January 6, 2014
Dear reader,
I chose various articles to read to help provide proof to my personal opinions about alcohol. “National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism” was one of the articles I read that provided me with good support I could use in my paper. This article had a bunch of individual sections that covered different aspects of what happens when you drink, the short term as well as long term affects and how to prevent adolescents from drinking alcohol and treating alcoholism. It was a very detailed paper which was helpful because it backed up all of its main points very well. That helped me write a better, more persuasive paper. I chose this article because of all the information it had. There were such a variety of topics linked to underage drinking as well, so I could take my paper in different directions. It made a lot of valid points that I could connect with, making it clear that I could incorporate these details into my paper.

Did you know that by the time they reach the eighth grade, nearly fifty percent of adolescents have had at least one drink, and over twenty percent report having been ‘drunk?’ Or that approximately twenty percent of eighth graders have drank within the last thirty days? Neither did I until I read this article. Those numbers and statistics just shocked me, I could not believe how high the numbers were for such young kids. This article has facts like this about every consequence of drinking there is and every aspect of what goes on during and after getting drunk. There was a lot of sources as well. On the bottom of the page there were quite a lot of MLA citations from all of the sources he used. That was nice because I knew the information I was taking in and sharing in my paper was legit because the more sources the better the information. This paper had such a wide variety that I don’t think I necessarily learned about one topic more than the other. I learned a lot about the topic of drinking as a whole. I thought the this was a very good article and it was a source that I felt confident when giving credit to. I thought the author was very well informed because of all the information he had and all the sources he used (forty-nine sources). One fact I found shocking was that underage alcohol use is more likely to kill young people than all illegal drugs combined. That sort of information I don’t think youth understand. Information like this needs to become more known across the nation; maybe it’ll be able to make a difference.

This article was very well written. It had main points that were clear and proof that backed up the opinions stated. The only thing I wish there was more of was numbers; I wish there were more numbers and statistics to help back everything up. It talks about experiments and surveys that had been done but I just wish they showed the numbers. I liked the information given because I feel the same way about this topic. I liked how this author was to the point of saying underage drinking is bad. He didn’t sugar coat it when talking about; he just told it how it was. Like the topic of suicide; people don’t usually like to talk about it but he looked into it anyway. He even put in his article that thirty-seven percent of eighth grade females who drank heavily reported attempting suicide. That numbers way too high and that’s only females alone. It was honest writing which I think is a good thing when it comes to sensitive topics like alcohol. People are always afraid to be blunt but sometimes it is a good thing. Maybe if parent’s read articles like this one, they’ll encourage their kids to stop drinking. Maybe if the youth read this, they’ll see what they’re doing is harmful and stop. I guess one can only hope.

Thank you for your time,
Taylor