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Sophie Sipprell
Professor Malcolm Campbell
English 1103
10-23-16

Annotated Bibliography
Source 1: Steingard, Ron J., MD. "Mood Disorders and Teenage Girls | Child Mind Institute."
Child Mind Institute. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Oct. 2016.
Summary: The Child Mind Institute website article is about the higher prevalence of depression
in girls than boys after puberty. The symptoms for depression and anxiety are explained along
with treatment options and the importance of family/friend intervention. The main topic of this
article is depression in teenage girls. When talking about people with depression, the author
refers to the subject as she, indicating a woman. While talking about the statistics of depression
in teenage girls and their possible causes, such as the past gender roles of the woman being
nurturing and having more emotions versus the male being the provider and hunter. This
possibility the author shut down by saying how the roles of women has changed to being more of
a provider and the rate of depression has not decreased. Since the article is written by someone
with a medical degree, the source is reliable and the information can be trusted. The article is
published on a nonprofit organizations website called the Child Mind Institute, which focuses on
the mental health and learning disorders of children. They research, deliver care and educate
about issues, such as depression, which adds to the credibility of the source. The intended
audience is adults, specifically those who wish to help a child or their child whom they believe
might be struggling with a mental disorder or a learning disability. Helping and informing people

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about the symptoms and statistics of depression in teenage girls can help save lives and change
them for the better. This source differs from the other sources used because it is from an
organization who specializes in topics like the one I am researching. Also, it differs by naming
symptoms and treatment options for those with depression, which is helpful for my researching.
Knowing the causes of depression is part of what I am looking into. The article also mentions
statistics that backup the claim of teenage girls having a higher rate of depression than boys and
offers a counterargument from a perspective I had never thought of. It also provided physical
evidence through brain scans that show emotional recognition between boys and girls start to
differentiate when puberty starts. The information provided in this article will be useful to my
research and utilized in my project.

Source 2: Salk, Rachel H., et al. "The Contemporary Face of Gender Differences And
Similarities In Depression Throughout Adolescence: Development And Chronicity."
Journal Of Affective Disorders 205.(2016): 28-35. Academic Search Complete. Web. 19
Oct. 2016.
This scholarly article is about a longitudinal study of American teenagers, whom have been
studied since birth. When these participants aged to 11, 13, 15 and 18, their depressive symptoms
were analyzed through various tests. Once they were 20 years old, the depressive diagnosis was
looked at. Out of the 416 participants, most of the participants were white and planned on getting
a higher education at a college. The amount of women and men being tested were about the same
(51% women, 49% male). The results of this experiment were examined by trained doctors in
clinical psychology. Based on the results, the chronicity of the cases was analyzed. There are
tables and graphs that display this information. Also, the results were used to discuss the

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developmental patterns of gender differences in depression, which pertains to my topic. It states
that gender differences in depression in the sample emerged at the age 13. The girls depressive
symptoms increased in early adolescence, while the boys symptoms increased later. They also
found that although the rate of depression differs in gender, the chronicity of clinical depression
in about the same for girls and boys. Like most lab reports, the article lists some flaws of the
experiment. The sample size for the diagnostic interviews were small and the study mainly
pertains to just whites. Some of the studys strengths are the fact that it is a longitudinal study
(more accurate results) and it measured the chronicity of the cases in boys and girls. The study
concluded that girls experienced an increase in depressive symptoms in early adolescences that
boys did not experience until later and that the chronicity burden is the same for boys and girls.
This article is reliable because it is a scientific experiment done by clinical psychologists. It also
cites sources that are knowledgeable on the articles topic, for example the American
Psychological Association. This scholarly journal articles purpose is to inform the audience on
its findings on the rate of depressive symptoms and the chronicity of those cases in girls and
boys by the time they are 20. The intended audience is other scientists and the public, or whoever
wishes to learn about the subject matter. This source is more scientific and provides actual
evidence supporting its claim, which is different than the other sources used. This article is
useful, since it provides specific evidence, and its statistics will be used in my project.

