Child/Early Delinquency and Misconduct within impoverished children in America

REFERENCES

Use your references effectively to argue for the gravity of the problem and the soundness of your solutions. Your intervention ideas rest on the credibility of your references: You may use review articles but a couple of peer-reviewed empirical articles are necessary to bolster your argument.

Besides the credibility of your references, you, the author, also needs to be credible. One way to accomplish it for a new author is to show some ability to read and understand scientific research. Below are two writing samples from popular outlets. The first is an illustration of how to describe a phenomenon using numbers and percentages. It also does a good job of creating a voice out of expert opinions and avoiding the word “I”. The second sample illustrates a way to disseminate research findings. My suggestion is to use about a page or so in your paper to describe study details that are the most pertinent to your argument.

GRADING CRITERIA
Correct format
• Does your paper have the required length of 5-6 pages (excluding the title page and the reference page)? This means your paper ends on p6.
• Is it (consistently) double-spaced with 1-inch margins all around?
• Did you use 12-point Times New Roman?
• Did you include a title page and a reference list?
• Did you use a professional style for in-text referencing and reference list?
• Do you have at least 5 references?
• Did you include page numbers? Please do not number the cover page and start numbering when your paper actually starts.
• Did you realize that you don’t need to write separate sections for abstract, methods, results and discussion sections?
• Did you avoid direct quotes? For the unavoidable direct quotes, did you use quotation marks?
• Did you avoid section titles and use real transitions instead?
• Is your plagiarism score at 12% or below? Did you take advantage of the multiple submission feature?
Details and structure
• Did you check spelling and grammar?
• Is your language formal, akin to a typical empirical paper in psychology?
• Did you include an introductory and a concluding paragraph?
• Does your paper have a central theme? Can you describe your paper in a series topic sentences and transitions? Does the logical progression make sense?
• Do your paragraphs have the proper length? Long paragraphs require readers to keep track multiple ideas in a paragraph? Short paragraphs require readers to read between the lines.
• Is the structure of your paper guided by the step-by-step logic in your/author’s mind? The structure should not be determined by the references you cite (i.e. reference 1 says…. Reference 2 says).
Convincing evidence and informed ideas
• Does your paper have enough depth? Depth is best accomplished by limiting the breath of your paper to one outcome (or a couple of related outcomes)?
• Did you incorporate the types of information required by assignment 1-3?
• Did you describe the research findings in just enough detail to establish the credibility of you as well as your argument?
• Did you find the most straightforward references? Are your explanations of these references straightforward too?
• Is it obvious to a reader why a reference is in your paper and how it supports your main argument?
• Do you consider your writing evidence-based (as opposed to opinion based)?
• Did you use necessary and sufficient evidence to argue for your intervention ideas? Did all of your mediators directly or indirectly feed into your (preventative) intervention ideas?
• Does your paper resemble the typical introduction section of empirical research papers in the way that they use previous literature to argue for their hypotheses?

The wow factor
• Do you have an informed and novel idea to offer to your readers? If you cited existing intervention, did you add any ideas of your own?
• Could a motivated high-schooler or a good hearted housewife author a paper like yours?