What are the Social and Academic Benefits of At-Risk High School Students who are part of the Music/Arts Program?
Paper details:
Paper needs to be edit based off of professor’s comment below
However, there are still a few areas that need improvements:
- There are a few single sentence paragraphs through out the paper. You should avoid them all. Try to incorporate them in a nearby paragraph or expand on it to make the paragraph longer than one sentence.
- The paragraph between pages 2 and 3 is problematic. First, if you would like to dedicate the entire paragraph to “20 Important Benefits of Music In Our Schools (2014),” you don’t need to cite it six times in the same paragraph. Just once at the beginning, stating that numerous benefits were presented, then highlight a few of these benefits. Nevertheless, I do not recommend using this source so extensively, because some claims on the list lack credibility. There is no author, so we don’t know who is responsible for these claims. Although NAfME endorses the list for advocacy purpose, there is little research basis.
- The last paragraph on page 3 and the following few paragraphs also, there is no need to cite the same source multiple times in the same paragraph.
- Some sentences are difficult to understand. For example, starting on page 3 line 2: “When music is thought in school, students will be learning to play it on a new instrument each day.” Need to reword and clarify.
- On page 6, why are there two sentences back-to-back that start with “The purpose of this research was to ….” Then, which one is the purpose? It is imperative that you clarify the purpose of the study.
- The “Methods” heading should be centered to show that it is the heading of the main section.
- the last sentence in the Pre-Planning subheading is not needed, because it has nothing to do with your pre-planning. Similarly, the second paragraph under the Tools subheading is not needed, because it has nothing to do with the tools you used.
- Under the subheading “Content/Survey Questions,” there is no need to state the 60 participants again.
- Materials on pages 11 and 12 are misplaced. They should appear in the sections in introduction or rationale for the study. They have nothing to do with the Procedures in your study.
- You need to report the results in prose. Simply showing the figures is not enough. You should label and title each figure. Then you need to describe each one, highlighting what you would like readers to notice.
- Where do the headings “Academic Achievement,” “Civic/Social Skills Engagement,” and “Musical Experience” come from? How did you figure them out and use them? What are you presenting under these subheadings? The preceding paragraph should introduce and explain them.
- Where does the Discussion section begin? It should be clearly marked with a heading.
- Pages 1-25 need to be in “portrait” layout rather than “landscape.” You can number, label, and present the figures at the very end, so the text can flow better throughout the text.
- Top half of page 26, there is no explanation of what it is. Again, explanations in prose form are needed.