Talk:Jared Cutlip

While I understood your main points and it was interesting to read, there are a couple of things I had problems with. First, this reflection needs to be proofread. I noticed several mechanical and grammatical mistakes that makes it tough for the reader to follow without getting distracted. These types of revisions are really easy to do and will make your reflection sound much more fluid to the reader. I can relate to the outside source you used, as I have read that same poem many times. It was an interesting source to use, but unfortunately I don't feel like it added that much. You mention it briefly in the opening, but don't refer back to it until the very end. I feel that if you went into a little more depth with your outside source you would have been able to really tie it in with your reflection, rather than just saying, "...this poem puts meaning to that statement." I also felt like you could have used more reflection in the first part where you talk about the self-portrait avatar. You did not elaborate on the choices you made as much as you could have. I really liked the part when you talk about how one reason you weren't able to obtain an accurate representation of yourself in the self-portrait was because you, like everyone else, are not perfect. There are no options to add imperfections, so to speak, so regardless of the choices you made the avatar was going to be a more perfect depiction of yourself. This was definitely an interesting point to touch upon. Having said that, I think you could have gone into more detail in the reflection of your fantasy avatar. Why did you immediately realize that you wanted it to be in uniform? Do you have a desire to go into the military? Why did you want the fantasy avatar to embody a perfect military man? I think a little reflection on these points could have gone a long way. Lastly, I was a bit confused as to what you were trying to say with the purple eye color. I understand that you value eyes as an important aspect of the face, but the part where you spoke about genetically engineering eye color was random and didn't really tie in to anything. Nonetheless, I enjoyed reading your reflection.

I enjoyed the description of the avatar creation process. You were able to walk the reader through both the strategic and emotional factors that went into the creation process. Also the Shel Silverstein poem gave good insight on your feelings throughout the process. I felt like the making choices section could include choices about your personal avatar’s body choosing process as well. The fantasy avatar reflection was solid as well. I liked the integration of weighing likes and dislikes to create this imaginary character. For example actually taking ideas from your everyday life (The Lost example). The evaluation of the evolver software itself also greatly aided your argument. This included the lack of imperfections allowed to the avatar as well as the unnecessary optional features available (aliens and purple eyes). You also learned to accept certain features like the feature which allowed you to mix character aspects, even though you didn’t necessarily see it as pleasing initially. I feel that maybe you could squeeze some avatar comparisons (between your avatars) into the conclusion. Also I think it could be very useful to integrate more references into your argument, whether they be from the class readings or outside sources. - B Silva