Critique of Research Paper

I found reading this paper to be very helpful in writing my own research paper because I have not written one in 6 months.  It got me thinking about what I need to do better in my own papers and also how to refine my topic.

The Suffocating Effects of 9/11 has its good aspects; as well as some things that need improvement.  A couple of the good parts of this paper are the emotion and evidence. A couple of areas that need improvement are flow between paragraphs and fully explaining topics. 

This paper topic is full of emotion. For anyone who was old enough to remember 9/11, the thought of that day causes many emotions ranging from sadness, to anger, and fear. I myself remember very intimate details about the day like the weather and where I was and what I was doing when I first heard about the attacks. This paper focuses on the health issues caused by 9/11 and who they effected. The author brings out emotion in quotes that they use. An example of this is on page 5, an excerpt from the film Dust to Dust, in which the author describes Officer John Wolcott as crying as he wonders aloud what his family will do when he passes away.  The author also brings up the lying that the EPA and other government officials did in the wake of the attack. Being told that one was lied to will cause anger and bring the reader to the authors point of view. Lastly, emotion is also used when describing Greg Quibell who has to live in a neighbors basement while he rents his house out to pay for medical bills. The government should cover his medical bills, and to see a man essentially homeless because he went above and beyond to help his country is very emotional. 

The author also uses evidence to their advantage in this paper. Using evidence makes arguments believable rather than the reader just thinking they are the authors  beliefs. Especially in a topic about the effects of working at 9/11 when it was not healthy to do so, there needs to be facts to back up what the author believes. The author uses EPA reports, documentaries, and news releases in the paper. An example of evidence is on page 4, when the author is talking about the EPA doctoring its press releases to sound better, "...the general public should be very reassured by the initial sampling." This was only 2 days after the attack, and according to the author, this was not enough time to gather credible information. Yet another good example of evidence can be found on page 2, where the author uses a quote from the Office of the Inspector General of the EPA about the ability to breathe the air. "When the EPA made the September 18 announcement that the air was 'safe' to breathe, it did not have sufficient data and analyses to make such a blanket statement." This quote shows that the air was not safe to breathe, a week after the attacks, when they already had rescue workers working at Ground Zero.

Now for some of the aspects that need improvement. The one that stuck out almost immediately was the flow between paragraphs needs help. It is important when writing a paper that it flows nicely to not make it hard to read and also so that it makes sense. The author does not transition well from paragraph to paragraph in the essay. On page 2 the author goes from talking about misleading facts to talking about getting ground zero cleaned up so Wall Street could function again. At first this doesn't make sense, but later in the paragraph you find out that the cleanup was not handled properly and the people in charge of the cleanup were trying for speed rather than to do it right and protect the health of the workers. If the author had used a topic sentence or explained the topic of that paragraph earlier it would have helped. Another example is on page 4. The author organized this page well talking about health related problems generally then going into the Documentary Dust to Dust talking about specific cases. However, there is no flow at the end of the previous paragraph. The author could have put in a sentence like, "there are many stories/examples of rescue workers having horrible health issues after the fact." Then it would flow better. 

The next issue that I had with the paper was that some topics or statements weren't fully explained by the author. It left me asking myself questions, which makes it appear that the author rushed and was only focused on their topic. An example of this is on page 2. The author says that officials wanted to clean up ground zero quicker for many reasons, including getting the economy back on track, and getting wall street back up. I wanted to know what was the economy like and what happened to wall street. Another example of not explaining topics fully can be found on page 3. The author states a lot of workers did not use protection. What protection should they have been using and what specifically could that have helped. Lastly on page 6 the author says the government should be doing more to help the workers, which I agree with. How does the author feel they should help, free health care, clinics, operations? The paper is good, it just needs to explain a little bit more.