6684	Assessment
Abstract	No abstract in this draft, but this should be easy to devise from the introduction and problem statement.  However, the introduction goes into more factual detail than it needs to, which delays the introduction of the research question.  Consider some reorganization here.
Research Question	The research orientation is clear, but it's current broad sweep of multiple questions perhaps shows too much ambition and a lack of sufficient focus.
Literature Review	The literature review is very good.  It could use another round of editing for typographical and minor syntax errors.
Data	What data is going to be used and how it will be used is unclear in the proposal.  For the U.S., the draft proposal mentions Simmons (which is not commonly used data in sociology).  The data they supply appears to include the desired variables, but it is unclear that they allow anything much more than cross tabulation tables through the OneView portal and they do not appear to provide access to download the data.  The proposal should clarify with some certainty the availability of these data.  If it is not readily available, then gaining access or identifying an alternative should be a priority.  Similarly, the proposal should provide a confident statement about the availability of the Eurostat data. It seems worthwhile to reconsider the plan to limit the research to Millennials. Any recoding or other similar work on the data is going to be the same regardless of whether it applies to all the data or just Millennials.  Keeping all the data will allow comparisons across generations (which would add considerably to the power and scope of the research) without much extra effort, without impeding analyses limited to the Millennials (which simply requires filtering).  At the very least, this will enable testing whether Millennials are indeed different from prior generations.
Causal Interpretations	As presented, the hypotheses appear to be empirical guesses based on past empirical findings.  Ideally, hypotheses about empirical outcomes would represent the application of a theoretical argument, not the simple projection of past empirical findings.  What appears here seem more like informed expectations than hypotheses.  Note, in addition, that as some of the cited data are fairly old, and these phenomena change rapidly, that it may be difficult even to say that these are informed expectations rather than simple guesses.  (Note, however, that if we have no recent research on these characteristics, it is actually good news for the study, as it means it is looking at something that is unknown.) It would improve the causal interpretations, if the proposal would discuss why social media might have a positive or negative effect on political participation.   Providing an analysis of possible mechanisms linking causes and outcomes will give weight to the hypotheses.  The data proposed for the research in the proposal do not seem to match the declared intention to use data gathered over time, essentially a panel study.  Of course, one can do repeat analyses using cross-sectional data from different points in time to examine the changes in distributions and relationships, but that does not appear to be the research goal.  So, one way or another, the analytical goals or the data need adjustment so that they match. Note that regression analyses do not provide correlations, but rather regression coefficients (the kind of coefficient depending on the kind of regression).  We can crudely think of each regression coefficient as representing the unique (within the set of independent variables being used) relationship of the independent variable to the dependent variable plus a proportionate amount of each relationship to the dependent variable shared with other correlated independent variables.  That is to say that to the degree that a subset of independent variables are correlated with each other, part of the relationship they have with the dependent variable cannot be distinguished, so a regression analysis assigns that shared relationship among the independent variables to their coefficients in a manner reflecting the strength of each one's relationship to the dependent variable (it is actually trickier than that, but thinking in these terms helps in the general interpretation).
Research Value	The draft proposal indirectly refers to the potential value of the project in a couple places, but it would be best to have a brief, direct discussion.
Timetable	The timetable presented seems well thought through.  The time required for preparing the data and doing the data analysis may be overly optimistic, however.
Citations & Biblio	The citations in the text seem fine.  The bibliography needs a bit of work.  The bibliography should be sorted by the authors' last names and most standards require italics for the titles of books and journals.
Quality of writing	The writing is good throughout and the draft has a clear organization.
Priorities for Revising for Final Draft	Clarify the data to be used, better identify the alternative theoretical models that guide the research choices, and consider focusing the research topic more and expanding the range of respondents more (not limiting it to millennials).
Miscellaneous Notes