Changing the Legal Drinking Age Essay: Writing Guide & Examples

The debate on whether drinking age should be lowered or raised has been heated for years. Some people believe that alcohol seriously harms adolescent’s mental and physical health, and, therefore, drinking age should be raised even more, while others claim that there is no use in making it so high. If you were assigned to write a paper on the topic, you have a great chance to research and discuss this controversial issue. Do not worry – we will help you on the way! In this article, you will not only find the best topics to choose from but also useful tips and facts that will allow you to write an A+ paper.

Drinking age essay topics

• Drinking age should be lowered to 18 essay
• Should drinking age be lowered essay
• Youth rights and age of responsibility essay
• Keeping the drinking age at 21 essay
• Should the drinking age be lowered in the US essay
• Why the drinking age should be lowered to 18 essay
• Teenage drinking age essay
• Europe vs. America: age of responsibility essay
• Essay on underage drinking and its consequences
• Drinking age debate essay
• Minimum legal drinking age essay: Comparison of two countries of choice
• Binge drinking essay
• Link between risk behaviors and legal drinking age essay
• Raising the drinking age to 25 essay
• Drinking age controversy essay
• Persuasive essay on legal drinking age raise will lead to more suicide and violence cases

Drinking age argumentative essay topics

• Is lowering the drinking age a good idea essay
• Argumentative essay about legal drinking age in USA will affect the economy if changed
• Argumentative essay on why the drinking age should not be lowered
• Should the alcoholic drinking age be increased or decreased argumentative essay
• There is no appropriate drinking age argument essay
• Correlation between death rates and legal drinking age argumentative essay
• Drinking age should not be lowered essay
• Driving under influence cases will rise if we lower the drinking age essay
• School performance will drop with lowering the drinking age to 18 essay

How to write a paper on drinking age

• Search for credible and latest data. The issue of drinking age hasn’t lost its relevance for years, but the situation is constantly changing and varies from country to country. Therefore, make sure that the information you have included in your paper is up-to-date.
• Make your language simple. Do not write overly short or long sentences and use simple words so that every reader can grasp your ideas. If you have to use certain terms, be sure to explain them.
• After you have finished your paper, carefully check it for all sorts of mistakes: spelling, punctuation, word choice, etc. Proofreading can help you polish the paper and raise your grade significantly.
• Show your competence by using citations and references. This will not only demonstrate your research skills, but also help you avoid plagiarism.
• Make an outline to follow before writing your paper. Having a well-detailed plan will help you express your ideas in a structured way.

Drinking age essay outline

• Drinking age essay introduction.

This is one of the most important parts of your essay, where you need to show the reader why the topic needs to be researched. The first thing you need to take care of is a hook sentence, which is designed to engage your audience. It can be a relevant quote, curious fact, or shocking statistic. Next, you will have to add a few sentences with some background information to help readers understand the issue better. Finish your intro with a strong drinking age essay thesis statement. This sentence should present the main idea of the whole work and the arguments you are going to use to support this idea.

• The main part.

In the body of the paper, you will need to present all the relevant findings on the topic. Discuss your arguments point by point and back them up with factual information that you have found during your research. Make sure to cite it according to the chosen formatting style and include the respective entry in the reference list.

• Conclusion.

Start your conclusion by restating the thesis and going over the arguments from the body of the paper. Note that you need to rephrase and synthesize the information instead of simply copying it from other parts of the work. Do not forget about the clincher phrase in the end, which will give your readers some food for thought or, once again, prove the importance of the topic under consideration.

Titles for drinking age essay

Choosing a good title for essay about drinking age is just as important as writing a great intro as this is the first thing your readers will see. It is better to come up with a title at the very end of the working process when you have a complete understanding of the main ideas you have covered and conclusions which you have come to. You can brainstorm a few suitable drinking age essay titles and make them into questions or elaborate statements, sit on them for a while, and choose the best option after rereading your text.

What type of essay to work on?

• Satire essay on drinking age. Satire essay is a paper where you exaggerate certain facts and poke fun at the topic in question in a way that a reader would find hilarious. This kind of essay is not frequently assigned as it might be hard to use humor when you are talking about serious topics. However, if you master writing such a paper, it might earn you a very high grade.
• Cause and effect essay on lowering the drinking age. Everything is quite simple here – you will need to link all the causes to the respective effects. For example, you may present the statistics that when the drinking age is lowered, more accidents occur due to drunk driving.
• Argumentative essay on drinking age. In such a paper, you need to present arguments proving a certain idea to be right or valid. It is important to have enough research material to back up each point made, which is why there should be a good factual basis for writing this work.
• Age of responsibility persuasive essay. Here, you need to take a stance and prove it to be correct. Appeal to reader’s emotions and intelligence, and use factual information to show that your opinion is the right one.   

