I need to submit this text for my English course by tomorrow morning. In terms of content, citations and completeness it seems alright, but sometimes I struggle with grammar and some words a bit. If a native speaker WHO FEELS CONFIDENT WITH THE LANGUAGE could give this a read and point out weaknesses in terms of choice of words and grammar, I'd be really grateful! The economic downturn in Detroit, Michigan, and its impact on the job market, creating both environmental and social challenges in the area Numerous studies examine the economic problems associated with high unemployment rate and an insufficient amount of jobs in Detroit, Michigan, and investigate the impact on social issues such as racism and youth crime. While I am not particularly interested in Hoast-Pullen, Patterson and Gatrell's (2011) research on the relationship between "high degrees of property abandonment and an increase of vegetation" (citing Ryznar and Wagner 2001), the introduced approach of relating structural change such as decreasing industry to a decay in the "greenness of urban landscape" (1) supports Ng's (2010) finding that juvenile offenders in Detroit are supposedly more influenced by their environment rather than by adult crime. Similar to Ng (2010), Saunders (2012) points at the poverty gap, but expands on this idea by investigating the problem of racial discrimination in the job market. Most of the authors conclude with a suggestion to improve the current situation, such as Saunders' (2012) idea of a "anti-discrimination policy enforcement" (1) and Ng (2010) who is convinced that "investments" (214) are a crucial part of the solution. However, a clear outline of these suggested changes and investments remains unclear. While the idea of new policies, "a comprehensive neighbourhood solution" (Ng, 2010) (214) and job creation certainly make sense, I argue that it will be very difficult to convince the government to invest in a city with record unemployment rates and almost no industry left to return it in terms of economic profit. Referring to in "Detroits unemployment rate" (2010), this doubt seems to be confirmed since "projects [to improve the infrastructure] are shovel-ready", but no financial support had been granted at that point.
I can't find much wrong with it from a technical standpoint. This is the only thing I could find: "Referring to in" sounds a bit awkward, and the tense and syntax are not correct. You might consider saying something like: Also note that, if you're writing for a US reader, punctuation should go inside the quotes - i.e. "Blah blah blah," blah. -> not "Blah blah blah", blah. Beyond that, stylistically I'd say that some sentences seem a bit too long. You might consider breaking up some of the longer ones. Also, is this the title? If so, I'd say the word "creating" feels a bit out of place. I would rewrite it like this: Or something like that. Keep in mind that I'm not an English major.
Thanks! The "in" was an artifact from an earlier revision, it didn't make sense. I revised the entire phrase a bit: I found confirmation for my doubts in the article "Detroits unemployment rate" (The Huffington Post, anonymous, 2010), which notes that "projects [to improve the infrastructure] are shovel-ready," but no financial support had been granted at that point. The sentences are supposed to be quite long. I don't feel that it makes it nicer to read either, but we've actually been told to do that. If she subtracts points for this she must be evil Lol. It's weird that commas have to be within the quotation marks. In German it's like I wrote it... "xxx", xxx. Huh. Gotta adapt this, same with some other cultural quirks. 10.000 => 10,000. w00t. 1 looks like an L, 7 looks like a 1.
