My Composition in Two Genres felt different from writing a traditional essay because it seemed to focus more on the imagery we decided to use and very concise language. It felt like creating a teaser for the research paper we wrote prior. Unlike traditional essays, I found myself condensing a lot of the information I had instead of expanding on it. I also had to pay attention to hierarchy. The largest text or the largest image, would be seen first and had to grab my audience’s attention. For my subway ad, I had to choose words that had a direct impact to my target audience, and for my Twitter ad, the images were the largest on the screen so they had to be familiar to the demographic I was trying to reach on that platform. 

I knew that I wanted to reach both the parents and the children of these divorced families. In order to reach the parents, I went with a subway ad because I knew that most parents commute in order to go to work. On that commute they have the time to read as they wait for their stop, so I included a short list of information, and contact information if they wanted to learn more. To reach the children of these divorced families, I decided to use social media and went with Twitter because I believe that this platform creates posts that are easiest to spread. With one tap, these children can retweet this ad to help it reach a larger audience.

For both of these genres I used pathos by using images that appealed to the viewer’s emotions. For the subway ad, I used the silhouette image of a divorced couple each taking the hand of their child and pulling in opposite directions, while their child is in the middle ripped apart. This can cause the audience to feel sadness towards the child. Since it is a silhouette, the audience, if they are divorced or know of a divorced couple, can imagine themselves or those people instead of the silhouette, making the imagery even more effective. For the meme, I used two images that side by side are meant to be humorous. The left image evokes pity because the person in it is crying. However, when it is placed next to the image on the right where it shows a person looking very confused, it creates a more light-hearted humorous tone that is easier to share.

My intended audience are divorced families, including both parents and children. I primarily would like to reach divorced parents because they have the most control over what happens in a divorced family. They are responsible for their children and their actions can directly influence their children as well. I would also like to reach out to the children of these families because they may feel confused and alone in this hard situation.

For the divorced parents, I would like them to be more self aware of their actions when they are around their children. This will prevent their child from having internalizing problems and externalizing behaviors. For the children of these divorced families, they may not have realized that some of the behaviors their parents exhibit may not be healthy towards them. Through my composition I’d like them to understand that not all the ways their parents respond to their divorce is acceptable. Depending on their situation, it would be great if these children spoke out to their parents about these behaviors.

I would choose to use a subway ad to reach divorced parents, and a meme to reach their children. I believe that a subway ad would be the most accessible medium for divorced parents because a large number of parents, especially in New York, use the subway everyday to get to work. While they are in the subway waiting for a train, or in a train waiting for their stop, they can read this ad. A meme would be the most attractive medium to use for the children of these divorced families because it’s the easiest to share through social media.

I plan to use both logos and pathos with both of my audiences. I believe that a mix of both will push them to try to create a better familial relationship with each other and a better home environment.

For this assignment, I would like to continue my focus on divorce and its effects on children in the United States. I’m leaning towards using a poster or a subway ad, and a meme. I think that using a poster would be able to relay the most information because it allows me to use the most text. I’d be able to write short paragraphs as well as use an image to convey the important facts that I want to share. Similarly, a subway ad also gives me a good amount of space to write more. Also, a large amount of people ride the subway everyday, and when they are on a train, they are likely to read the ads posted around them. This ensures that the ad I am creating will reach a large number of people. The internet is another place where a visual representation of my project can potentially reach thousands of people. Usually what goes viral on the interwebs, especially on social media such as Instagram and Twitter are memes. They’re quick to read and easy to digest, and even easier to share. I believe all of these mediums will serve my initial research paper well because they each reach a large audience. The subway ad could be geared more towards parents, since they will most likely be the ones taking the subway, and therefore the ones that will most likely see the subway ads. Meanwhile, the meme is geared more towards the children, since teenagers as young as thirteen tend to already have social media. Through the meme, they would be able to easily understand how their parents may or may not be treating them correctly in a more humorous tone. If they can relate to it, they will also easily be able to share it.

