PB2A

The scholarly publication I picked discusses how the derailment in one of the three critical areas of development-education, employment, and marriage-increases the likelihood of poor outcomes in adulthood. Some of the conventions I found in this publication was bold titles and subtitles, numbered pages, a “keywords” section, separation of categories, lots of citations, and a specific order of ideas. The title on the first page is very large and bolded with the purpose to catch the reader’s attention. The title reads “Child Abuse and Neglect, Developmental Role Attainment, and Adult Arrests.” From this the reader may assume that this paper will discuss the way child abuse and neglect have an impact in the latter parts of a person’s life. By using words like “child” and “abuse,” the author is evoking pity or sadness, a rhetorical technique known as pathos. Right away, it introduces what is being discussed and following the title is the authors that contributed to the publication. Beneath the title is the abstract. This is the part of the research paper that establishes what the paper is studying and the author’s argument. The author argues that these three developmental milestones are crucial to and that they negatively affect a person in their adulthood.

I noticed that in the first page, there are footnotes and a section dedicated to the corresponding author. It lists out the author’s name followed by her contact information, the institution she attends, and her address. By doing this, the author aims at establishing credibility. In the second page, there is a section with “Keywords” that give an outline of the different topics and strategies used in the experimental study. It then begins to chronologically discuss these topics in detail. The author keeps this order to make the paper sound clear and organized. This is helpful to the reader because it helps them navigate through the paper without confusion.

The author also talks about lots of different studies previously made. The author not only provides these resources, but also explains their significance to her study. For example, she writes “Eckenrode and colleagues (1993) found that maltreated elementary and middle school students scored 10 percentile points lower on a standardized math test, had lower grades overall, and were more likely to fail a grade in school than nonmaltreated peers.” She goes on explaining how this is supportive of her argument. Using other sources helps build credibility as a writer. It is important that these ideas are correctly cited as well.

After discussing the three different areas of development, the author introduces the present study. In this study, there are six basic questions and four conditions necessary to tell whether or not certain factors act as mediators in associations between variables. Next, we see a new paragraph that describes the methods put forth in the experiment. It breaks down in different sections the sample and design, variables and measures, and statistical analysis. After describing this, the author explains the results from the study. With this, there are tables and graphs that illustrate the results from the different subjects that were studied. The first table shows how abused and neglected children are at higher risk than the control group to have an arrest as a juvenile and adult, are less likely to graduate from high school, be employed, and get married.

The next set of analyses show the correlation between successful achievement and a significant decrease in risk for adult arrest. These graphs I feel are very important to this study because they offer evidence to the writer’s argument. Another important part to this study is the discussion of the results that are used to determine whether or not their theory was a valid one.

Lastly, there are author biographies at the bottom of the last page where they address their professional careers. Once again, they serve to give the author credibility.


Allwood, Maureen A., and Cathy Spatz Widom. "Child Abuse and Neglect, Developmental Role                     Attainment, and Adult Arrests." SAGE Journals. Web. 24 Apr. 2016.