Drinking age research paper topics

• Lowering drinking age to 18 research paper
• Drinking and driving research papers
• Research paper on underage drinking and effective intervention measures
• Raising legal drinking age research paper
• Do age 21 drinking laws encourage alcohol abuse among teens?
• The impact of alcohol advertising on teenage mental state
• How to prevent underage drinking
• Do legal restrictions help to lower the alcoholism rates?
• Do parents’ habits influence underage drinking?

Drinking age research paper outline

• Title page
• Introduction
• Methodology
• Lit review
• Findings and Discussion
• Conclusion

There might also be a short abstract before the intro, which gives a quick overview of the whole paper. Additionally, if there are certain figures, tables, or other materials that you want to refer to but they are too big for your paper, you can put them into the appendices section.

Why do teenagers start to abuse alcohol?

The introduction of age restrictions is a prohibitive measure. However, it is also worth explaining to the readers what causes the need for such prohibitions. In the course of many studies, it was possible to establish some factors that encourage young people to abuse alcohol. 

Family problems

In most cases, family problems can be considered as the soil on which teenage alcoholism grows. Children who live in full and happy families, where they are loved and appreciated, and receive enough attention, rarely become addicts. When parents set a bad example, are rarely present, or can’t influence the behavior of their child, it is easier for kids to turn to alcohol to rebel and forget about or find solutions to their problems.

Influence of the environment

Virtually no one tries alcohol alone. Some do it with their family, while others try different beverages during social gatherings such as parties. The cause of early alcoholism is not a great taste of or a simple desire to drink alcohol but the public perception that it is cool or interesting. Therefore, instead of simply punishing teenagers for getting drunk when they are in groups but also promote fun activities that do not involve alcohol.

Mental health issues

Alcoholism is common among people who have suffered brain injuries, neurological infections, and damage to the central nervous system. While any type of brain damage is a huge risk factor, it is a less common one than others.   

Data from different countries for drinking age research paper or essay

• There are quite a lot of countries that allow their citizens to buy alcohol at 16 years old, including Georgia, Denmark, Italy, Malta, Morocco, the Netherlands, Portugal, Jamaica. In Germany, people are allowed to buy beer and wine from the age of 16, and stronger drinks - from 18 years old.

• You can buy alcohol at the age of 17 in Cyprus. But authorities have already started talking about the fact that such accessibility of alcohol for adolescents is a big problem. According to social surveys, 68% of teenagers aged 13-17 years have already tried alcohol. But the Cypriots are still in 49th place in the list of the most drinking nations.

• Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bulgaria, the United Kingdom, Zimbabwe, Israel, Spain, China, Latvia, Lithuania, Mexico, Nigeria, Russia, Thailand, Turkey, Ukraine, France, and Estonia allow to purchase and consume alcohol from the age of 18.

• The purchase of alcohol from the age of 20 is allowed in Iceland, Paraguay, Finland (strong alcohol), Sweden, Norway, and Japan.

• In Egypt, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Cameroon, Micronesia, the USA, and Fiji, the age of consumption of alcohol begins at 21 years.

• In Brunei, Gambia, Libya, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan (for Muslims), a complete ban on the purchase and consumption of alcohol was introduced. In many Muslim countries, drinking and selling of alcohol is punishable as a criminal act. In Iran, Jordan, and the UAE, a drinker can be publicly humiliated or even executed.

Facts drinking age essays or research papers

• 75% of teenagers under the age of 15 have already tried alcohol, and by the age of 17, most of them would have already tried it.
• According to statistics, 5-7% of poisonings in childhood and adolescence fall on alcohol intoxication.

• The main document regulating the age restrictions for alcohol distribution in the US is the National Minimum Drinking Age Act adopted in 1984. The states faced a difficult choice: they had to approve the bill or lose a significant part of federal funding. It was about 10% so the states submitted to the will of the government.

• In the 1970s, in some US states, the age of buying alcohol was reduced from 21 to 18 years, but then, due to the increase in the number of drunk road accidents, it was raised to 21 years again.

• Studies have shown that 22% of US students under 21 drink alcohol. At the same time, only 18% of citizens over 21 years old are drinkers.
• China became the first fighter for sobriety. Here, there are laboratories in which it is possible to pass a free test for diseases caused by alcohol.

• In 2017, the international research company Ipsos compiled the list of the most drinking countries. According to the data, alcohol is consumed most intensively in Belgium. Here, one person consumes 12.6 liters of alcoholic beverages per year. France comes second as every person in the country drinks about 11.5 liters of alcohol per year. The third place was given to Germany with a rate of 11,03 liters of alcohol per person yearly.

Here are some of the other top consumers: Hungary (10.88 liters), Poland (10.71 liters), Great Britain (10.66 liters), Russia (10.12 liters), Australia (9.7 liters), Denmark (9.64) l) and South Korea (9.33 liters).