When I first started my research paper, I knew that I wanted to focus on the topic of divorce, so when I first presented my research question it had a much wider scope. I originally wanted to research the effects of divorce over every age demographic, but considering the page limit of this paper that would not be plausible. Instead, I focused my research on children, which is anyone under the age of eighteen. I also focused my research question to children within the United States in order to narrow it down, as well as make it more relevant. 

At first, I did have trouble finding sources that I thought would benefit my research paper. In general search engines, like Google, I found that a lot of information was repetitive and vague despite them being from different websites. When I started using Academic One File, the information I obtained was then too specific to one effect of divorce. It was when I started to use JSTOR that I finally found information that was specific enough, but not so much that it only talked about one effect.

While doing research for this paper and reading other research papers, I found that almost every line had a citation that would be referenced in a footnote. In my first draft, I followed suit, but after my peers and our professor read it over, I found that I had to add a lot more analysis. In future essays, I will keep this in mind.

I have read and reviewed nine articles that could potentially help me write my research paper that is about divorce. Six of the articles are from general search engines, and three are from databases.

The first source I found was on a website that advertised family attorneys. I understand that this may create bias in their word choices, but I did find a lot of useful statistics on their page that will help me introduce my topic. My next source is from a nonprofit that talks about the effects of divorce on a child’s education. This will be useful for me because it outlines many short and long term effects regarding a child’s learning ability as well as their interaction with others in academia. I also used the Verywell Family website which gave a brief description of the different responses between young children, grade school children, and adolescents. Since the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child defines a child as “a human being below the age of 18 years”, this distinction within the term “child” can help my research be more specific when it comes to certain effects. This website also talks about the potential mental and behavioral problems a child might encounter after a divorce which serves as good information for my topic. 

For my scholarly sources, I first went to Gale Academic OneFile, and found the article “Helping children survive divorce”. This article is relevant to my topic because it went through all of the aspects parents should take after a divorce to ensure that their child is well. This article also gave some statistics which will be helpful for me to include in my paper. Then I used JSTOR and found two similar but very useful book excerpts. Both of these books talked about how divorce itself wasn’t necessarily what traumatizes a child, but more so certain aspects postdivorce. Both of these excerpts included inter-parental conflict, parenting, and parent’s mental health. One goes into detail about how genetic effects may affect a child’s reaction as well as policies such as child custody and child support. The other talks about the financial impact of the divorce and children’s own perceptions about the divorce. Since both of these works have been published they are very reliable and also go into a lot of depth into the research I’m doing. These two excerpts have been the most useful to me so far.

There are two sources that I decided to discard. The first is a source from the Journal of Adolescent Health. I decided not to use this because their research is inconclusive and they clearly express that they have a lot more knowns than unknowns. Therefore, this would not add anything to my paper. The other source that I decided not to use is an article from NY Times that is dated to be from 1984. I actually really wanted to use this article because it talked about the short term effects of divorce on young children versus older adolescents that are still considered children. It discussed the mental health of both groups after five years and ten years and found interesting conclusions. However, as much as I wanted to use this information, it is outdated, and when writing a research paper, it’s best to use sources preferably within ten years. Also, after reading the scholarly articles I’ve mentioned before, it reminded me that the methodologies of this time may be very different from the present, and thus may also have impacted this research. In the end, I decided it would be best to rely on a more recent article.

One of the sources that I’m not sure about using is the one I found on APA Psyc Net which has findings that indicate that nonresident fatherhood leads to an earlier sexual debut for girls that is likely explained by weak parental monitoring rather than an accelerated reproductive strategy. Although this book may hold some interesting information about divorce and its effects on young girls, I believe that a lot of what may be talked about, such as the weak parental monitoring, has already been covered in the scholarly sources I have previously mentioned.

My research is missing one more scholarly article. I also noticed that I have a lot more information about the short term effects of divorce and comparably less information on long term effects. Therefore, I plan to find a scholarly article that focuses on these long term effects I’m missing.

Bibliography;

“Divorce Statistics and Facts: What Affects Divorce Rates in the U.S.?” Wilkinson & Finkbeiner, LLP, 12 Aug. 2020, www.wf-lawyers.com/divorce-statistics-and-facts/. 

