Blog #15

3. Describe how Americans pay for health care and the government's role in this process.


Many Americans struggle to pay for health care and may need some assistance because health care can become extremely expensive especially for people who don't have much money. Sometimes peoples jobs will cover their health care but may not cover them fully or may not cover their family as well. When this happens the family must pay the remainder of the money out of pocket. This article explains how much health care costs.

There is a big issue on if health care is a privilege or a right. It seems that people who have a lot of money feel that health care should be a privilege because they have the money to pay for it while others feel like it should be a right. That everyone should be able to have health care and feeling of security.

1. Using a specific example, describe what makes a compelling character in narrative nonfiction or literary journalism.

During class I read the article called "Open Channels" and it was about people having cystic fibrosis and what they have to go through on a daily basis. In that story a compelling character would be anyone who really put us in their situation. One of those characters where Maya. She was a 7 year old girl who had cystic fibrosis. We were told how many medications she was taking and her different treatments. We were also told how, during the medial trial of a drug, she started to feeling better but once the trial was over she contracted MRSA.

2. Using a specific example, describe what makes an interesting plot in narrative nonfiction or literary journalism.

To me an interesting plot includes and ultimate question that we are trying to answer through out the whole story. This question could be considered the conflict of the story and when there is a conflict I, personally, like it when the conflict is solved at the very end so it forces you to read the entire article/story.

3. What specific steps do authors take to write non-jargon-based scientific writing?

I think the first step they take is figure out the audience they are writing for. If they are writing for teens then they want to have advanced writing but not to the point where the reader is having to look up words in the dictionary every five minutes. If the targeted audience is older then the writer may use more advanced vocabulary. The most important thing for authors to do is write for the reader.

4. What specific steps do authors take to encourage their readers to connect with their stories?

When authors want their readers to connect with the story they can bring in real events that have happened or by putting in a lot of facts and statistics. I, personally, like when there are a lot of facts in something that I am reading because it really brings me deep into the story and makes me want to keep reading. I understand that you can't put excessive amounts of facts into every story and in that case I think the author should include shocking events in the story.