saw. My belief was formed when I was around ten. We decided to go wandering through the wood, it was a group of about fifteen kids so we were safe.  We came upon a clearing in some woods; we didn’t know where we were at all. It looked normal and all but it was the feel and the lack of sound that only I noticed out of fifteen kids. I ran back to the path we were following shortly, they heard barking then they saw five big dogs, could have been wolves I don’t know. They in the same direction that I ran moments earlier. No one was hurt by these dogs, or maybe wolves, maybe coyotes.

Diagnostic essay: Using Technology

Diagnostic essay: Using Technology

Ryan Donovan

In the advancement of technology there are things that schools should consider as they adopt technology to promote student learning.  The internet has virtually infinite amount of data but, will students access this to learn all the time? How will this change how they learn? Does every student have access to this technology?

Schools changing to digital from paper is a good thing but it feels strange. The feel of a book in your hands, the ability to look and see how far in you are, the way you can skim threw pages fast. In reality, E-readers cannot compete with books until they can withstand a spill, sand, being thrown across a room, never run out of battery. But one E-reader can store ten thousand books, the same amount the average library can hold. The amount of paper saved from not having to use books is alot.

But, what if the student(s) cannot afford an E-reader when everyone else in the class is using one? They will learn at a slower pace. Many of the books on electronic readers and the Internet aren’t free and it may become more difficult for students to happen on books with the serendipity made possible by physical browsing. There’s also the question of the durability of electronic readers.

            With this technology students could be pretending to learn but in reality playing a game in another window. Which means some won't be learning. “There are modes of learning and thinking that at the moment are only available from actual books,’’ he said. “There is a kind of deep-dive, meditative reading that’s almost impossible to do on a screen. Without books, students are more likely to do the grazing or quick reading that screens enable, rather than be by themselves with the author’s ideas.’’ 

          But simply if the students use only this technology to learn they will be able to more effectually learn that with out this technology.