Profile Critique

This profile, posted to the New York Times was written about Marilyn Berger a 73 year old women who decided to raise her first child. I though that this was a very interesting story about a women who had a very full-filling life of being a White House correspondent for NBC news, to learning to sail at 60 and writing a book at 72 but decided at 73 that she wanted a child.

I liked the lede in this story up until the third sentence. It reads "A fourth noted: 'You've been out.'"
I personally did not understand this quote and didn't think it needed to be there.

The profile does a good job of describing her travel to Ethiopia, where she discovered this young boy that she would soon adopt. The story starts to get a little to descriptive and wordy when it starts to describe Ms. Berger reminiscing about her son.

The sentence reads "Ms. Berger said, clicking through photographs of Danny on her computer the way parents do, so quietly absorbed in the images that they scarcely notice whether the person for whose benefit they're ostensibly displaying those pictures has even glanced in their direction." That is a mouthful and I think if I was reading that I would probably have to go back and read it again or just stop right there. Also I have no idea what ostensibly means. I appreciate that they were trying to paint this vivid image in the readers mind about that particular moment but it could have been simplified for the sake of the reader.

I appreciate the last paragraph and how it describes a typical day for Ms. Berger after she picks him up from school. It paints a picture in the readers mind of this playful little boy happy to see his mom and be done with his day of school. It plays with human interest and can't help but make you go "aw!"

This profile uses very good descriptions but can get a little wordy at times.