Annotated Bibliography

Woo Hoo! I almost forgot to post this here! YAY!

Annotated bibliography
English 2000
Ashley Hofsommer
Stephanie Nash

Baldwin, Steve. Alcohol Education and Young Offenders. New York: Springer-Verlag, 1991

This book is comprised of mostly case studies. As you can imagine, anything that involves case studies and alcohol is pretty hard to just skim through. One chapter that is not a case study is titled “Youth and Alcohol Use”. This chapter takes a strict psychological look at alcohol in adolescence. It even goes as far to say that alcohol is a part of socialization. It also says that studies have not been able to link alcoholism in late teens and delinquent behavior.

For the sake of an argument, I don’t think this source is probably the best to use extensively. I would give consideration to the second chapter where some of the psychological arguments are made. Some great points are made here that would probably help argue some alcohol related topics. I personally would use the source and ignore the case studies. That little bit of information in the beginning offers a lot of interesting and helpful information.

Thomas, Babor, et al. Alcohol: No Ordinary Commodity. New York: Oxford UP Inc., 2003.

This book covers alcohol policies around the world and alcohol use around the world. It offers details as specific as, “Switzerland does not sell alcohol on Sundays”. The book contains a lot of good hard facts. It can also be trusted because it was put out by Oxford University and has several well established authors.

Perhaps if this book is being read merely for pleasure it would have a swaying effect. The authors are opinionated and believe alcohol is overall a bad thing. Their information, however, is cited and very useful. Perhaps their opinions can’t be trusted and maybe their personal writings won’t be useful. These facts, however, will give the information about other countries needed. The facts are the facts and the ones in this book could be very helpful. It will take a little reading, but the book is small and well organized so navigating around it shouldn’t be extremely difficult.

Davila Gomez, Ana Maria. Ethics, Psych, and Social Responsibility. Burlington: Ashgate Company, 2007.

This book is pretty much mainly a psychology book. There are some really good points in here made about alcohol though. On page nine they mainly talk about FAS or Fetal Alcohol Syndrome but they do criticize the way people who consume alcohol are interviewed. This may be a help when attempting to maybe discredit these particular studies. Mainly this page just covered the fact that many studies have an underlying agenda and they are often bias going into the research. Then, if you look to about page 62-64 you will see some stuff mainly about pregnancy and alcohol.

Although the psychological aspect of alcohol will probably be helpful when writing about youth, this book does not really cover adolescence and alcohol. A little bit more information needs to be focused towards youth and their experience with alcohol. Some of their information could be used, but the book isn’t worth picking through. It’s not very well organized.

McAllister, A.l.o., and Jessica Carson. "Do the Brits Need More Time to Drink?" Time 19 Dec. 2005. EBSCO. LSU Middleton Library, Baton Rouge. 14 Apr. 2008.

This is an academic journal that covers how the Prime Minister in Britain has lengthened the time in which pubs and bars may be opened. The article talks about how drinking in Europe is on the rise. There is a problem with binge drinking, and people in support of this new law hope that it will lessen binge drinking. They hope for more stable alcohol consumption as in Italy or France.

This could be very helpful when arguing that the drinking age should be lowered. We could use Britain as an example as to what can happen when alcohol is made more available. I’m sure there has been some research done since 2005 that offers the results of this new law. Binge drinking may have possibly gone down. This would be golden if writing on why the drinking age should be lowered.

"Areas of Alcohol Policy." Global Status Report: Alcohol Policy (2004): 13-74. EBSCO. LSU Middleton Library, Baton Rouge. 14 Apr. 2008.

This is going to be an article that gives mainly facts about drinking laws in other countries. It offers not a lot of written opinion so it can be trusted as a good source. It offers each country’s definition of an alcoholic beverage and does not limit itself to merely one or two countries. It then covers each country’s restrictions on alcohol for youth.

This is going to be a great article to use when trying to make factual arguments. It is especially useful because these other countries have a lower drinking age then the U.S. does. There is even offered that says that when Denmark lowered the drinking age in 1995, drinking problems decreased. The study has not been maintained, but it could still be very helpful.

Lars, Aberg. "Long Time Effects of a Lowered Blood Alcohol Level in Sweden." References on Drugs and Driving. Uppsala University. 14 Apr. 2008 http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/Misc/driving/s15p2.htm.

I’m pretty sure this is a journal article, but the site was hard to navigate to I put it as an internet site. This offers evidence on how by lowering the blood alcohol content allowed drunken driving accidents have lessened.

Although an article like this could be detrimental to an argument calling for the lowering of the age of alcohol consumption, it offers another suggestion. Perhaps instead of making the drinking age so high, America could simply lower the allowed blood alcohol level. This could help prevent drunken driving accidents as it has in Sweden. This is a very good source if trying to offer alternatives to the laws the U.S. already has in place.

"Alcohol and Your Body." Brown University Health Education. 26 Feb. 2008. Department of Health Education, Brown University. 14 Apr. 2008 http://www.brown.edu/Student_Services/Health_Services/Health_Education/atod/alc_aayb.htm.

This article talks about alcohol and its effects on the body. It offers graphs and other visual images that help in understanding the material. It also offers a comparison between girls and boys alcohol tolerance.

Although the arguments being made could cast a shadow over alcohol as a whole, this information offers a little bit on insight into the most important topic being covered. The writer must understand alcohol in order to argue for or against its consumption. I think this will be helpful in accomplishing that since it is targeted at college students. When reading it you should be aware that it is a little bias, however, the information is helpful nonetheless.