556	Assessment Initial Draft	Final Draft comments
Abstract	The content of the abstract is good, the writing could be improved.	The abstract is well done.
Research Question	The research question is clear and well-formed (and repeatedly stated), with one possible exception.  The general literature on IPV suggests the central tendency is for joint variation in the exhibition of physical conflict by spouses (or partners), with important differences involving men more often being the initiators and men more often exhibiting the more extreme forms of violence.  As now written, the proposal is unclear about how the research design will handle the distinction between conflict-ridden couples and couples with abused wives (i.e., asymmetric use of conflict tactics).	The problem statement is clear and effective.
Literature Review	This literature review has good coverage and logical coherence.  The draft proposal cites multiple articles concerned with immigrant concentration and IPV, and states that they come to mixed conclusions.  It would help if it described more specifically how their different methods or data sources led them to different conclusions.  The proposal might also refer to this problem when discussing how the project is an improvement on past research. The biggest issue with the literature review is the writing, which makes it somewhat difficult to follow.  Also, the references to "positive" and "negative" relationships between variables are vague, confusing, and seemingly inconsistent.  This may be largely because the directions of the variables is sometimes unclear, and perhaps also because the characterization of "positive" or "negative" appears sometimes to refer to the conceptual level and sometimes to the variables in the data.	The literature review (largely the same with revisions for clarity, excepting one added paragraph discussed in the following comment) is largely well done.  It still does not attempt to explain why researchers might have reached different conclusions with reference to immigrants. The paragraph comparing a "feminist" and "family violence" perspective is, unfortunately, largely inaccurate.  Try looking at David M. Fergusson, L. John Horwood, Elizabeth M. Ridder. "Partner Violence and Mental Health Outcomes in a New Zealand Birth Cohort." Journal of Marriage and Family, 2005, Volume 67, Issue 5 (p 1103-1119) and the accompanying commentaries and rejoinder.  Most commentators would suggest that the family violence perspective is the one with the wider conception of aggressive acts that should be considered.  You should go deep enough into this literature to have good control over the competing ideas and research.
Data & Analysis	If the intended data have sufficient representation of immigrant populations, then they seem a good choice.  Of course, as this is restricted data, getting access to it is the critical problem. The proposal is unclear whether all the needed data on population characteristics are already in the data set or some of it needs to be merged from census data.  This is an important question, because it is likely to add a significant amount of work if you have to merge additional data. As written, the proposed immigration aggregation measure may be problematic.  This draft proposes using the percent foreign-born immigrant residents in a neighborhood cluster as an indicator.  That alone, however, doesn’t take into account whether those immigrants are of the same ethnic background.  So, for example, a Chinese immigrant living in a neighborhood of 90% Ethiopian immigrants may be very isolated compared to another Chinese woman who lives in a neighborhood of 90% Chinese immigrants, but the described measure would have the same value for both women.	Overall, the data and the strategies for analyzing the data seem well chosen.  Getting access to the restricted data remains the critical hurdle on which everything else depends.  The proposal also is still unclear how the project will effectively measure immigrant concentration.
Causal Interpretations	The causal discussion seems in good shape for this stage of developing the research project.  If the proposal could clearly and consistently distinguish between the outcomes of conflict-ridden couples and couples where women are victims of unreciprocated partner violence (mentioned above), the causal analysis would improve.  Also, while discussing the mechanisms that might link ethnic residential concentration to patterns of IPV, this aspect might be made more prominent.	The proposal makes a good case for the possible relationships between immigrant concentration, stability, isolation, and intimate partner violence taking into account contextual and individual influences simultaneously.  This is a good achievement. It is still true that the proposal has not effectively addressed the distinction between conflict-ridden couples and couples where women are victims of unreciprocated violence.
Research Contribution	The assessment of the potential research value is good.	The assessment of research contribution in the conclusions is well done.
Citations & Bibliography	Excellent.	The reference structure is well done, overall.  There is, however, a bit of variation in formatting the citations and bibliographic entries and at least one citation (Breiding et al.) was omitted from the bibliography.  I strongly recommend adopting reference management software such as Endnote to avoid these potential errors.
Quality of Writing & Organization	The overall organization is fine, but quality of the English prose needs improvement.  In its current form, the grammatical missteps are common and jarring, and occasionally make it difficult to understand.	The proposal is very well organized and argued.  It still has some grammatical errors.   Remember, these should all be corrected before submitting a formal paper.
Priorities for Revising / Responsiveness to Feedback	The overall progress of this proposal is very good.  Three issues stand out.  First, there is a straightforward goal of improving the quality of the writing.  Second, getting assess to the proposed data.  Third, the size of the proposed project is a bit worrying.  While I applaud the ambition that motivates it, I am concerned it will be difficult to complete within the intended time frame.	The effort to respond to feedback in the revisions is very good.  Some feedback was overlooked as mentioned above, but this version still shows an impressive effort to overcome shortcomings.
Miscellaneous Notes
Proposal		A good proposal showing high potential that overrides any shortcomings.
Class Overall		Good effort and development in all aspects of the class.