“Effects of Divorce on Children’s Education.” Effects of Divorce on Children’s Education [Marripedia], marripedia.org/effects_of_divorce_on_children_s_education. 

Morin, Amy. “The Psychological Effects of Divorce on Children.” Verywell Family, 6 Aug. 2019, www.verywellfamily.com/psychological-effects-of-divorce-on-kids-4140170. 

Sammons, William A. H., and Jennifer Lewis. “Helping children survive divorce.” Contemporary Pediatrics, vol. 18, no. 3, Mar. 2001, p. 103. Gale Academic OneFile, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A72698971/AONE?u=cuny_ccny&sid=AONE&xid=a591d0f9. Accessed 26 Oct. 2020.

Lansford, Jennifer E. “Parental Divorce and Children’s Adjustment.” JSTOR, Sage Publications, Inc., Mar. 2009, www.jstor.org/stable/40212308. 

Rappaport, Sol R. “Deconstructing the Impact of Divorce on Children.” JSTOR, American Bar Association, 2013, www.jstor.org/stable/24576133. 

Donahue, Kelly, et al. “Early Exposure to Parents’ Relationship Instability: Implications for Sexual Behavior and Depression in Adolescence.” Journal of Adolescent Health, 11 June 2010, www.jahonline.org/article/S1054-139X(10)00203-X/fulltext. 

Blakeslee, Sandra. “MAJOR STUDY ASSESSES THE CHILDREN OF DIVORCE.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 10 Apr. 1984, www.nytimes.com/1984/04/10/science/major-study-assesses-the-children-of-divorce-by-sandra-blakeslee.html. 

Ryan, R. M. “APA PsycNet.” American Psychological Association, American Psychological Association, 2015, doi.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2Fa0038562. 

I have decided that my research question will be “What are the short and long-term effects of divorce on children in the United States?”

I chose to research divorce because of its prevalence in the United States. Fifty percent of marriages end in divorce, and this not only affects the adults involved but more so the children who have little to no say in the process. I was also interested in the United States specifically because we have a very individualistic culture. We tend to prioritize personal success, with the goal of adulthood being independence and personal achievement. I wanted to see if divorce could potentially have positive effects on children in the long-term because of our culture. However, I have realized with the research that I have done so far that the majority of the effects divorce has on children are negative. It tends to occupy their minds, preventing them from completing and understanding their schoolwork. It also tends to negatively affect their self-esteem and mental health. Though there are some parents that take their children to counsel after their divorce, the majority do not. This means the child will be grappling with the situation primarily on their own. I’ve also found so far in my research that the age of the child is also a big factor in how they will interpret the situation they are in. According to one of my sources, the worst ages to experience divorce are children from the ages of six to ten. During this time, these children are already in grade school and their environments will greatly affect how they will be able to cope with the situation they are dealing with at home. This topic is relevant to social action because, in order for the affected children to be successful later in their lives, the adults around them need to be aware and educated of their circumstances. Thus, the target audience for this essay will be parents and educational staff that play a part in the child’s development.

The essay that I will be modelling is: http://marripedia.org/effects_of_divorce_on_children_s_education

I chose to model this essay because it relates to my research topic about divorce and focuses on one of the effects I will be writing about. It is clearly organized in different sections and subsections, as well as includes a large array of sources and statistics to back up their claims. I also plan to include graphs in my research essay similar to this model essay. For my research paper, I have curated a few sources from general search engines, but I still need to consult databases and more trusted websites. By Wednesday, I plan to have the complete list of all my sources, and by the end of this week, I will hopefully be done annotating and analyzing all of my sources.

Bibliography;

Blakeslee, Sandra. “MAJOR STUDY ASSESSES THE CHILDREN OF DIVORCE.” The New 

          York Times, The New York Times, 10 Apr. 1984,

          www.nytimes.com/1984/04/10/science/major-study-assesses-the-children-of-divorce-by-s

          andra-blakeslee.html. 

“Divorce Statistics and Facts: What Affects Divorce Rates in the U.S.?” Wilkinson & Finkbeiner, 

          LLP, 12 Aug. 2020, www.wf-lawyers.com/divorce-statistics-and-facts/. 

