Lauren Brown Peer Review

1. The morality of using the death penalty as a form of capital punishment has become
relevant due to the urge to find justice within injustice and the increased number of
innocent/poor people being killed.” The thesis clearly states both sides without bias, it is
neutral and clearly covers both main sides of the argument.

2. The topic is clearly identified and well supported in the first paragraph, which is
important in insuring the audience is well informed from the beginning. There was also
sufficient background information about the topic, which led me as the reader to have no
questions so far.

3. Yes, each paragraph begins with a topic sentence that clearly relates to the rest of the
paragraph. Each paragraph is clearly focused and well organized.

4. Though there are many citations in the text, there is no works cited page therefore I
cannot determine whether the sources are credible or not. The different sources do expose
the authors positions on the issue.

5. Yes, the quotations from Smith and Radelet explain their views from two different
sides of the argument. Yes, I felt that the quote from Smith was particularly important in
providing that side of the argument.

6. Though the visual element does relate to what the paragraph was about, it was placed
in an odd position between the words, there also was no source for the graph.

7. The sources are cited properly in the text, but there is no works cited page to find the
actual sources.

8. “(Those who support the death penalty claim that states enforcing capital punishment
have lower crime rates, and deter people from commiting more heinous crimes. The
consequences of bad actions is a natural deterrent within a human with a balanced moral
compass.) ​This was proven in a study carried out by Michael Summers, a Professor of
Management Science at Pepperdine University. By closely examining publicly available
FBI sources, Summers was able to conclude that “each execution carried out is correlated
with about 74 fewer murders the following year”(Summers).​ Despite the numerous
studies and data to backup the correlation between increased execution numbers and the
decreasing crime rates, the opposing viewpoint believes there is no evidence to support
that crimes rates have decreased due to capital punishment.” No clear analysis of the
information provided previously in the paragraph.
9. The essay is well organized and seems to give equal amounts of evidence and analysis
of each side. It flows logically in a way that is easy for the readers to understand.

10. The essay is seemingly neutral, there is no clear bias in my opinion.

11. There weren’t any words in this essay that I would feel the need to have further
defined.

12. The concluding paragraph is weak, it vaguely restates the thesis without going into
much detail.

13. The only suggestions I would have is to fix the conclusion, and be more specific in
reinforcing the thesis, and create a works cited page.