English Text Analysis: Laura E. Agnich's 'Scientific Journal'

English Text Analysis #3 - Scientific Journals

In the world of academic publishing and scientific research, scientific journals are noted to be the most accurate and thoroughly researched text pieces. This is due to the fact that scientific journals are peer reviewed by experts amongst that field before being accepted for publication. Purple drank prevalence and characteristics of misusers of codeine cough syrup mixtures is an article written by Laura E. Agnich, John M. Stogner, Bryan Lee Miller, Catherine D. Marcum and published in the scientific journal, Addictive Behaviours in September 2013. This essay will investigate and analyse the text found in the article will identify the values, attitudes, and beliefs conveyed by this text.

Starting at the introduction, the scientific article is divided up into two columns. This is so the lines of text can sometimes be harder to read, so they are broken up into two columns to make it easier for the reader. The font in this text is serif, which is an older, early generation font. Serif was developed with a little stroke as the text character finishes and this font is one of the easiest to read, hence why it is one of the most common fonts to use in technical writing. This type of structure, which contains two columns can be linked back towards the standard conventions because it is a very common thing type of structure layout, not just in scientific journal articles but in all sorts of technical

The article highlights four major points, being that purple drank use was most prevalent among Native Americans and Hispanics, males reported purple drank use more than females, LGBT students were more likely to have used purple drank than heterosexuals and that students from urban areas were more likely to have used purple drank. The article itself does not reveal any major breakthroughs but it does support already existing knowledge linking specific demographics and use of purple drank. The research, however, does show that there are further avenues of research, such as “the survey was unable to differentiate between various types of purple drank (for example, codeine cough syrup with sprite/cough syrup with alcohol)”. This pathway of further research describes the potential to study the specific type of mixture made because there are a number of ways and ingredients the concoction can be made with. Another path of further research that is suggested in the article is stated as “we cannot delineate whether purple drank use preceded or followed the use of other drugs.” This form of research would take on a wider population and determine whether other drugs were consumed along with purple drank. Some of the main issues with the use of purple drank are included in the introduction, which includes issues like;