Hi Alexander, Jagpreet, and Jacob, I had the opportunity to read your wonderful paper and analysis. First of all, I would like the say this is a very well-done paper with good analysis that points to insightful results and discussions. Your title and abstract are very precise and adhere to all the rubric requirements. However, here are several points I think that would need some improvement.

Introduction

I think your introduction does give readers a broad overview of the rest of the paper. However, before delving into the analysis, you may want to consider providing more contextual background information on why understanding birth rate trends is important. You can highlight some societal, economic, and policy implications of changing birth rates.

As this paper contains the replication of another published paper, I think you could elaborate in more detail in how this paper differs from the original paper.

Data Visualization

While the paper includes several figures to illustrate the trends in birth rates, you may want to consider enhancing the visualizations to make them more informative and easier to interpret. You could include additional graphs or charts that provide a more comprehensive overview of the data. For example, for Figure 1, maybe a table would help the readers understand the graph more as they will have the actual figures in decline.

To underscore the decrease in birthrate over time, you could also create a boxplot that measures the change in birth rate by year to observe the variation of decrease each year.

Discussion

To further highlight the importance of your study, you can discuss the policy implications of the findings and make recommendations for interventions or policies aimed at addressing the challenges posed by changing birth rates. Consider how policymakers can support families, promote reproductive health, and mitigate the potential consequences of declining birth rates.

Limitations

This paper briefly mentions limitations such as self-reported information and underreporting of births among undocumented immigrants. You may consider expanding on these limitations and discussing how they may have influenced the results. Additionally, suggest ways to mitigate these limitations in future research.

Coding Suggestions & Others

This paper does not have a table of contents. The paper would be more organized with a table of contents.

Instead of loading each package in the code chunk you are using it, you can create a separate chunk at the beginning of the paper to load every package you are using to enhance consistency.

library(tidyverse)
library(ggplot2)
library(here)  # For managing file paths

Overall, really nice paper! You followed the rubric closely and your codings and analysis are precise. I enjoyed reading your paper! :)

AlexanderG123 / usa_birthrate

Peer Review from Hannah Yu #5

Introduction

Data Visualization

Discussion

Limitations

Coding Suggestions & Others