1
MEMO
TO:
Maria Sandy
FROM:
Dominic DeBlasi
SUBJECT:
Feedback on Academic Project
DATE:
6 June 2024
The Problem Statement
Hi Maria! I really like your topic. Understanding and being able to treat the unique needs
of people is very important, especially, for instance, the unique medical needs of women
compared to men. However, I do think you (as professor Campell points out) have a broad
parameter for your topic. I take away that your focus is going to be on the inequity on healthcare
on both sexual and ethnic minority groups across the world. As professor Campbell pointed out,
talking about all those inequalities is way too much if you had a year, let alone a couple weeks
like we do for class. Ultimately, you need to keep a timely, specific, and geographically specific
subject to focus on.
Furthermore, I know from your replies that you want to tackle these inquities more
broadly, but as a reader, spending time on each individual inequity more under your branches of
Black Americans, Women, and LBTQ+ would be more compelling. Medical inequities are
deeply nuanced and require, like all wicked problems, time to be explored and touched upon,
especially given how complex your solutions will need to be. Don’t feel as though you need to
keep it broad, since you risk making your project feel surface-level despite your highly specific
audience. As a reader, if your narrowed your Annotated Bibliography’s problem statement I
would feel much more engaged as your piece would stand out more.
To this point, I really like your included factors and examples listed in the problem
statement. I wish that the statement as a whole was more fixated on those factors. Talking about
why, for instance, LGBTQ+ individuals mistrust healthcare professionals, however brief, would
be more engaging to a reader. Ultimately, choosing a few specific factors for each marginalized
group to focus on would, in my opinion anyway, be a great way to narrow your focus for your
work this semester.
Overall, your problem statement could use just a bit more focus. focusing in on those
specific issues, just a little more, could make it more unique and compelling to the reader. For
instance, if you wanted to make your statement timely to current inequalities, opening up the
statement about there being “150 years” of inequities wouldn’t be ideal. As mentioned already,
don’t feel the need to be broad! Tell me what the “many factors” that contribute to emergency
room congestion are, because as the reader that is what entices me to your work. This draft is a
great start to what could be a highly engaging and thought provoking project. I’m excited to see
this develop over this course.
2
The Annotations
Looking at your annotations themselves, I must say I am loving the content. In particular,
I feel as though you are able to communicate what the sources were about to an expert level
degree. Reading them, I feel as though I could read your annotations and get just as much out of
it as if I read the original source itself. However, with all this great content, I must confess I want
to hear more.
The biggest issue I see with this piece, and really the only one, is how much you put into
it. While this is a draft, seeing one sentence summaries of how you intend to use a source feels
like, as a reader, I’m cheated of quality work I know there is given the rest of the annotations. In
some instances, your persuasion paragraphs don’t reach the minimum word count, and at most
your intnet to use the source reaches ⅓ of the max word count (only 34 words!). I understand
that as we develop this project the application could change, but as it stands your planned usage
is very broad. Tell me more about how, for instance, you can use the article ot research about the
“Treatment of minriities in healthcare systems.” What healthcare system in particular? What
minority group in particular, cause you have three mentioned? What would be relevant about
exploring that research further? I don’t see any of that right now, and I’m left wanting more.
As a whole, I really enjoy your annotations, but the level of work shown in each
paragraph is distracting. As you ook to revise your annotations, develop how you may apply
these sources and what SPECIFICALLY could be researched. Even if its an idea of what could
be researched, it gives me more incite than what is there currently. Overall its good stuff, but
more development is needed.
Document Design: USING HATS
Looking at document design, I think this section can be kept short because, quite frankly,
you have it down really good besides one bit of confusion: What style of formatting are you
doing?
Looking at your problem statement, you have the memo format down. You have good
page numbers, a nice use of headings, consistent typography, and easy access to the different bits
of information I want to find as a reader. I am just confused on your chosen annotation style.
Looking at the annotations themselves, they appear to be in APA formatting. However, in some
brief research, the annotation style for the medical field is AMA, which the formatting of your
annotation paragraphs match. In its state, I am confused on your formatting. Assuming you are
doing APA, make sure you indent your paragraphs so they are one indent in from the citation.
Overall, your formatting and document diesng is good. Just make sure you indent your
paragraphs adn you are all set!