2054	Assessment Initial Draft	Final Draft comments
Abstract	Okay (except the writing needs to be improved) One specific issue is that the term “internalizing disorders” is not standard or familiar.  Since the proposal does not define it clearly early on, the research question is difficult to understand. “Socioemotional development” or simply “mental health” might be better. What term do other scholars in this subfield use?	Good abstract.
Research Question	Conceptually okay.  As written, hard to follow.	The research question is reasonably clear.
Literature Review	Conceptually, a fair start.  It could benefit from a fuller review of findings from research on the impact of the Head Start program.  Also, given the research goals, the proposal probably should have some review of the literature on emotional development and the conditions that produce or protect against the development of behavioral disorders.  The proposal should show what previous work implies about the possible links between Head Start programs and behavioral disorders, not just review the general research on the Head Start programs.	The literature review still seems underdeveloped, although some effort has been made to address the earlier feedback.  Overall, to be effective the review should be more comprehensive and better organized.  In particular, we should get a clearer view of what previous work has to say about the effects of Head Start on behavioral problems and we would want to see an effective overview of what past work says about the social causes of children's behavior issues.  Also, many research efforts have tried to apply causal inference methods to evaluate Head Start; some discussion of the research designs in this work, including their efforts to control for selection bias, would give greater credibility to this proposal's effort at research design.
Data & Analysis	The data seem appropriate.  As written, the present discussion of the data and how it would be used are too difficult to follow for us to evaluate or make suggestions. How will the research account for the fact that families self-select into Head Start, that is that the research has a potential selection bias issue?	The material on the data is unchanged, so it still seems appropriate and the intended strategy for using the data remains difficult to discern.  The limitations here are still problematic.
Causal Interpretations	The proposal does not seem to present any causal arguments and no clear derivation for its main research hypothesis.  Given the amount of work in this area, we would normally expect a review of the competing causal arguments and a commitment either to test, expand, or counter one or more of them.	If we penetrate the obstructive writing, the paper has a simple, basic argument that the circumstances of disadvantaged families, economic and interpersonal, have a significant propensity to produce behavioral problems in children.  The research plan suggests that the Head Start program, aside from any benefits it may provide for cognitive development, can also offset some of the circumstances damaging to a child's social and psychological development, so that behavior problems arise less often.  Unfortunately, the weak presentation makes it difficult to see this argument. Once we penetrate the main argument, some other issues become evident.  The mechanisms by which the predicted outcomes would occur are not clearly presented.  It is unclear why Head Start is expected to have the anticipated deterrent effect more strongly than other child helping programs.  The potentially complex and important interaction between cognitive readiness and behavioral problems gets only limited and confusing attention.  Without a reasonable causal interpretation, or competing causal interpretations, providing a good research design is difficult.
Research Contribution	Okay (except the writing needs to be improved)	What this research will contribute to the existing literature is not clearly stated.  We can infer the expected value, but that does not do the trick.
Citations & Bibliography	Overall, okay. Note that in the main text citations we do not usually include full lists of authors when there are many.	The reference structure is okay.
Quality of Writing & Organization	The writing displays language issues making the paper too difficult to read.  These need to be addressed.  One result at this time is that it is more difficult to provide effective feedback.	Unfortunately, the writing issues still make this proposal difficult to read.  While it is possible to figure out what it is saying most places with some effort, it is not acceptable that a proposal require reviewers to put in such effort to overcome the presentation issues.
Priorities for Revising / Responsiveness to Feedback	The proposal appears to have a reasonable research project, but details, argument, and presentation call for improvement.  The language difficulties need to be addressed.  The motivation or logic behind the research agenda should be filled in better, both in terms of the literature and the intended data analysis.	This version displays a serious effort to overcome some of the issues raised in the earlier feedback, but it also shows some areas where the feedback was neglected.
Miscellaneous Notes
Proposal		The main research idea provides the foundation for a good project, but the proposal still needs significant improvements to realize this potential.
Class Overall		Sincere effort in this class has been apparent, but the skills still need development.