SWA #22

The problem that I will be addressing in my essay 4 is the debate over changing the minimum drinking age law.  Some believe that the law is fine as is, but others believe it would be better if it was changed from 21 to 18.  I plan to address all four perspectives and give details as to why the college presidents have the best plan, and possibly expand on their plan further.

My thesis is: By examining the college students, college presidents, police, and parents perspectives we can see that each has their own reasons in favor or in opposition of drinking laws, but the college presidents have the best argument for changing the law.

SWA #21

• The focus of this paper was the issue of the Occupy movement.  They take the first paragraph to describe the importance of this issue to America.
• The four perspectives in this paper were that of the actual protesters, indirect sympathizers, college students, and Tracey Vitchers.  The four perspectives were a little hard to recognize initially.  There doesn't seem to be a clear thesis.
• The introduction and the conclusion were the best parts of this paper, but still should be reworked to contain a strong thesis.
• I would say that the essay is very informative but I don't know if I could call it effective.  It didn't spend enough time elaborating on the four perspectives.

SWA #20

 I.              Introduction

·               By examining the minimum legal drinking age in the college environment we can see there is much debate if the current age of 21 is effective, this is significant because parents, university presidents, university students, and police officers all have unique perspectives on what needs to be done.

II.              Paragraph 1 Parents perspective

A.            Don’t want their college students drinking

B.             Information on automobile accidents

a.            Automobile accidents caused by alcohol have decrease since the MLDA was established

b.           Parents want the roads to be safer

C.             MADD

III.              Paragraph 2 Police Perspective

A.            Accident rate due to alcohol

B.             Mortality rate since the MLDA was first passed

C.             Colorado police chief example

a.     He is for the drinking age being changed

b.     Claims we are pushing drinking into more high risk situations

IV.              Paragraph 3 Students Perspective

A.            Self serving bias

a.     Believe that it should be changed because it would make their illegal acts illegal.

b.     Will drink more given the change in age.

B.             Serve in the army and vote example

C.             Drinking in high risk situations

D.            Rates of underage drinking on college campus

V.              Paragraph 4 College Presidents Perspective

A.            Amethyst initiative

a.     150 College Presidents

b.     Believe that the drinking age should be 18

c.     Believe in more alcohol education

B.             Drinking in private

C.             Upperclassman can buy and underclassmen cannot

VI.              Conclusion

A.            Restate thesis

B.             Reveal bias 

SWA

Hingson, Ralph W. "Magnitude And Prevention Of College Drinking And Related Problems." Alcohol Research & Health 33.1/2 (2010): 45-54. Academic Search Premier. Web. 13 Mar. 2012.

This source addressed the alcohol misuse among college student and examines why this is happening.  It provides stats and figures to support the fact that college drinking is increasing and examines how lowering the drinking age would affect that.

McCardell, John. "The Status Quo Has Bombed." U.S. News & World Report 15 Sept. 2008: 10. Academic Search Premier. Web. 13 Mar. 2012.

This source addresses the side of the issue that says that the drinking age should be lowered to 18.  The reason given is that by making the drinking age 21 we are creating a culture of binge drinking in private.  It provides examples of why this private drinking is actually more dangerous.

3/13/12

The first term I researched was from the title and it was misappropriation.  I had an idea of what it meant after reading the title and when I looked it up it confirmed what I thought.  This helped my understanding because it made me realize that he is making the point that not all immigrants are the same, and that there are differences among various Asian-Americans.

The next name I had prior knowledge of but I thought it was really important in the article and that was Ichiro.   I remember when Ichiro came over to America to play and how it was such a big deal.  People were constantly talking about how he would never be as good as he was when he was in Japan because baseball in America is a whole different game.  There was much emphasis put on the fact that he was an Asian trying to play professional baseball.

3/12/12

1.) He examines racial stereotypes for Asian-Americans in baseball, and how baseball is supposed to be a unifying experience but it still segregates within the game.  He does this by talking about Ichiro and how Ichiro is Japanese but he is Korean.

2.)  He talks about how baseball is America's pastime and everyone feels included as long as they are familar with the sport. So basically it is an American sport in the fact that it includes the people who are exposed to it, but those who aren't are left out.

SWA #17

I decided to change my topic from funding for autism research to changing the drinking age because there wasn't enough current information on autism research funding.

Carpenter, Christopher, and Carlos Dobkin. "The Minimum Legal Drinking Age and Public Health." PubMed Central. (2011): n. page. Web. 12 Mar. 2012. <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3182479/>.

This article provided insight into the legal drinking age in America.  It researched whether the higher drinking age really reduces alcohol consumption in the United States.  It examines the effects of the drinking age in terms of injury and crime.

Martinez, Julia, Miguel Muñoz, and Kenneth Sher. "A new minimum legal drinking age (MLDA)? Some findings to inform the debate." Addictive Behaviors. 34.4 (2009): n. page. Web. 12 Mar. 2012. <http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306460308003419>.

This article is used to argue that the drinking age does not need to be lowered because it is a political stance that reflects student’s behaviors.  They present this argument by taking a study of 865 college students under the age of 21.  They found that the beliefs of students generally do reflect their drinking behaviors.