Reflections on my summer reading essay (thus far)
"What Happens When Doctors Make Mistakes". Thats the title of the piece, and its the big question, too. My main quesiton used to be "When should a doctor be allowed to give up?--but after mulling around with my ideas for a while I realized it would be easier to form them when responding to the "mistake" question.
My essay still has problems. I am 1) concerned that it lacks a point (my "point" is that mistakes are inevitable and necessary to the overall practice of medicine; or maybe it's that doctors and patients need a mutual understanding and sense of trust in order to minimize mistakes and prevent mistakes from ruining a doctor's career; or maybe it's that doctors should NOT be punished for their mistakes)--see what I mean? I think, though, that my focus is the latter.
2) I go off on a lot of tangents in my writing. Does this make it a proper "thought" piece, or does it just make it messy? Either way, I still need to make my "tangents" more pertinent to the focus and more cohesive with one another.
3) I end the piece with about five different ideas--or maybe five different versions of the same idea. I need to get rid of repeated points and pick the best way of phrasing my conclusion.--in fact, I think I still need to develop my conclusion a little more.
4) It needs to be edited for stronger vocabulary and varied sentences. Overall flow has never been my biggest problem with writing, but I want to make this piece fun to read, like the Sex and the City essay.
5)I need to take out information that doesnt work towards my focus. That way, I can expand on the key details.
6) I probably don't need so many quotations, and anyway, shouldn't dump the entire quotation in the paper.
There are probably more problems with my essay, and when I figure out what they are I will probably edit this post.
On another note--I can't believe this is my first "post" since 2004!
My essay still has problems. I am 1) concerned that it lacks a point (my "point" is that mistakes are inevitable and necessary to the overall practice of medicine; or maybe it's that doctors and patients need a mutual understanding and sense of trust in order to minimize mistakes and prevent mistakes from ruining a doctor's career; or maybe it's that doctors should NOT be punished for their mistakes)--see what I mean? I think, though, that my focus is the latter.
2) I go off on a lot of tangents in my writing. Does this make it a proper "thought" piece, or does it just make it messy? Either way, I still need to make my "tangents" more pertinent to the focus and more cohesive with one another.
3) I end the piece with about five different ideas--or maybe five different versions of the same idea. I need to get rid of repeated points and pick the best way of phrasing my conclusion.--in fact, I think I still need to develop my conclusion a little more.
4) It needs to be edited for stronger vocabulary and varied sentences. Overall flow has never been my biggest problem with writing, but I want to make this piece fun to read, like the Sex and the City essay.
5)I need to take out information that doesnt work towards my focus. That way, I can expand on the key details.
6) I probably don't need so many quotations, and anyway, shouldn't dump the entire quotation in the paper.
There are probably more problems with my essay, and when I figure out what they are I will probably edit this post.
On another note--I can't believe this is my first "post" since 2004!