“Effects of Divorce on Children’s Education.” Effects of Divorce on Children’s Education 

          [Marripedia], marripedia.org/effects_of_divorce_on_children_s_education. 

Morin, Amy. “The Psychological Effects of Divorce on Children.” Verywell Family, 6 Aug. 

          2019, www.verywellfamily.com/psychological-effects-of-divorce-on-kids-4140170. 

How does age affect a person’s response to their parent’s divorce? In other words, how will a child’s reaction differ from a teenager or an adult? This question came to mind when I saw a large billboard that advertised divorce attorneys. At the time, I had thought that divorces were uncommon since the majority of people I knew had whole families, so I didn’t understand why such a large ad would be needed for what I thought would be a small number of people. However, when I got home and decided to search up how common divorce was in America, I was surprised to find that fifty percent of marriages end up in divorce. 

This is an important issue that may seem private at first, but upon closer inspection, can be seen as a public one. For one, it involves various institutions outside of the family, such as the state. It also raises policy issues that can include property division, custody, and child support. Beyond immediate consequences, I am also very interested in how this separation in the household will affect the children in both the short and long term. Since children are generally seen as the hope for the future, I believe that in order to really help them succeed, we need to understand the effects of private issues like divorce.

For a more objective view on this issue, I plan to go through web articles, magazine publications and news sites, as well as CCNY’s databases for scholarly articles regarding this topic. I could also possibly ask social workers if they’ve noticed any effects divorce may have had on people they know, or even just ask around for personal experiences, which can help me understand this topic on a more personal level. To start off, I could use social media platforms, like Instagram and Twitter, where minors and young adults tend to poke fun at these types of personal issues.

I believe that writing is a form of self-expression, so as I wrote this essay I felt a bit restricted. I was used to adding my opinion and voice in my high school papers, so this assignment forced me to take a step back from that norm. However, it did make me focus on the articles that I choose, and I found myself taking a lot more time to really understand each one. I did this by highlighting any phrases that pointed to exigence, purpose, audience, genre, and stance. For each aspect of the article, I would choose a different color. This way, when I started to draft my essay, I already had a good idea of what I wanted to write about for each aspect of the article. It also meant that I readily had direct quotes that I could easily add into my paper for evidence. This approach was very successful for me because it helped me organize the exigence, purpose, audience, genre, and stance for each article. It also saved me a lot of time because I was able to easily locate what I needed instead of rereading the entire article. 

1. Open; A viral Twitter thread is asking what’s considered trashy if you’re poor, but classy if you’re rich — and things like donuts, marrying your cousin, and being bilingual are all making the list by Dominic-Madori Davis

This article talks about a tweet that was made four years ago that had resurfaced and become viral. Davis starts this article by referencing the original tweet and giving a brief on how inequality has become even more prominent since the COVID-19 pandemic. As an example, he references Jeff Bezos making billions while fifty million Americans have filed for unemployment. As this article continues, Davis gives a bold comment, then links a comment that was made to the original tweet. This pattern continues to the end of the article, which finishes in a humorous tone stating that “the most important double standard of them all — wearing leopard print.”

https://www.businessinsider.com/viral-twitter-thread-double-standards-between-rich-poor-trashy-classy-2020-7#someone-else-took-a-jab-at-inherited-wealth-linking-it-to-a-commonly-repeated-critique-of-government-benefit-recipients-3

2. Magazine; Shares and Not Share Alike; The stock market is driving the growing wealth gap in America by Anna Bernasek

Anna Bernasek’s magazine article for Newsweek focuses on how the stock market has become increasingly irrelevant to most Americans. Bernasek explains how the average American owning stocks is at an all-time low, that being only fifty-four percent, which included even the smallest shares. She then goes on to say how a large percentage of stocks have been and continue to be owned by the wealthiest one percent of all Americans. Since many average Americans had been losing jobs and watching the value of their homes plummet, they ultimately had to give up their stocks. This makes owning stocks more so a wealthy American’s game, where they have the money to even be able to join at all. Thus, Bernasek states that the relevance of stocks in the news has started to become a minor worry to the average American.

