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. 

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