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Are Criminals Born or Made?

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Essay Question: Are Criminals born or made?

Topic sentence outlining the focus of the paragraph.

One of the most common methods used to examine the differential influence of nature and nurture are twin studies. This methodology involves comparing the behaviour of monozygotic or identical (MZ) twins who share identical genetic makeup to dizygotic (DZ) or fraternal twins who share only 50 percent of

Details about the studies included as evidence.

their genetic makeup (Steen, 1996; Rowe, 1990). The underlying assumption of this design is that MZ and DZ twins share essentially the same environment and so any difference between twin-type can be attributed to genetic or inherited influences (Blackburn, 1993; Steen, 1996; Rowe, 1990). Accordingly, it is expected that the extent to which MZ twins are similar (concordance) will exceed that of DZ twins (Blackburn, 1993; Hollin, 1992; Raine, 1993). Indeed, numerous twin studies and reviews report that concordance for MZ Concluding sentence summing up the content of the paragraph with a link back to essay question and argument.

Topic sentence which links with previous paragraph.

twins exceeds that of DZ twins in relation to criminal behaviour (e.g., Christiansen, 1977; Cloninger & Gottesman, 1987; Ellis, 1982; Rowe, 1986; Rowe & Osgood, 1984), with Raine (1993) reporting an average concordance of 51.5 percent for MZ twins compared to 20.6 percent for DZ twins. Therefore, these studies lead to the conclusion that genetics exert a substantial influence on criminality. In attempts to control for environmental factors being confounded (a common criticism of the abovementioned twin study method), researchers have used an even more robust methodology whereby they

Presentation of results from empirical research that links to essay question and argument. Multiple authors in one citation in alphabetical order and separated by a colon. Splitting of topic over two paragraphs, but still reinforcing argument.

Are Criminals Born or Made?

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compare the similarity of children adopted soon after birth with their biological parents (Ellis, 1982; Jones, 2006). With this design, it is assumed that similarities between the adopted child and his or her adopted parents and siblings reflects nurture or environmental factors, whereas similarities to the biological parent/s indicates nature or genetic influences (Blackburn, 1993; Ellis, 1982; Hollin, 1992; Rowe, 1990; Steen, Details of research that will be used in paragraph as empirical evidence.

1996). In one of the most influential studies in this area Mednick, Gabrielli, and Hutchings (1984, 1987) studied over 14,000 Danish adoptees born between 1927 and 1947 and found that nature and nurture effects influenced criminal convictions in adoptees. Specifically, 13.5 percent of adoptees had criminal convictions when their biological and adopted fathers had no criminal convictions and this increased to 14.7 percent

Linking words and signposts to increase readability and flow of the paragraph.

when the adopted father and not the biological father had criminal convictions. However, when only the biological father had criminal convictions, 20 percent of the adoptees also had criminal convictions, which then increased to 24.5 percent when both fathers had criminal convictions. Similarly, in is review of 15 nonfamilial adoption studies, Raine (1993) reports that adoptees are more likely to be antisocial or criminal when their biological, as compared to adoptive parents, are antisocial or criminal. Therefore, this empirical

Concluding sentence summing up the content of the paragraph with a link back to essay question and argument.

evidence collectively indicates that criminals are indeed ‘born’ and influenced by their hereditary environment to a large extent.

Presentation of results from empirical research that links to essay question and argument. Different information from different sources linked and their results not just listed....