Talk:Miguel Abreu

After reading your autobiography, I found myself enjoying several pieces of your work while also finding several areas of improvement that I am confident will help to make your piece stronger and more clear for readers.

I liked several lines in your introduction paragraph. I found "What is becoming a major part of the 21st century is the apparent necessity to digitize some form of one’s identity into the internet" to be very true and identifiable with myself. It seems as if every person within my generation from the ages of 10-25 have an online identity of some sort, whether it is Facebook or Penguin Club. This is not the way it used to be was I was 10 years-old. So, the increasing amount of online identities I see, particularly on Facebook with younger people, I am continually surprised.

Towards the end of your introduction, you pose the question, "But is a digital profile enough for two people to authentically know one other?" I like that this is mentioned at the beginning of your autobiography and then you go on to say that your Facebook identity will be used to investigate this question. This gives the reader something to think about as they read through your autobiography. However, I do like not like your use of third person here when you say "Miguel Abreu from Facebook," as this assignment is meant to be an autobiography. Thus, I think that saying something more along the lines of "My online identity on Facebook will be the example..." would be more appropriate.

I don’t think it was necessary to include all 6 of your favorite quotations in your autobiography as several of them are quite long, and include translations, and it is a little much to read. I think it would be easier for the reader if you had chosen 2-3 quotes out of your selection of 6.

In your “Idenity from Personal Data” section, you are a bit unclear in your explanation of the “’marriage separation’ claim”. The surname “Saladin” is mentioned for the first time in this section and it not clear that this is your mother’s last name. Additionally, I think that this explanation is overall irrelevant to assessing your identity from personal data and later investigating your identity authenticity through Facebook.

I do not see the connection between your “active night life” and an unwillingness to communicate via Facebook. Consider explaing this correlation more thoroughly.

I like the overall formatting of your “Miguel Abreu From Faceook” section in how the different Facebook elements you are active with is described and then you relate these elements to portrayal of your identity. However, this format does not remain inconsistent throughout the section as no “Identity from Facebook activity” is not included.

More pictures could be included to guide the reader better visually. For instance, your “Photos” section discusses various different images you have uploaded in the past. It would be interesting to see several of these photos so the reader has an idea of what type of photos you upload.

Throughout the entirety of your autobiography, I noticed a fair amount of grammar/word choice errors. For instance, a comma is missing after "For example" in the third sentence of your first paragraph. Furthermore, I noticed a large quantity of errors in the "Facebook Identity vs Real World Identity" section. Consider rereading your piece and revising these mistakes.

I like how the first parts of your autobiography simply describe the elements you are active with on Facebook and what implications a common user may make from them. I also like that no explanation of whether these implications are authentic to your identity are expressed until the very end when you proceed to go back and examine every element and how authentic it is in relation to your real life.

I think that the last section, “Lack of Facebook Functionality in identity projection” was out of place being the last section that the reader sees. I liked how the paragraph before summed everything together that was previously mentioned in your work and it left me, the reader, feeling satisfied that your piece all came together in the end.

Overall, I think that the concept of your autobiography as a whole is a good one in that you describe what your Facebook elements say about you and then you go on to explain whether these are authentic representations of your true self. This is the goal of the assignment. However, I think that you could be more concise and clear by excluding some pieces of your work and explaining others.

Good job understanding the assignment, Miguel, and I hop that my comments help to make your points reach the reader more successfully.

- Melissa Frohman