Current Events Helen Parzick
12/14/09
The article entitled “Case Shined First Light on Abuse of Children” written by Howard Markel, M.D., was very shocking. Before the case of Mary Ellen McCormack,abuse of children was not something that was really thought about as against the law. Thomas and Mary McCormack adopted Mary Ellen, and later after her adoption Thomas died. Mary became very abusive towards Mary Ellen. Neighbors and Investigators became very suspicious about the conduct in the McCormack household. The case was later brought to the A.S.P.C.A (American society for prevention to cruelty of animals) because there was no abuse prevention program for children. In 1874 Mary Ellen went to court testifying about her abuse to the judge and the jury. Finally her mother was put into an insane asylum of some sort and Marry Ellen went to live with the mother and sister of the investigator of her case, Etta Angell Wheeler. This article was interesting because it is an important event in the past that is often forgotten about. This article is not scientific but it is about the health and well being of children. This effects humanity because before this event child abuse programs were not developed and with out this we might never have had the programs we do today.
Citation:
Markel, M.D., Howard. "Case Shined First Light on Abuse of Children." New York Times(2009): n. page. Web. 14 Dec 2009. .
Article Review 12/14
ReplyDeleteChris Marasco
The review of the article, written by Howard Markel, “Case Shined First Light on Abuse of Children”, was well presented and enlightening. Child abuse is a horrific act and learning about how the first case was reported was interesting. The recap of the review was direct and conclusive in relaying all facts about the case. It was surprising to learn that there was a society for the protection of animals before there was one for children. It was interesting to learn how laws came into effect and the consequences of not having protection agencies in place.
The article review was simple to follow but might be improved by adding a little more information regarding current child abuse protection agencies and how still today there are numerous cases of child abuse.
I was impressed by this article and learned about the importance of having protection agencies for children. It is scary to think there was a time when children were abused and had nowhere to go for protection. “Case Shined First Light on Abuse of Children” was an article worth reading and reflects the importance of child protection agencies both past and present.
Helen did a great job reviewing this article. Helen mentioned that the ASPCA was formed before child protection agencies, and I found this very interesting. I appreciated that she gave us background information. It was confusing at first because we didn't know the time period of the article until halfway through the review. I would also have liked to see what the implications of this case are today. But, overall I liked how Helen chose a health article over a technology article because health is just as important as new technology.
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ReplyDeleteI found Helen's article choice to be very fantastically interesting. This subject is one that can be very interesting as it relates to people today and how laws that prevented such acts were established. Her report was very well summarized and straight forward, wasting no time in clearly conveying her message from what she has learnt from the article she reviewed. The facts stated in this article were very surprising, for example, that there wasn't a law preventing child abuse in the past. This struck me thoroughly by surprise and it kept me intrigued in what she had to say next.
Although Helen did a great job in reviewing her article, I feel that she lacked current information regarding child abuse cases in our time era. Although her article was interesting I feel that it really didn't have much to do with chemistry and as this is a chemistry class, I feel it is important to incorporate chemical relevance in this article.
Her reference to ASPCA was very impressive and how she presented her article about a story of a young girls struggle. This again kept me interested and never left me bored.
Overall I enjoyed reading this, Good job Helen-I hope you keep up the great work!
By olivia Estes
I thought Helen chose a great article and had a pretty good review. I find it very interesting that there were not any laws against child abuse until so late in the 20th century. The brevity of the summary was a positive and a negative. The positive was that it was straight to the point with very little boring back-round information or details. I also thought her choice in this article was very well done. It is a relevant topic in present life and an interesting one at that. One problem with this summary was its brevity. while it was very straightforward I thought it lacked details that would give the reader a better understanding. Also the details in this summary were not very clear as I could not tell from the given information whether this first case of child abuse was last year or over 300 years ago. Overall I thought Helen did a pretty good job. Child abuse is a horrifying crime, and it is one looked very lowly upon in our society. I think it is important that we know of the first case of child abuse, and how it led to current child protection agencies and laws. I thought it was quite interesting to learn when child abuse was first brought to court and acted upon.
