Albachiara

Nicole Albachiara
English 102
Professor Adam Padgett
16 February 2016
Is the death penalty an inhumane way to punish criminals?
Personal Context:
As I started considering topics that I could use as a research question, my brain instantly
focused on the main controversial topics such as abortion, legalization of marijuana and
police brutality. After our discussions in class, I looked to find a topic that I did not have
strong predetermined views about and decided that I would research the death penalty.
When thinking of the death penalty, one of the first things that came to mind was how it
impacts the person being killed, the victim and the family of the criminal. Depending on
the stance I take, I think my values will play a role in how I go about analyzing the
different stances on the topic and creating my own opinion.
I do not have any person experience regarding this topic but have watched many
documentaries on the issue and have always understood how people see it as a terrible
thing as well as a very beneficial thing.
I am qualified because I am using reliable databases given to us by the university and
searching for trustworthy articles that do not have false information.
Three Sources:
Source One: Death Penalty: Another View
1. The central claim of this article is that the death penalty is not a bad thing at all.
People argue that we could accidentally sentence an innocent person to the death
penalty but the author counters that argument saying that the solution for that is with
the law, not eliminating the death penalty. The other argument that the author touches
on is about how killing a human is barbaric and inhumane. However, the author, Zhu,
reminds the audience of holding criminals accountable for their actions.

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2. The interest at stake is to persuade the audience to understand why the death penalty
is not bad and explain how their reasoning can be contradicted. The author values the
idea that if you take someones life then yours should be taken in return and the death
penalty dissuades people from committing horrendous crimes.
3. The author Xiaohua Zhu is writing for a credible source, Economics and Politics
Weekly. He has a Ph.D. and worked at the University of Wisconsin. The author shows
the other sides to the argument and has reasoning as to why he still feels that it should
not be eliminated.
Source Two: The Changing Nature of Death Penalty Debates
1. This articles purpose serves to show statistics on the death penalty and how they have
changed over the years. It then moves on to discuss the arguments that people who
dont support death penalty have. For example, we must prove a point with present
criminals to set a tone to scare potential future criminals from committing murder etc.
2. This article shows the statistics that come along with the death penalty and how
theyve changed year to year. The author shows how the favoring of capital
punishment has increased and decreased over the years and basically sets up the
audience to think about the issue on their own without giving a stance.
3. There are two authors for this source, they both write for the Annual Review of
Sociology. It is an educational article written by people who have authority in the
matter. They do not really show any bias throughout because they never state a stance
and really defend both sides of the issue.
Source Three: Contesting the Victim Card: Closure Discourse and Emotion in Death
Penalty Rhetoric
1. The authors main purpose is to touch on the idea of how people justify the death
penalty by showing how this gives closure to the victims family. She discusses how

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pro-death penalty groups state that no innocent person has ever been sentenced. While
the people who are against capital punishment stand strong in their reasoning against
it.
2. The author is a sociologist so her major purpose of the article is seeing why and how
people fight for or against this issue. She states how people who are for it think that it
gives closure to victims families while people who are against it are more prone to
believe innocent lives have been taken. She doesnt hold much bias when writing this
because she works to understand both sides.
3. The author is a credible source because of her academic achievements. She is
sociology major and has done extensive research about the issue at hand. It was
published by a textbook and has been edited and proofread by many professors and
educated individuals.
Feasibility of the Research Question:
This research question is arguable because it has the ability to be seen from both sides
and each side has strong arguments that can hold up against the other. Two of the sources
both agree that an innocent person could be sentenced as well as the emotional aspect that
plays a role in deciding if we have the right to take a humans life. Both article one and
two touches on the idea that we must show people what will happen if you decide to
commit a serious crime to hopefully lower future murders and crimes. The different
perspectives show me how complicated this issue really is but I do feel that the death
penalty is needed in order to keep civil order because the counter arguments focus on
more surface level aspects of it. I might revise my research question by being more
specific. I could narrow down my research question so that it only focuses on death
penalty in cases that involve murder as the crime. If I decide to keep the word

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inhumane, I should focus primarily on if we have the right to kill another human and
the emotional impacts on the victims family as well as the criminals.