After reading the article “The New Mystery-Maybe Miracle-Drug,” I realized that although it was definitely a lot more scientific than a New York Times article we’d see today, I enjoyed reading it.  I think the author did a great job in writing a really comprehensive article on prostaglandins and all its possible uses as well as descriptions of past research and a basic history of the research’s beginnings.  At first, I thought that the article was not a good article for general readership because I felt that it was too scientific in both the terminology and excessive explanations of scientists and their findings with this compound.  But after I finished reading it, I understood the bigger picture of the article and it seems to me that the main purpose of the author writing it was to inform readers of this exciting, pioneering compound that could potentially solve many health issues.  The author never asserted that prostaglandins could actually solve these health issues, and he was clear that these implicated uses are still in progress being researched.

I compared the way Lawrence Galton wrote his article to the author of the article that I did for my Hot Topic presentation. Galton wrote his article in a way that I don’t really see much in today’s New York Times articles- it was extremely detailed with information that doesn’t seem fit for just anyone to read.  This isn’t necessarily a good or bad thing.  The author of the article that I did for my Hot Topic presentation seemed to sensationalize the findings from the research it was reporting about and hadn’t done a good job in being clear about the research.  It was definitely written for general readership because everything was put in very simple terms.  Galton, on the other hand, although he did use scientific jargon that not an everyday reader would understand, he did a thorough job of including plenty of background information to lay the foundation for his reporting on prostaglandins.  By doing so, it gives the readers a better understanding of this new initiative that could potentially solve many health issues at the time.  He did however include unnecessary information such as the diagram of the molecule and other seemingly trivial information about prostaglandins.  But overall, I think that Galton’s writing style did a good job to effectively present his reporting in a comprehensive manner.