ReplyDeleteJackie Faselt- article review
ReplyDeleteI think Helen did a good job reviewing this article. I think she wrote on a very interesting and important topic that would capture the reader’s attention. Also Helen summarized the article well in an easy to fallow review. I found it very interesting that there was no agencies for child abuse, and I’m glad that because of this case there now is one. To improve this article Helen could have fixed a few spelling errors, also she could have tied in chemistry in a greater way, maybe talking about chemical evince that might be produced from abuse and how it was used to prove the case. I think this is a very important topic, because I believe if people are informed on bad things in the world they will know wow to speak up and how to prevent it in the first place.
I think Helen did a wonderful job with this review. She got right to the point and every sentence was intriguing so i never lost focus. I also think this topic is very interesting. Although this article was so interesting, it seemed as if it didn't have anything to do with chemistry. Also, what are people's views on this case today? It impressed me that thr ASPCA took Mary Ellen in because that organization helps animals and not people. Good job Helen!
ReplyDeleteThis was a wonderful article review by Helen. I liked how she clearly explained who the McCormacks were, and what they were doing wrong. Also, the facts she stated in this review were very interesting, such as, that there was not a child protection law created until after this event. And Helen summarized this story in a way that was easy to understand. However, there could have been a few more details about why there wasn't a child protection law before this. Secondly, there could have been more information about the investigator who took care of Mary Ellen once the mom was taken. This was a great article about one of the most important laws ever created.
ReplyDeleteHelen's review on "Case shined first light on abused children" was very interested and well presented. she did a great job organizing her work by summarizing the article without all the miscellaneous facts. i specifically loved the article she chose because i think child abuse is an important yet horrifying topic to cover. Maybe she could have added a little more detail on life before the protection laws were created and what life would be like today. i was suprised to learn that child abuse hadnt been brought into light until Mary Ellen testified against her mother in court. Overall i thought Helen picked a great article and wrote a good review.
ReplyDeleteThree things Helen did well were how she clearly explained who the McCormacks were and what the were doing wrong. She also used great vocabulary and her sentences flowed well. Two things that could have made this article better were if she explained why there wasn't a child protection law and she could have talked about life before the laws. I was suprised to find child ause was never brought about the court until Mary Ellens testimony.
ReplyDeleteThis article was very good and I enjoyed reading it. Child abuse is a serious problem and how Helen picked an article about this pressing issue. A great thing about this review was that it was short, sweet, and to the point. However, one suggestion I would give Helen to improve this piece would be to add more details about the case and maybe other cases? Basically more details, in general. Also, I would’ve liked to know Helen’s opinion on this topic. Overall, this was a great review. Good job Helen!
ReplyDeleteOut of the many articles the one I chose to review was Helen Parzick’s on “Case Shined First Light on Abuse of Children.” There are many details to Helen’s review that I found interesting. For one she found a topic and article that has not much to do with science and turned it into one that has to do with science. I thought by this she was thinking outside of the box. Secondly I thought her review on this article was brief yet interesting. She packed a lot of information into a tiny, composed paragraph giving a nice summary. Finally I thought her sentence structure and the way she presented her ideas was done pretty well considering this is a hard article to express your feelings about. Though Helen wrote a great review everything has its flaws. The first flaw in Helen’s review was her lack of detail. I felt that the article was a little too brief and did not have enough detail in it to get the full sense of the story. Also, Helen’s review at the end, did not have a great analysis of what she felt about the article. What struck me about this article was the fact there was no organization or something to protect children from abuse in 1867. In all I felt this was a fairly written review.
ReplyDeleteThree things about this review that i enjoyed was that it is something serious, no trivial, it has some interesting facts, and Helen was very punctual and conciseive. Two things that could have been better were the amount of detail included in the article and some more expansion on it. I didn't completly grasp the story from her review even though the story sounded interesting. One thing i learned was that there was protection for animals before children.
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