9538	Assessment
Abstract	An okay start, but in the final version, it would be a good idea to stress the research and response to previous research more and the general political motivation less.
Research Question	While the general line of inquiry is very clear and reasonable, the actual research questions remain difficult to decipher.  Try to formulate a clear, summary statement of the research objectives.  The idea of examining variations by occupation is interesting, but does not appear to be the primary objective at this point.
Literature Review	This is a good start to the literature review.  Consider two concerns for further development.  First, it now reads as a series of brief commentaries on articles that has no apparent logical structure.  Try to find a way to organize these parts into a coherent sequence, that can be explained in an opening paragraph.  Second, where possible and sensible, try to identify other articles that contribute to each of the ideas now highlighted through the summary assessment of one publication - these may be included simply as additional citations without further discussion. Note that, in general, a study of interracial/interethnic marriage (or dating) that does not take into account class and location will appear analytically limited and likely to produce spurious results.  Class and location create strong boundaries for marriage and dating, and racial/ethnic groups are distributed differently by class and location.  Of course, if it appears warranted, the proposal can make an explicit argument that class and location are not significant to the particular dating process and related preferences being studied.  Either way, addressing these influences on mate choice would improve the analysis. The research question stresses occupational categories, but the literature review and theoretical grounding largely neglect occupations.  This should be rectified.
Data	Other than mentioning the data source, the data are only discussed in the lists of items to be used in the Variables section.  The proposal should include a clear description and assessment of the data to be used. The research question focuses on the racial composition of occupations.  The Variables section suggests that racial composition will be measured from the information in the dating data set.  This is a questionable strategy.  Commonly, we would obtain estimates of the composition of occupations using data from the census or bureau of labor.  The proposal should provide a legitimate defense for estimating this from the dating data.
Causal Interpretations	The draft proposal seems to attribute the patterns of differential choice between social groups to their social ranking (actual or perceived).  However, groups that appear socially equal may also tend to practice in-group mate choice.  For example, think about religious distinctions.  Of course, one might argue that each religion considers itself superior, so they are each practicing status exclusion based on different perceptions of status.  How does this apply to racial/ethnic categories?  How do we distinguish the effects of shared or parallel in-group preferences where every group thinks itself better from the effects of a hierarchical distinction ranking groups?  This gets particularly complicated if the groups being considered vary in their understanding of the importance of in-group identity for reasons that have little to do with social hierarchies, e.g. religions that that stress a tribal conception of religious identity requiring in-group marriage compared to those that do not.  The point here is that while it makes sense to expect differential ranking of groups would influence their mate and date preferences, it is problematic to infer that the different social ranking is the only reason group distinctions affect mate and date preferences. Conceptually, the presentation seems to neglect an important, problematic aspect of people's expressed preference patterns on dating sites: they reflect not only what people would like but also what they think feasible.  People commonly avoid asking someone out on a date if they fear they will only be rejected.  We can reasonably expect this also happens on dating sites, implying that people's expressed preferences are to an unknown degree influenced by what they perceive as the preferences of others for people like themselves.  So, if the relevant preference categories were available, we might expect, for example, that working class men would disproportionately rule out women who were both very affluent and very attractive, however much they might feel attracted to such women, because they anticipate they would be rejected.  Consider how this applies to race and the preferences people show on dating sites. What is hypothesis 2???
Research Value	The current draft does not directly present the research value of the proposed project, although this gets some indirect attention, particularly in the introduction.  This should appear in the final version, stressing how the proposed project will expand on existing knowledge.
Timetable	Not in draft - need to add.
Citations & Biblio	The referencing seems fine.
Quality of writing	The writing is clear and easy to read.  The absence of some parts stands out, of course.
Priorities for Revising for Final Draft	The proposal seems to be developing well.  Among other things, you want to work on clarifying the research question, providing a good account of the data, revising the literature review into a better argumentative structure, and developing more nuanced, focused explanatory alternatives.
Miscellaneous Notes