Better Atul Gawande Analysis

A Writer’s Journey As a writer, I never doubted my abilities. I know about past flaws and I’m sure I’m still oblivious to the current one’s I’m making. One flaw that it visibly noticeable throughout my work in high school is with the use of transitions and how the work flows together. In ninth, English I and II, the works were choppy and lacked even the smallest transitions, but when looking at works from English IV (AP English) or from this class, they’ve greatly increased in usage and my writings have become increasingly smooth. In English I, the fall semester of Freshman year, I wrote a paper on the book Better by Atul Gawande, titled Three Ways to Succeed in Medicine. Even the starting paragraph lacks transitions:
Atul Gawande’s novel, Better: A Surgeon’s Notes on Performance, shows ways to succeed in the medical profession. Three requirements add up to create the most efficient way to function as a health care professional. Once acquired, the medical field will become better than it is currently. The three ways listed, diligence, doing right, and ingenuity, help achieve success in the medical field (Fall 2014).
Not to mention that it is kind of repetitive, but the use of transitions is not harnessed very well at all. I could have added some more and made it sound like “Some ways Gawande shows how to become a better
professional is through utilizing these requirements…”, which personally, I think sounds much better. The next writing, from Spring 2015, second semester freshman year, I titled, Comparing and Contrasting Dystopias. In this essay I compared the dystopias of Fahrenheit 451 and “Harrison Bergeron”. This paper is probably my least favorite, mainly because it feels like an information overload, but also because of how it is organized and how it flows terribly. Despite all of its other flaws, the transitions in this are still not up to parr. In this paper at least the first body paragraph has a transition, unlike Three Ways to Succeed in Medicine. This paper analyzes the dystopias for separate things three times and makes it long and drawn out, but for the most part the transitions are attempted. If I were to revise this paper, I would probably add more transitions along with rearranging the paragraphs to help it become clearer. In English III, I wrote an analysis on a common theme in the book A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini. My paper compared the two main characters and how Shelter, the common theme, related and differed between them. My transitions in this paper are better, but this is still not the best in any way, shape, or form. For example, the transition between the introduction/summary and the first body paragraph is great, it flows like this,
“In this essay, the theme of shelter will be shown through Mariam’s shelter, Laila’s shelter, and how they are shelter for each other throughout various parts of the book..
The beginning of the book is about Mariam in her youth and her marriage to Rasheed. Her physical shelter was…” (Fall 2015).
Not sound like I’m up on a high horse or anything, but that flows really well considering the amount of effort I put into this essay! Throughout the rest of the paper the usage of transitions and commas allows it to flow and the clarity that comes from that helps immensely. In my AP English class, which essentially is English IV, we read The Scarlet Letter as a class, and I’d like to add that that book is a really good one and I liked it more than I would have expected.
Anyway, I wrote a paper titled The Sins of Hester Prynne, Arthur Dimmesdale, and Roger Chillingworth, which is exactly what it sounds like it would be about. This paper feels simpler than most, but I think it is because my thesis is the title. At the start of every paragraph, there is a transition, and within each parts of the paragraph, there are transitions where needed to aid with the clarity and flow. My favorite part of this paper
is,
“To start, Hester Prynne’s sin was adultery. She committed her sin and the result was Pearl, her daughter, while her husband was nowhere around, leading to the obvious conclusion: that Hester Prynne committed this sin. Throughout the beginning of the book, Hester has to pay for her sins by wearing the scarlet letter and by being publicly shunned. At first, Hester is ashamed and wounded by the townspeople's treatment of her and her daughter, but quickly becomes hardened to their words, all while staying soft. She continues to give to those worse off than her, and she takes up embroidery jobs for the people to make a small amount of money to buy food. Eventually, she begins to realize other people’s sins too and becomes much more understanding and no longer feels that the scarlet letter has much effect on her anymore. As stated in Chapter five…” (Spring 2016).
This is the first main body paragraph about Hester’s sins. Honestly, after reading my other papers, the use transitions in this one and how the words roll out and fall together seamlessly is glorious. As a writer, I am thankful for all of my teachers and how they’ve aided in my growth. I’m even thankful for the thirty thousand essays Mrs. Bennett had us write in preparation for the AP test. But by far I am thankful for everything everyone has done to help me grow. My journey isn’t over, nor will it ever be, but this is a chapter of it written out for Mrs. Nix, and eventually, there’ll be more to come.