Source 3: Young, Patrick, Dr. "Re: Questions about Teen Depression." Received by Sophie
SIpprell, 4 Oct. 2016.
Patrick Young is a sports performance psychologist at UNC Charlotte. He has worked and talked
to our team (womens soccer) before so I thought it would be proper to ask a psychologist his

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opinion on the psychological matter of the depression in teenagers. Prior to emailing him, I
found out that he does not work with depression and that he is mainly focused on sport
performance; however, I figured he would have better insight into depression having majored in
psychology. The questions I emailed him were, What role do you think social media has on the
rate of depression?, Do you think depression is caused more by environment (nurture) or by
nature (genetics)? and Why do you think the rate of depression would be higher in adolescent
females than in males?. In his answer to the first question, he said yes and mentioned the
increase in cyber bullying and bullying in general. He also mentions depression coming from a
pessimistic way of explaining things and a perceived lack of control, in which he related to
how people cannot control social media, such as things like likes and comments. These can lead
to these depressive symptoms. At the end of his answer to the first question, he mentions a
helpful subject to google that could help with my paper. In the second question, he responded
saying depression tends to be an interaction of biological characteristics and ones
environment. He also says how the two are treated differently, biologically aspects with antidepressants and environmental aspects with techniques like behavior changes and exercise. In
the third question, he hints to the cause of the early increased rate of depression in teenage girls
being due to puberty and hormone changes. Dr. Young is a reliable source because he a certified
psychologist; however, he is not a clinical psychologist, which makes his answers not entirely
credible. This source is a psychologist whose intended audience was me and whose purpose was
to inform based on his knowledge on the topic. Since this source is a person Ive talked to and
interacted with, this source is very different from the other sources. This source was helpful by
providing some new insight and other possible research ideas to shed new light onto the topic. I
am not sure about using this source, since it repeats much of what the other articles have said and

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he does not work directly with depression. Plus, there is not a lot of information from him. I may
email him more questions or see if he knows a psychologist who may be more informed about
the topic I am researching.

Source 4: Haelle, Tara. "Does Some Birth Control Raise Depression Risk? That's Complicated."
NPR. NPR, n.d. Web. 12 Oct. 2016.
NPR is a popular, informative website that includes articles about current events and various
other topics. This article looks into the side effects of hormonal contraceptives, specifically birth
control. When birth control first came out, there was a lot of skepticism and it only increased
when a study came out linking hormonal birth control and depression, as mentioned in the
article. The article goes on to say how there is a slight increase in the rate of depression in
women who take birth control; however, the increase is so slight it is essentially insignificant.
Jeffery Jenson, the director of the Womens Health Research Unit at Oregon Health and Science
University in Portland, is quoted in the article suggesting that the link between the two could be
coincidental. Depression is common. Contraception use is common. So both of those things are
commonly going to occur together, he explained. The article also looks into the connection of
women who are sexually active and their risk of depression when taking contraceptives. This
may be due to the differences in how people respond to hormonal contraceptives. The article also
states that the possible increased risk of depression in teens taking hormonal contraceptives may
be because of their sensitivity to hormonal changes when going through puberty. This could be
an influential factor on why the i rate of depression is higher in teenage girls, since boys do not
take hormonal contraceptives like birth control. The author of this article does not have any
medical credentials, but she does mention and quote people that do have merit. Since this article

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is from a popular website that is known for being informative, I would say that it is reliable but
maybe not as reliable as the other sources mentioned in this annotated bibliography. The articles
purpose is to inform about hormonal contraceptives and the audience is women, specifically
those who may be curious about the side effects of birth control. I may utilize some of
information from this article in my paper since it mentions teenagers and the use of
contraceptives, but the article mainly seems to be talking about an older demographic of women
(ages 20-30).