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Smarthinking's E-structor Response Form

(Your marked-up essay is below this form.)
HOW THIS WORKS: Your e-structor has written overview comments about your essay in the
form below. Your e-structor has also embedded comments [in bold and in brackets]
throughout your essay. Thank you for choosing Smarthinking's OWL; best wishes with
revising your paper!
Greetings, Benett! My name is Melissa W. and I will be working with you on your essay today. Lets
get started!
*Strengths of the essay: Benett, you clearly and concisely state the thesis of your essay when you
write:
HeLa cells should not be restricted in experiments, but scientist should not personally profit
off of Henriettas cells since they are still her cells and her property, her family is in shortage
for any money, and the cells were never taken with her knowing.
This sentence clearly states your position with regard to the HeLa cells and offers your reasons for this
position. This will help you organize the rest of your essay and argue your points effectively. Well
done!
*Benett 7292793 has requested that you respond to the Organization: In order to maintain
the organization that you so clearly set out in the introduction, Benett, you must make sure that each
of your supporting points is clearly related to your main idea. This helps to create a logical
organization for your argument and explain how each point supports your thesis. Sometimes, your
main idea, particularly the suggestion that scientists should not personally profit off of Henriettas
cells, is not clearly carried through the entire essay. For example, lets look at the conclusion to your
paragraph on the situation faced by Henriettas family:
The fact that Henriettas family cant even afford health care to cover medical treatments that her
mothers cells quite possibly helped develop is truly repulsive and highlights the ethical problem with
this situation.
You mention an ethical problem but you dont specify what that is. Is the problem that scientists
profit personally from the cells? If so, make that clear. Your example in this paragraph mentions that
scientists consider the cells important to medicine. Is that what you mean by personal profit, or do
you literally mean that they profit financially? Again, this is not clear. Be very specific about how
your points demonstrate your thesis. This will help you organize your points clearly around the main
idea.
*Benett 7292793 has requested that you respond to the Use of Resources: While you
sometimes use quotes from the text quite well here to illustrate your points, in other places citations
from the text are completely missing. This weakens your ability to effectively prove your thesis to the
reader. For example, in your paragraph about the way that the cells were taken (you argue
inappropriately), you write:
Before her surgery Henrietta signed a consent paper that limitedly stated that the doctors had a right
to do what they deemed necessary in the operation. There was nothing mentioned in the contract
about giving her cells to the hospital.
Can you offer a quote from the text, or perhaps even from the text of the contract she signed, that
will show the reader that she did not consent to donating her cells? Right now you tell us this, but you
also need to show it with evidence from the text. Keep this in mind as you revise your essay. In any

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case in which you tell the reader something, try to find a way to show us as well using citations from
the text.
Grammar & Mechanics: Semicolons are used to separate two independent clauses that express
related ideas, Benett. When you use them to separate dependent clauses, you create sentence
fragments that disrupt the flow of your writing. Heres an example from your essay of improper use of
the semicolon:
Her family went on living there lives; not ever fully understanding what had actually happened to their
beloved Henrietta or her cells.
The first part of this sentence is a complete, independent clause (or a sentence that could stand on its
own). The second part, however, does not have a subject, and either needs to be connected to the
first, independent clause or given a subject to make it independent. Heres an example of how to
correct this problem. Instead of this:

There are a lot of Christian allusions in the poems of Andrew Hudgins; that are sometimes very
beautiful and unexpected.
Try this:

There are a lot of Christian allusions in the poems of Andrew Hudgins that are sometimes very
beautiful and unexpected.
Or this:

There are a lot of Christian allusions in the poems of Andrew Hudgins; these are sometimes very
beautiful and unexpected.
Learning to use the semicolon properly can help you to vary your sentence structure and make your
writing more complex, but be aware that each clause must be independent, with both subject and
verb.
Summary of Next Steps: In order to revise your essay on Henrietta Lacks, I recommend the
following steps:
1. Relate each of your points back to the main idea.
2. Include quotes that show, rather than tell, your points.
3. Use the semicolon appropriately.
Best of luck with your revisions, Benett! -Melissa W.
Find additional resources in Smarthinking's online library:
You can find more information about writing, grammar, and usage in Smarthinking's
student handbooks. You can visit the Smarthinking Writer's Handbook or the Smarthinking
ESOL (English for speakers of other languages) Writer's Handbook.
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Please look for more comments in your essay below. Thank you for visiting Smarthinking.
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Benett Tomandl
Jennifer Vanderslik
English 100-16
October 31, 2014
Henrietta (HeLa)
There are many ethical questions that shouldnt even be a matter of discussion; a distinct
example being who has the possession of ones cells. If one doesnt have possession of their cells,
do they have possession of other parts of them like an arm or a leg? This question really
emphasizes the preposterous situation presented in the real life story about Henrietta Lacks in the
book: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot. In 1951, Henriettas cells were
taken from her without her knowing consent and grown into the worlds largest and arguably
most profited cell strain; many people rightfully question the ethical situation of the proposed
issue especially since her direct family has little money at all. The importance of the cell in
science cant be argued, but the fact that people are making money off of Henriettas cells while
her family is left poverty-stricken is disturbing. HeLa cells should not be restricted in
experiments, but scientist should not personally profit off of Henriettas cells since they are still
her cells and her property, her family is in shortage for any money, and the cells were never
taken with her knowing.
Henriettas cells went from being a growing part of her into a commercially available
product that supported millions of dollars. It was at this point that the problem originated: when

