Defining Child Abuse in America and the Question of Media Impact on Its Prevalence

Bridget's feedback:

"Your intention and work in tackling this grim, complicated subject is evident. As you think about how to organize your discussion into a more effective, persuasive form, I want to recommend focusing on building ethos using clear sourcing and thinking about organization. I want to start with organization: you have a lot of details and information here. Headings/subheadings would be helpful in guiding your reader across this paper. Check your preferred style guide--most have specific formatting for different heading levels. In terms of building ethos, I suggest going through the paper and making sure each source is made clear to the reader. Putting quotation marks around direct quotes and using signal phrases will help your reader understand the presentation. This is important not just for proving your point, but also for helping your reader understand the scope and scale of your research. Part of this will also be explaining your process and methods for conducting interviews; you might even consider dedicating a section to your methods and findings to help your reader, again, conceive of the scope, scale, and credibility of your conducted research. You might also give an overview of your internet research methods; for example, the American Humane Association (Society?) is for animal welfare, not children: how or why as your research led you there? And along with this, read over your paper for unsubstantiated or overly general claims. If you find one, consider a few elements: can you word it more precisely? can you back it with a source? If not, consider deleting it so the reader can focus on the evidence. Finally, your hook, which makes good use of pathos, is pretty long. I have a few suggestions: rewrite it so it is shorter (keep it to one paragraph) or replace it with a real-life example: summarize or quote from a newspaper, for example. Locating the example from real life might have a greater impact on the reader and help establish the real-world urgency and stakes."

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