Writing Center

Isabella (Mizzi) Gomes ’16  is an Evolutionary Biology concentrator, pursuing a Certificate in Global Health and Health Policy. She plans on pursuing a Master of Arts in Science, Health, and Medicine at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. At Princeton, she has served as the managing editor for Innovation Journal of Science and Technology, an executive publisher for the Intercollegiate Science Journal, a co-editor-in-chief for the Princeton Journal of Bioethics, and a senior opinion columnist for the Daily Princetonian. She has also completed writing-intensive courses, such as the Ferris Center journalism seminars and her freshman writing seminar looking the narratives of great minds such as John Nash. Her independent work focused on Caesarean section culture of Brazil. She wrote this paper as part of her junior independent work. She wrote this as a senior.

Motive

The immunological consequences of Caesarean sections as associated with host susceptibility to a human papillomavirus (HPV) infection

BY Writing Center

In a Tortoiseshell: In Isabella’s fall junior paper for Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, she explores how Caesarean sections can affect offspring immunity such that the offspring may become more susceptible to HPV infection. The introduction of the paper is notable for its clear development of scholarly and popular motive, which helps the reader understand the importance of this research, both to expanding biological knowledge and to helping us understand patterns of disease prevalence.

download printable PDF Continue reading →
Evidence & Analysis

The “Immense Edifice”: Memory, Rapture, and the Intertemporal Self in Swann’s Way

BY Writing Center

In a Tortoiseshell: This excerpt from Andrew Mullen’s essay “The ‘Immense Edifice”1: Memory, Rapture, and the Intertemporal Self in Swann’s Way” concerns the analysis of Marcel Proust’s “Swann’s Way” through the lens of Claudia Brodsky’s essay on narration and memory. Andrew’s essay is a prime example of thelens essay–an essay that is structured around the analysis of a source text using a theoretical framework provided by another.

Continue reading →
Structure

Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf(stonecraft)?

BY Writing Center

In a Tortoiseshell: In this paper, written for an introductory political theory class, Lavinia Liang compares the treatment of women in marriages to the treatment of slaves as property. The essay is notable for its thoughtful structure, as Lavinia chooses to give the reader a skeletal framework of the argument in her introduction, which she proceeds to fill with details throughout her presentation of evidence, so that the reader is always able to see how her evidence links back to her larger thesis.

Continue reading →
Feature

Moral Luck and the Law

BY Writing Center

In a Tortoiseshell: In this exemplary feature piece, published in full, Daniel Teehan intertwines contemporary urgency to the philosophical concept of moral luck, exploring how one’s background and circumstance can affect how one is treated in modern America’s criminal justice system.

Continue reading →
Body

“One thing only, as we were taught”: Eclipse and Revelation in Annie Dillard’s “Total Eclipse”

BY Writing Center

In a Tortoiseshell: This paper analyzes a 1982 personal essay written by Annie Dillard about the experience of watching a total solar eclipse. The author, Isabelle Laurenzi, observes a strong link between the structure of Dillard’s essay and the subject of Dillard’s recollection, thus arguing that the essay features an eclipse of its own. The excerpts below, taken from the paper’s introduction and body, balance a chronological organizational strategy with a thematic one, thereby showcasing the author’s excellent command over the structure of her essay. 

Continue reading →
Introduction

“She Preferred it Sunk in the Very Element it Was Meant to Exclude”: Making Sense of Nature and Sisterhood in Marilynne Robinson’s Housekeeping

BY Writing Center

In a Tortoiseshell: In the introduction to a Junior Paper on Marilynne Robinson’s Housekeeping, the author sets up her argument by defining the subtle difference between Nature (capital N) and nature (lowercase n).  This exploration of key terms allows for a smooth transition into her thesis about existential and social questions and the separation of biological sisters.  

Continue reading →
© 2026 The Trustees of Princeton University