When creating my research question, I had a variety of ideas I wanted to address. My topic was on foster homes and the relation between the conditions and the outcomes it had on their kids. However, it was difficult to word the perfect research question but with the feedback I received, I was provided with a better refined version of the original research question I had created.

As for the research itself, I wanted to find sources that discussed the behavioral impact foster homes had on foster kids, in addition to, the conditions they were placed under and their experiences. Despite that, there is a significant amount of information that discussed the mental state of these kids but as for the harsh conditions and assault they underwent, there weren’t many articles on it. Most sources only discussed the effect their biological parents had and the responsibilities they were given. To solve this issue, I had to conduct many hours of research. I also had to take into consideration how I worded the information I was trying to look up. Once I gathered my sources, the main issue that came with analyzing the text was figuring out which pieces of information were necessary enough to include in my essay. Especially scholarly sources, which provided pages and pages of information, it was hard to concentrate on which part of the text would be important to use in the research essay. The way I approached this obstacle, is by picking out pieces of text while I read and adding it onto a separate page, so that when I began to write my essay I would look back at the quotes I gathered and decide which would be useful.

My intended audience were social workers, the Department of Child Protective Services or Human Services. The structure of my essay served as a timeline, it began with the conditions kids faced, to the impact it had on their behavior, to the outcome once they aged out of the system. The purpose of this is to address to these individuals the influence these foster home conditions have in order to spark change.

When writing, it’s important to have an understanding on what you want to discuss and why. I think a problem I have is that I rush my writing in order to finish rather than to get my message out and that is something I need to work on if I want to be an effective writer.

This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International license.