Quick Reminders for Next Week

Just to remind you of the readings and homework for next week:

-- Readings: Next week, I'd like for us to return to Atul Gawande's chapter, "What Doctors Owe," on pages 84-111 of Better, so if you hadn't read this chapter for last week, please read it for this week. And if you have read it, feel free either to reread the chapter, read ahead to the next chapter (which will be due next week), or take a break from reading Gawande's book.

-- Homework: Don't forget that your first two article write-ups are due by 11:59 PM next Thursday night. To remind you, the process of doing a write-up is simple. First, you find an article related to your topic, then you read it, then you put together an informal 500-word summary-and-response essay that summarizes the main idea and important support points of the article, then goes on to present and explain your own responses to this article's points. Next, do the same for another article. For more about article write-ups, refer to the label, "article write-ups," on this site.

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(And here's a special note about gathering articles: Since you'll be pooling six articles together in a longer research paper at the end of the semester, it might be wise to gather articles that help you build up a complete discussion. Consider, for example, what might happen if all you find are several short news reports. In this case, your final research paper might appear very thin, with many important connections missing. And consider what might happen if you just use informative articles. In this case, your essay will have no argument, just facts; it will be hard to see why your points matter. But then, consider what might happen if you use only scientific journal articles. In that case, your final research paper might be difficult to manage, with basic explanations and relatable examples missing. So try to go for a balance of different types of articles and different depths of content. Of course, for your write-ups, you can use any articles you want. But it's always smart to plan ahead.)