796	Assessment Initial Draft	Final Draft comments
Abstract	The abstract is okay.  It could use some editing to improve the syntax and could perhaps be a bit clearer about the project's goals.	Unchanged from initial draft.
Research Question	The research question, comparing the determinants of abortion attitudes and possible changes in those determinants over time, is clear and sound.  It would be a good idea to have a clear, direct statement of this goal nearer the beginning of the proposal.	Substantively unchanged, minor editing, but moved earlier in proposal.
Literature Review	The materials reviewed are both broad and well-focused on the research topic.  The "review" is distributed somewhat unusually across the Introduction, Background, Research Question, and Hypotheses sections, but this approach largely works here.  The first two of these sections (Introduction and Background) could use some editing for organization, but this is minor.	Essentially unchanged, minor editing for writing (not very successful, unfortunately).  Aside from writing issues the literature review is focused, well-organized, and includes appropriate breadth and depth.
Data & Analysis	The data selection seems appropriate.  The draft proposal does a good job of describing the data, variables, and proposed methods of analysis.	The data choice seems okay, although this data will probably not support detailed or sophisticated analyses.  Unfortunately, the marginal distributions shown for China in the table seem implausible.  In particular, it shows only 15% married, the numbers being reversed; similarly, the data online show about 75% of the China sample are from cities of one-half million or more.  These kinds of rudimentary data errors are problematic, even more so when the numbers self-evidently do not make sense.
Causal Interpretations	The development of the causal interpretations, particularly in the Hypotheses section, is good.  The wording of Hypothesis 7 is confusing.  The description refers to age and gender as predictors of abortion attitudes, but this is very different from saying that all of the independent variables in the study are correlated.  This section needs rewriting.	All this is largely unchanged, with minor revisions helping clarity and Hypothesis 7 removed.
Research Contribution	The potential contribution of the research is well defended in the proposal.  It might benefit from adding a brief, direct summary of this, but, again, this is a minor issue.	Good overall; weak in the section on audience.
Citations & Bibliography	The citations and bibliography are fine.  (Do, however, check the style requirements for the bibliography.  Most require italics for journal and book titles, titles all follow the same capitalization rules, and titles are never in all capitals.)	Well done.
Quality of Writing & Organization	The writing is good overall, but suffers from minor syntax, grammar, and word use errors throughout.   One particular issue concerns verb tense, which switches from past to present in a manner that can be rather confusing.	Still writing errors throughout, although not to the point of obscuring the intended meaning.  Clear that an effort has been made to correct syntactical errors, so they have been reduced.
Priorities for Revising / Responsiveness to Feedback	This proposal is coming along very well.  You should simply continue to refine and revise it, taking into account the suggestions above.  Try to take an initial look at the actual data, as this may give you some new insights on the research design.	Limited substantive revisions, a partially effective effort to improve the writing.
Miscellaneous Notes
Proposal		Looking past the writing flaws and some analytical limits, this appears to be a sound project with a good effort to place it in the context of past work.
Class Overall		Solid work.