The Alcohol Drinking Age

On this assignment I chose to write about an article that was written by Steve Chapman. The article is about the affect of raising the legal drinking age from 18 to 21. Im going to explain the article, but im also looking at the type of argument that Steve Chapman chose in order to connect to the type of audience he intended to reach. Reading the article, it seems that Steve Chapman chose to give an informative argument, but the way he expressed his feelings it could also be a more personal, and from the heart argument.

The article that Steve Chapman wrote was printed in the Chicago Tribune and is titled "Time to lower the drinking age, Decoding our epidemic of drunkenness". The article was printed in the paper on August 28, 2005. It talks about the affects, both positive and negative, of having the legal drinking age at 18 or 21. The author seems to have picked a side but he doesn't shy away from explaining the perspective of others about the recent drinking age. The author used arguments from the past and present perspectives to help people decide whether to agree or disagree with his argument.

Both sides of this issue have valid and fulfilling arguments. For example some may say that having the legal drinking age at 18 could eventually teach us how to drink alcohol in a legal and controlled environments, so eventually we would have responsible drinkers who would be capable of making smart decisions like the adults that they should be. These same people think that having the legal drinking age at the recent age, which is 21, is responsible for the bad behavior and bad decision making made by students They also proved a point by realizing and addressing the fact that 18 year olds can vote and even join the military, but they cannot

be expected to handle the responsibility of drinking alcohol.

Steve Chapman chose to write an article that seemed to be for the adult audience. And not just the adult audience, but more detailed, he was trying to reach parents and students. His main purpose is to alert the public on how troublesome this issue is. The way the argument was addressed sounded more like an informative argument. The author used numbers and statistics to get the point across that he was trying to make. In the article he used two different references. The two references were authors that believed in keeping the legal drinking age at 18.

Looking at the article, the author used the argument of facts. The questions is did something happen. In the Mid- 80's almost 10,000 underage drinkers were killed in fatal crashes. So something did happen and as a result the new drinking age is 21. I also looked at the kind of nature the article is presented and I believe it is designed to promote safer and wiser behavior when it comes to drinking. Another thing I asked was what kind of actions could be taken and actions have already been taken long before this article printed. So actions were taken and in my opinion it worked out for the better.

Steve Chapman wrote this article to alert parents and students about how underage drinking and poor judgement has become a serious epidemic over the years. Steve Chapman agreed with having the legal drinking age at 21 and he used statistics and numbers to reinforce his argument For example, the author stated that in 1984 when the federal government changed