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Henriettas cells lost their attachment to her human self and became simply a source of money
for people. The first people to recognize the money that was potentially in HeLa, were Samuel
Reader and Monroe Vincent. Reader and Vincent used HeLa cells as the springboard to
launch the first industrial-scale, for profit cell distribution center (Skloot 101) As the cell strain
grew and grew, more people became rich off of Henriettas cells. As the name for the strain
HeLa slowly became attached to Henrietta herself due to leaked articles and other media sources,
people tried desperately to morally cover their own guilty feelings with insane claims such as
the cells had lost her genetic makeup. [Make sure your tone remains appropriate for an
academic essay. Phrases like insane claims may work in speech, but they sound too
strong for writing.]The truth is, no matter how many are produced, the cells all originated from
Henrietta and are therefore still her cells and should not be the property of others to sell.
Another moral problem is introduced when one learns of where her direct family ended
up. Her family went on living there lives; not ever fully understanding what had actually
happened to their beloved Henrietta or her cells. Many of the family members lived in constant
search of jobs and hoping for a break from the difficult cruelties of everyday living. They had
only enough money to support themselves and often times not even that. All this was happening
while people around the world were using their relative, Henriettas, property to gain their own
wealth. Sonny had a quintuple bypass in 2003 the last thing he remembered before falling
unconscious was a doctor standing over him saying his mothers cells were one of the most
important things that had ever happened in medicine. Sonny woke up to more than $125,000 in
debt because he didnt have health insurance to cover the surgery (Skloot 306). [This is a good
quote to show both parts of your point: that Henriettas family was in need at the same
time as her cells were being used both for profit and to benefit medicine. Nicely done!]The

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fact that Henriettas family cant even afford health care to cover medical treatments that her
mothers cells quite possibly helped develop is truly repulsive and highlights the ethical problem
with this situation.
Henriettas cells were taken without her direct knowledge. [This paragraph needs a
transition. You switch from a discussion of ethical problems highlighted by the use of
Henriettas cells while her family was not compensated to the fact that Henrietta did not
know her cells were being taken. What is the connection between these two topics?]She was
getting a tumor removed at John Hopkins hospital were the doctor removed a slice of the tumor,
as he routinely did, and sent it to another part of the hospital were people were trying to culture
cells. Before her surgery Henrietta signed a consent paper that limitedly stated that the doctors
had a right to do what they deemed necessary in the operation. There was nothing mentioned in
the contract about giving her cells to the hospital. In fact, Henrietta was so uninformed about the
situation, she didnt know after the surgery that she would no longer be able to have kids.
Doctors had failed to make sure the patient fully understood what was going on. After the cells
had already been take, Henriettas husband, Day, also signed a contract giving doctors
permission to perform an autopsy on the body. The problem with this was that Day did not
understand much of the contract. The cells were taken without expressed approval from
Henrietta or anyone in her family. They then were used to make the most successful cell strain
and brought much fame and wealth to John Hopkins. The problem here is that because they
didnt have full consent, the doctors stole Henriettas cells.
While Henrietta was alive, African Americans faced extreme racism still. She wasnt
treated fairly at the hospital because she did not have money or health insurance to pay for the
procedure and therefore had to go to a hospital that freely treated African Americans. In return,

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the hospitals used these patients as sort of experimental dummys, keeping contracts loosely
stated and also performing surgeries with more of an intent to learn from and not to save the
patient. Racist treatment like this was not uncommon back then but was not right and should not
have been conducted. Henriettas tumor was removed and the doctors more than likely did not
see any problems with that at all due to her color. [How does this point relate to your larger
argument? You do not mention this idea in your thesis statement. If it is an important
point, you should either introduce it as part of your thesis or explain how it relates to one of
your other points.]
Henriettas cells shouldnt be used for profitable gain by anyone because of the un ethical
ways at which they were removed from Henrietta. She had no knowledge of what was going on
and additionally was treated different because of her color. Furthermore, it is unjust to know that
while many are making money off Henriettas cells, her direct family is left in poverty. It is only
fair and just to the woman who unknowingly gave so much to science, that any money profited
off of her cells does not go into the pocket of someone using the cells solely for self-gain.

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Works Cited
Skloot, Rebecca. The Immortal life of Henrietta Lacks. New York: Crown Publishers, 2010. Print.