Herlan 1
Alexandra Herlan
Composition 1
Writing project 1
Word Count: 1580
03/05/2018
Annotated Bibliography: Should we educate the public more on mental illness?
Mantel, Barbara. “Teen Suicide.” CQ Researcher, 12 Sept. 2014, pp. 745-68
Barbara Mantel, a freelance writer in New York City, explains teen suicide and how the
rates have risen recently among 13 to 19- year-olds. Researchers have a hard time pinpointing
why this has happened and what lurks inside the mind of a suicidal teen. Suicide-prevention
organizations think that suicide risk factors are mainly having depression, anxiety, past suicide
attempts and a family history of suicidal behavior. A lot of this article is centered around
suicide-prevention programs in schools and how effective they are or aren’t. The school
administrators think that since teens spent a lot of their time in school, they should focus there.
The findings from these programs are mixed, however. Principals were not comfortable
screening teens for depression and other mental illnesses, but were more comfortable educating
the student body about suicide risks and warning signs and training school staff. This article also
talks about the myths surrounding suicide in order to educate the reader more on the common
misconceptions. There is also a chronology within the article explaining the timeline of suicide
and mental illnesses. The use of the media and the internet is also talked about as being a support
center for many teens struggling and helping them feel safer and less alone. 21 states require
suicide-prevention training and 16 require training on a nonannual basis. The article ends on how
teens need to have access to mental help professionals in order to fix this current problem we
face as a growing nation.
Herlan 2
The author did a fantastic job explaining all the statistics centered around teen suicide and
it was really easy to follow. There was never a time where one would get bored reading this or
would ever feel like it was repetitive. In my opinion this topic was very well researched and
thorough with its attention to detail. There are footnotes at the bottom for all the sources the
author used and they are all credible. The author clearly took a lot of time doing research on this
topic and this piece really stands out to me because it is more specifically related to my topic.
This text is useful to me and others by educated us more on the seriousness surrounding suicide
and what we can do to help.
Clemmitt, Marcia. “Treating Depression.” CQ Researcher, 26 June 2009, pp. 573-96
Marica Clemmitt explains how depression and suicide rates increase during difficult
economic times and how trauma and different types of stress can trigger depression in adults.
