The Lead
“People will be debating our pandemic response — the pros and the cons — for years to come. How could we have saved more lives? How could we have helped more kids? Could we have kept more businesses afloat? These are topics of ferocious debate even now, and, in the short term, they’ll continue to intensify as Omicron surges. But there are aspects of our response that may shock future generations, even though we might barely take note of them at the moment. For example, the extreme cleanliness that has come to characterize our lives.” — The article does not have a clearly defined division into paragraphs and highlights of the lead. However, the first sentences instantly start the exposition of the article topic, ask the reader rhetorical questions, and begin the narrative. The general tone of the article indicates that the author encourages readers to reflect and discuss all outcomes by offering her research and opinion.
Nut Graf
“How could we have saved more lives? How could we have helped more kids? Could we have kept more businesses afloat? These are topics of ferocious debate even now, and, in the short term, they’ll continue to intensify as Omicron surges.” — The nut graf does not give clear directions in the text. However, it leads the reader to conclusions with the guidance of rhetorical questions, which will be addressed in the text.
“But there are aspects of our response that may shock future generations, even though we might barely take note of them at the moment. For example, the extreme cleanliness that has come to characterize our lives.” — These nut sentences directly refer to the phenomenon of cleanliness during a pandemic, the details of which may shock future generations, even though they are mundane for the current one.
Use of Quotes and Sources
The author of the article resorts to research materials and reports of experts, which increases the investigation value of the article. For example, she frequently quotes ecologist Rob Dunn and Joseph Allen from the Harvard Chan School of Public Health. In addition, the author correctly includes links to all electronic sources confirming the analysis in the article. For example, she mentions “an unexpected quirk of history that shifted the Russian-Finnish border, following World War II” and supports her evidence with the article The Unintended (and Deadly) Consequences of Living in the Industrialized World by Andrew Carry.
Transitions
The text of the article does not contain a strict division into paragraphs and headings corresponding to them. Transitions occur mainly by repeating keywords and changing the focus of the concern. For example: “Dunn, a professor at North Carolina State, said that “people have recently been calling for kids to spend at least four hours a day outside, and we’re so far from that”…But that has changed a lot over the last century, with some unexpected consequences (the transitional sentence transmits the focus from the current situation to the past). Much of the most striking research on these consequences resulted from an unexpected quirk of history that shifted the Russian-Finnish border, following World War II.”
Backgrounding
The author of the article, Kara Miller, is a global correspondent, which is evident from the professional tone of the article. In addition to experts, the author uses her husband’s experiences, who happens to be a former chemist. It is a sound way to show the personal interest and involvement of the family in the research. She states: “My husband — a former chemist — decided to make his own hand sanitizer.”
Varied Sentence Structure
The text of the article is written at a dynamic intermittent pace. Sentences with an exploratory component are more extended and fuller; they can maintain the whole paragraphs on their own. The text is fragmented and interrupted by brief dynamic sentences designed to add momentum and separate emphases of the narrative. For example: “And that was before 2020, and a novel coronavirus that swept the world.”; “But that has changed a lot over the last century, with some unexpected consequences.”
Reference
Miller, Kara. (2021). Has COVID made us too clean? The Boston Globe.