Research+Paper+Draft

Research Paper Draft

Jacob D Miller English Composition 2 Lauren Garcia-DuPlain 03/21/11 Thirty Five Percent  It is Friday, the seemingly never ending school week draws to a close and it is time to figure out what to do on the weekend. The basketball team has a home game tonight that I could attend, but I attend those every other weekend and it is time for a change. I am seventeen years old and am half way through my senior year of high school. There are much better things that I could be doing than attending a high school basketball game. My friend from work has invited me to a party at his house and told me that I will have a great time if I come. It is going to be a nice change of pace to go out and have some fun with some new people. I stroll up to the party with some other friends from work and begin to start [**begin to start?]** drinking. I told my mom that I went to the basketball game and will be spending the night at a friend's house after the game and will be home in the morning. Little did I know at that time I would be arriving home much sooner. After more than enough drinks to make even an alcoholic drunk the night turns for the worst. People begin to say that there is word that the cops are coming to the party and that we will all get in trouble. I panic, knowing that I am under the legal drinking age, and get in my car and decide to drive home to avoid getting into trouble. On my way home, little did I know [**SECOND USE OF THIS PHRASE IN THIS PARAGRAPH - WATCH REPETITION}** I was not avoiding trouble at all I was driving straight into it. I get pulled over and get arrested for underage drinking and for operating a vehicle under the influence. My life is impacted by this night for the rest of my life. [**INTERESTING USE OF NARRATIVE. DOES THE AUDIENCE NEED THE WHOLE STORY? OR COULD YOU CONDENSE IT AND MOVE MORE QUICKLY INTO THE "ACADEMIC" PART?]** Underage drinking is not a new problem in today's society. It has been an evident problem for years now with out much punishment. How do we get away with committing this crime time after time without any sort of punishment? It is one of the most popular crimes that goes without punishment across the entire nation.[**WHAT DO YOU MEAN IT GOES WITHOUT PUNISHMENT? DO YOU MEAN THAT MOST DON'T GET CAUGHT?]** Are kids not afraid of getting into trouble anymore? Schools teach kids the negative side affects of alcohol and it seems to have little to no impact on them. If kids were taught the punishments they would receive would they be more inclined to not drink? Adolescents may be taught at too young of an age to be able to grasp the consequences of what alcohol can do to their lives. If youths are being taught about alcohol at an age when they have no intention on drinking it, then it is less likely that they will listen and understand what is being told to them. If people under the age of twenty one are more informed, at an appropriate age, about the negative affects of alcohol the likelihood of them never drinking can be greater than ever. **[REPHRASE FOR CLARITY/FLOW]** Growing up going through the k-12 school system we are taught from the beginning to not drink alcohol. The schools bring in guest speakers, such as police officers, to inform us about alcohol awareness. However, I am not sure middle school kids are able to fully understand the meaning of what is being said to them. At this age the majority of kids are not thinking about going out and drinking. It is in the later half of their school years that drinking begins to happen. SADD, also known as students against destructive decisions [**IT'S NOT DRUNK DRIVING?]**, is an organization that is out to help youths understand what alcohol can do to them and those around them. Their organization has been implemented into many high school social clubs so students can become more involved with this prevention. According to SADD, 37% of kids in the 8th grade have consumed alcohol and 72% of students have consumed it by the time they reach the 12th grade (SADD). Even though that 37% is high for that age group, why do 35% more students consume alcohol when they reach high school? The 35% more students who choose to drink are the focus of my argument. The kids may have fallen into the category that may have believed that during the 8th grade when they were getting talked to that they would never take part in drinking alcohol. However, once they entered high school and the alcohol awareness talks went away, they were easily influenced into consuming alcohol. The legal drinking age in the United States stands at 21. So throughout high schools across the nation you have 72% of the high school population breaking this law. The kids have not been properly informed on what will happen to them if they were to get caught underage drinking. The lives of many kids could be seriously altered if they were caught committing this act. Underage consumption of alcohol is not new to the public.[**YOU ALREADY SAID SOMETHING LIKE THIS IN P2]** This act has been an ongoing struggle for many years, that has not yet found its way of being handled. With this ongoing activity the penalties for this crime have been increased too.[**SEEMS LIKE YOU SHOULD HAVE DISCUSSED PENALTIES EARLIER IF THAT IS YOUR MAIN POINT]** When you are arrested for underage drinking you are faced with possible detainment and harsh penalties. According to Ohio law the following penalties may happen: $250 fine, up to 30 days in jail, and alcohol diversion programs (Ohio). I feel it is safe to say that the vast majority of high school students do not have $250 that they have set aside in case they were to get in trouble for drinking. In fact most of the time I would assume many of these children parents are the ones who would be paying for their child’s fine. Also if a high school student were to have to spend 30 days and jail and attend alcohol diversion programs they would miss a significant amount of school. The amount of school that they would have to miss may even be enough for them to fail the grade they are in for that year. Being in high school at one time, I personally know that I would not want to have to repeat the same grade while my friends moved on. Maybe that is what it will take for kids to understand though. Maybe they need to face reality and get in trouble to understand why they should not go out and drink. I know it worked for me so maybe it can work for them. I personally know from experience that when I got in trouble with the law I no longer wanted to go out and drink. I was a high school senior and never thought I would get in trouble for drinking. However when I did get in trouble I got a big reality check. My license was suspended for 2 years, I faced $400 dollars in fines, not including the $700 lawyer I had to pay for, and I had to do many intervention programs. The court system looked at me just how they did everyone else that came through there. My previously clean record, my good grades, and my job had no meaning to them at all. I made the decision to go out and drink, no one forced me to do it and no one prevented me from doing it.