https://go-gale-com.ccny-proxy1.libr.ccny.cuny.edu/ps/retrieve.do?tabID=T003&resultListType=RESULT_LIST&searchResultsType=SingleTab&hitCount=30&searchType=BasicSearchForm&currentPosition=1&docId=GALE%7CA371931758&docType=Brief+article&sort=Relevance&contentSegment=ZONE-MOD1&prodId=AONE&pageNum=1&contentSet=GALE%7CA371931758&searchId=R5&userGroupName=cuny_ccny&inPS=true

3. Newspaper; The Idle Rich? They Wish by Alex Williams

This newspaper article written by Alex Williams for The New York Times shines a light on the psychology of the super-rich. Through this article, Williams describes how America’s wealthy find an ephemeral meaning in capitalism. By comparing it to alcohol addiction, Williams points out how millionaires strive to earn more and more in order to continue feeling that buzz they had first felt with their first million dollars. Thus, he goes on to explain how they continue to have the drive to earn more money than they need and to always be relevant. Though the super-rich does live a life of luxury, Williams ends this article by focusing on the anxiety and isolation that comes with their wealth.

https://go-gale-com.ccny-proxy1.libr.ccny.cuny.edu/ps/retrieve.do?tabID=T004&resultListType=RESULT_LIST&searchResultsType=SingleTab&hitCount=56&searchType=BasicSearchForm&currentPosition=4&docId=GALE%7CA603205025&docType=Article&sort=Relevance&contentSegment=ZONE-MOD1&prodId=AONE&pageNum=1&contentSet=GALE%7CA603205025&searchId=R4&userGroupName=cuny_ccny&inPS=true

4. Scholarly; Closing the wealth gap: eliminating structural barriers to building assets in the Latino community by Beatriz Ibarra and Eric Rodriguez

Beatriz Ibarra and Eric Rodriguez’s article provide insight into the many factors that hinder the Latino community from moving up the socioeconomic ladder. Language barriers were one of the main factors that they included. This setback has prevented many people from moving up because of how much harder it is to create and maintain meaningful relationships. Another large focus of this article was the low financial literacy of the Latino community. Ibarra and Rodriguez explain how this community is very ill-informed when it comes to managing financial assets, and so they put an emphasis on providing the Latino community with proper information in this area in order to successfully integrate them into mainstream financial institutions.

https://go-gale-com.ccny-proxy1.libr.ccny.cuny.edu/ps/retrieve.do?tabID=T002&resultListType=RESULT_LIST&searchResultsType=SingleTab&hitCount=959&searchType=AdvancedSearchForm&currentPosition=13&docId=GALE%7CA216412681&docType=Report&sort=Relevance&contentSegment=ZONE-MOD1&prodId=AONE&pageNum=1&contentSet=GALE%7CA216412681&searchId=R4&userGroupName=cuny_ccny&inPS=true

America’s wealth gap has come to the point where the few richest Americans have more wealth than millions at the bottom. The main cause seems to be based on an individual’s income, which is highly dependent on their education and demographic. It is widely known that people who have a college degree are more likely to earn more than those with only a high school diploma. However, the ability to even receive this education in the first place will also depend on that individual’s demographic. People of color have a harder time moving up the socioeconomic ladder compared to their white counterparts due to the inherent racism in many institutions. Similarly, women continuously earn less than their male counterparts due to different stigmas surrounding which jobs men and women should pursue. This, among many other factors, contributes to the disparity of wealth in America. 

This social issue intrigued me because of the different mindsets I have noticed that occur as a result of which social class you belong to. Specifically, I had seen the phrase “money can’t buy you happiness” and my immediate thought was ‘I wish I was privileged enough to believe that’. Upon reflecting on my initial reaction, I realized that this thought was a product of my socioeconomic status.

Through writing this paper, I want to understand the specific ways the rich become richer and the poor become poorer. I have a vague idea of how both are happening, but I would like to uncover what policies and loopholes have been set that allow this. I want to know who has the power to make these policies, how they received that power, and why people who are being negatively affected by these policies let that person in power stay. I would also like to know the options that people at the bottom of this socioeconomic ladder have to try to move up, if they even have any at all.