PB2A

For my scholarly article I searched up kidnapping and its psychological effects. Out of all the results I decided to go with Holding on to Clarity: Reconciling the Federal Kidnapping Statute with Trafficking Victims Protection Act.

After browsing this scholarly article, I realized that the format of this article is very similar to that of a research paper. This article begins like any other paper with a title and authors name. The interesting part however, is that there is a brief italicized paragraph providing background information about the subject at hand. This helps the audience get a better understanding of the subject, and its content before digging through the actual paper. As a reader, I know this small paragraph will also limit confusion throughout the article. For example, if I did not know what the protection act was I would not enjoy nor understand reading this article, but luckily this author provides information about the protection act in his first small paragraph. Following the background paragraph, there is another unique piece not seen in many essays or articles – which is a table of contents.  The table of contents is separated into three specific parts the topic and subtopics of the introduction, body paragraphs, and conclusion.  Each main theme is attached to a roman numeral to differentiate them from the sub topics which are attached to a letter. They are all also then given a number to make it easier for the reader to find specific information he/she is interested in. Finally, the article goes into depth about each theme and its subtopic in the appropriate category. The article follows the table of contents and organizes the article according to the introduction, body paragraphs, and conclusion.  Last but not least, after each paragraph this article has footnotes of all the sources used to create this article. Which is helpful to prevent plagiarism, and to establish credibility amongst the readers.

After taking a closer look at this article there is one particular thing that strikes me as odd. The first thing is the footnotes. I understand the purpose and why they are necessary – especially in a scholarly article like this one− however, it confuses me to see the footnotes at the end of an unfinished paragraph. It distracts me while I am reading, and pushes back my understanding of the article. Are footnotes simply supposed to go at the end of a page regardless if the current paragraph is finished or not? In the other hand, the organization of the content is very easy to understand. The author made the topics of each paragraph very clear. Mostly, by providing the same roman numerals and letters as in the table of contents throughout the article. Which helps the reader separate the main topic of the paragraph and the evidence or support of the paragraph.  For example, in the introduction the author gives the reader a little summary or preview of what the entire article is going to discuss in depth. Right as the reader gets to the first body paragraph, there is a very visible roman numeral 1 with a short title description for the paragraph. After the end of the first paragraph, there is then a letter A to present the sub topic, and a small description of the sub topic as well. In this specific article this looks something like: 1. The Ongoing Effort To Combat Human Trafficking, and then at the end of this paragraph the reader sees, A. The Prevalence of Human Trafficking in the United States. This goes on throughout the entire article most likely to help both that reader and the author stay on track.

In the end, this article was very organized and overall formatted in a way that made it easier for readers to understand and follow along. Out of all the information in this article I would have to say the beginning background information is the most important. Without this piece of information, the average reader would be confused through the entire article unless they did research on the case discussed and the protection act− and really who wants to do that.