**[THINKING YOU MIGHT WANT TO COMBINE THIS WITH INTRO? THE ORG JUST SEEMS A BIT OFF]** Prior to this night I was out drinking without a care in the world. I had the talks about how bad it is when I was back in middle school but at that time, those talks meant very little to me. When I was being talked to about alcohol back then I was not drinking it and never thought I would drink it till I was legally allowed. However when I entered high school I entered that 35%. If I could take back what I did I would. However, that is not possible I have to deal with the cards dealt and move on from it. My goal is to assure kids do not make the same mistakes as I did. Along with getting in trouble with the law, you can cause physical and mental damage to yourself by drinking. In middle school they try to show you pictures on how your brain will shrink with alcohol consumption. This method is true, but I am not sure that this is fully understood by that age group. The real problem stands with what can be told to the 35% of students who decide to drink when they enter into high school. Many efforts have been made to prevent these kids from ever beginning to drink. The goal is to approach the problem when it is relevant to the students. Richard J. Bonnie and Mary Ellen O’Connell were selected by the Governing Board of the National Research council to look into underage drinking. Combined they have backgrounds and degrees in science, engineering, and medicine which assures they are suited for the task at hand. In their book, Reducing Underage Drinking a Collective Responsibility, they look at the efforts that have been made to stop underage drinking. According to their research, “In fiscal 2000, $71.1 million was targeted at preventing underage alcohol use by the U.S. Departments of Health and Human Services, Justice, and Transportation.”(National). With this much money and time spent one would believe that you could prevent youths from drinking. This is not the case though, kids look at this information as being corny or cheesy. I believe that kids need to be put into real life situations that will show them the consequences of underage drinking. [**THE CORNY/CHEESY COMMENT IS IMPORTANT, I THINK. WHAT COULD SCHOOLS DO TO INFORM WITH BEING CORNY?]** [**TRANSITION]** A popular drinking time for kids in high school is the night of prom. Many gets decide after prom they will go out and get drunk, and even many kids decide to go out and get drunk before hand. One of the best ways to prevent this alcohol abuse from happening is for kids to experience it before it actually happens. I am not saying that you should have the kids go out and get drunk them make them do things that will cause them harm. However, you can put them into simulators that will allow them to experience those situations. For example at my highs school before our senior prom we were divided into groups and put into these types of situations. At my school they brought in a beat up car and had it crashed into a pole with my classmates in the car. They brought the life flight helicopter in to take them away. They also allowed us to put on these goggles that made everything in your vision look impaired. With these goggles we were put into golf carts to drive around that made it nearly impossible to drive and operate. Finally we watch videos from actually people who got in drunk driving accidents. It showed these people at the hospitals all bloody and hurt. It showed how injured they were and how they were on the verge of death. We also got to hear from families who had a family member die from a drunk driving incident. Hearing and seeing this made many people sad, knowing they would never want to put there families in these situations. Seeing these actually experiences really hit home with many people making them not want to go out and drink at prom. Even with the many problems that drinking brings, many people believe that the drinking age should be brought down. People believe that if kids are going to do it even if it is illegal then why not just make it legal. Ben Yarnoff and Robert Kaestner, both whom are professors with Phd's at the University of Illinois, believe that the legal drinking age should not be twenty one. They argue that when kids are put straight into a drinking environment,college,that they are more prone to binge drink and that when they can start drinking from a younger age they can adapt to it easier (Kaestner). This brings up a good point but what stops kids from just starting drinking at an even earlier age than they already do. The age of twenty one allows kids to grow up and become more mature drinkers. Lowering the drinking age would only lead to an earlier start to drinking and more reckless drinking habits. [**WHAT ABOUT ALLOWING TEENS TO DRINK AT HOME UNDER SUPERVISION? REMEMBER - YOUR PROPOSAL DOESN'T HAVE TO BE BLACK AND WHITE.]** Prevention plans have been tried over and over to stop underage consumption of alcohol. The main reason the majority of kids who do drink is because they believe it makes them look cool. The movies and shows out today always show the rebellious underage kids drinking alcohol. They make it look like these people are having a good time, but that is not reality. The NIAAA, which is the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, comes out with alcohol alerts on ways that people have tried to prevent kids from partaking in underage drinking. One of the strategies they talk about is the Communities Mobilizing for Change on Alcohol. This prevention cracked down on the sale of alcohol to minors within communities. It made the community as a whole look down upon underage drinking. It ensured that the community would not accept or tolerate this act (Underage). The fact that communities were able to make underage drinking unacceptable in the community shows great strides to preventing this crime. Kids thinking they are cool by drinking has a big impact on why they do. If you take away this social mishap then preventing this act will be easier to achieve. [**DO YOU HAVE A PSYCHOLOGY JOURNAL ARTICLE THAT TALKS ABOUT THIS?]** All in all kids should not be allowed to go out and drink alcohol. They should be taught the facts on what will happen to them at an age that is relevant to drinking. If kids are able to understand the consequences of the actions they make then they will be less inclined to go out to parties that will pressure them into drinking. Prevention programs need to be continued from middle school years into the high school years for students. If I am able to stop this reckless act then I believe that many others too can be stopped. You should not believe that you are cool when you go out and drink. Think about what you are doing, do not be part of the 35%. **GREAT START, JACOB. I'D LIKE TO SEE MORE RESEARCH, THOUGH. I SEE THE BEGINNINGS OF A CONVERSATION, BUT IT COULD BE BETTER WITH MORE SOURCES TO SUPPORT THE IDEAS YOU BRING UP.**