Research Blog #3: Three Academic Sources

Three academic sources & how they refine my topic

"College Student Drinking Research from the 1940's to the Future: Where We Have Been and Where We Are Going" by Jason Kilmer, Jessica Cronce & Mary Larimer from Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs.

Kilmer, Jason R., et al. “College Student Drinking Research From the 1940s to the Future: Where We Have Been and Where We Are Going.” Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, Supplement, no. s17, 2014, pp. 26–35., doi:10.15288/jsads.2014.s17.26.

This source is helping to refine my topic because this article's view of alcohol is based solely on college students, the central theme to my paper. The reason this article is different from the others I have selected is because it takes on a different viewpoint to college drinking. It's focus is based on the first article defining college drinking research published back in 1945, and how much or little college drinking research has developed over the years since. It is going to be the binding component between some of the other pieces, and how those relate to college students as many of the sources talk about the history of alcohol culturally and socially, yet without the specific focus on the college age group that my paper is taking on. Even more-so, this piece is especially important for refining my topic because it covers the same timeline that I ideally will be covering in my paper - recent history to today.

Drinking in America: Our Secret History by Susan Cheever

Cheever, Susan. Drinking in America: Our Secret History. Twelve, 2016. 

This source is helpful to my paper because it focuses on the historical side of alcohol within America. Using this book I will be able to properly outline the dynamic that American society has had with alcohol over the course of recent history. While Cheever's book begins with a history much far back in time than what will most likely be covered within my paper, the novel gives a wide spectrum of events to base it's conclusions upon. It covers events from "Pilgrims to Prohibitions", leaving nothing out in the long and often complicated past. This book, combined with other analytic timelines that will come up in my research will give a full outlook on the events that lead up to today.




College Drinking: Reframing a Social Problem by George Dawdall

Dowdall, George W. College Drinking: Reframing a Social Problem. Praeger, 2009.                                                 

This source helps to bring the other two sources together and to relate back to my topic. This book's main focus is on how little has changed in regards to college students and alcohol in recent years, but how much has changed of the opinions of others on college students drinking. This book will help take on a new side to my research, as it covers some of the complex relationships that overlap when talking about this age group. Firsthand interviews are used to support the points put forth in this book, which will only be beneficial to drawing my own conclusions.