Barbara Zelek Gender And Power Summary

“Gender and power: Nurses and doctors in Canada” was written by Barbara Zelek and Susan P. Phillips. This article describes a study done with nurses in January of 2000 collecting data on female nurses’ reactions to a vignette survey. The purpose of the study was to observe if male physicians have more authority in the eyes of female nurses than female physicians do. Each survey had four clinical senarios alternating gender of the doctor. Then the responsesbased on the sex of the physician were studied. It was found that female nurses were more willing to serve the male physicians as opposed to the female physician. The overall writing of this article was poor with modifiers, redundancy, and consistent passive voice, distancing the authors from the study; however, there is clear, condensed sentences and the use of compound nouns that make strong scientific writing. The first sentence in the fifth paragraph of the “Background” section uses two unnecessary modifiers to explain how nurses and physicians “resist the equalization of power that true teamwork requires” (Zelek and Phillips, p.2). Rewriting the sentence; many nurses and physicians still resist the equalization of power that true teamwork requires, will strengthen the argument by addressing the point quicker. Modifiers drag out the sentence and don’t add any credibility. These ‘empty amplifiers’, as Joshua Schimel calls it in Writing Science, help add to the word count, but don’t help the writing in any other way (Schimel, p.164). When these words are removed from the original text the main point is still clear and valid. In the “Method” section at the bottom of the first paragraph a sentence with unnecessary description creates redundancy. “Participants were asked five point Likert type questions about nurse physician interactions, their expectations, probably actions, and feelings about the physicians” (Zelek and Phillips, p. 2). This second half of the paragraph has unneeded description. The paper later goes on to talk about each five points of the vignettes and describes each question, so this detail can be removed. The sentence will obtain more power and clarity by removing the second half, “their expectations, probably actions, and feelings about the physicians” (Zelek and Phillips, p.2). The technicality for this sentence is not needed, removing it will condense and clarify. The last sentence in the “Study Limitations” paragraph has a vague conclusion. “Our relatively high response …show more content…
The verbosity of this sentence is not over-done and is well written. “This study examines whether the traditional authority of doctors over nurses is eroded when that authority arises solely from profession and not from gender” (Zelek and Phillips, p. 2). Though there are many verbs it is easy to comprehend and the information is condensed. The sentence accurately uses Schimel’s Opening, Challenge, Action, Resolution (OCAR) structure in Writing Science. Using this structure in the sentence provides an easily readable article that can be understood by many.
Another well written sentence is in the “Conclusion”. “When nurses and doctors are female the traditional power imbalance between the two diminishes” (Zelek and Phillips, p. 4). The sentence is clear and concise using the OCAR structure. There is use of a compound noun, “traditional power,” for a strong meaning instead of a prepositional phrase. By using the compound noun there was no use of nominalizations or passive verbs, and the complex idea was built