RJA #10b: Argument

Research question: Why are performance enhancing drugs acceptable in Major league baseball but steroids are not?

Answer/thesis/claim: Performance enhancing drugs should not be acceptable in Major League Baseball because they resemble steroids, in that they are characterized as a weaker form of them. Even though, performance enhancing drugs are a lesser form of steroids, both supplements can potentially harm the athletes physical and emotional health in the long run and in most cases are considered a form of cheating. Through the use of chemicals to promote strength and stamina, the game of baseball is being tainted due to the unnatural enhancement of the athletes. With that said, performance enhancing drugs should not be tolerated in Major League Baseball.

Ethos: adding stats, examples, to my logos

Pathos: applying emotion by sharing a personal story or an effective image that persuade my audience to my argument.

Logos: stating my reasons and following by my ethos which is my supporting evidence

Reason 1: Harmful physically and emotionally
warrant: Performance enhancing drugs are harmful and shouldnt be acceptable.
Evidence 1: Jose Canseco's life experience with drugs
warrant:
Reason 2: Form of cheating
warrant: performance enhancing drugs make atheletes stronger, better stamina
Evidence 2:

RJA #10a: Thesis Statement

Research question: Why are performance enhancing drugs acceptable in Major league baseball but steroids are not?


Precise claim: Performance enhancing drugs should not be acceptable in Major League Baseball.


Reasons/blueprint: Performance enhancing drugs are a weaker form of steroids, that in the long run will affect athletes physical health and emotional health. Using performance enhancing drugs is a form of cheating and is tainting the game of baseball due to the unnatural enhancing of the athletes through use of chemicals to promote strength and stamina.


Complete thesis statement: Performance enhancing drugs should not be acceptable in Major League Baseball because they resemble steroids, in that they are characterized as a weaker form of them. Even though, performance enhancing drugs are a lesser form of steroids, both supplements can potentially harm the athletes physical and emotional health in the long run and in most cases are considered a form of cheating. Through the use of chemicals to promote strength and stamina, the game of baseball is being tainted due to the unnatural enhancement of the athletes. With that said, performance enhancing drugs should not be tolerated in Major League Baseball.

RJA #9: Evaluation of Sources

1. Mitchell, George J. REPORT TO THE COMMISSIONER OF BASEBALL OF AN INDEPENDENT INVESTIGATION INTO THE ILLEGAL USE OF STEROIDS AND OTHER
PERFORMANCE ENHANCING SUBSTANCES BY PLAYERS IN MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL. 13 Dec. 2007 <http://files.mlb.com/mitchrpt.pdf>.

2. Mccloskey, John., and Julian Bailes, M.D. When Winning Costs Too Much. Lunham: Taylor Trade Publishing, 2005.

3. McCallum, Jack. "The Real Dope." Sports Illustrated March 2008. 19 Oct. 2009 <http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2008/magazine/03/11/steroids1/index.html>

4. Epstein, David. "The ABC's of HGH." Sports Illustrated March 2008. 19 Oct. 2009 <http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2008/magazine/03/11/hgh/>

5. Millar AP. Should Drug Testing be Banned. The Doping Journal Vol. 4, 1 (2007) Available at: http://dopingjournal.org/content/4/1/ <http://dopingjournal.org/content/4/1/dopingj042007-01.html>

6. Anabolic steroids. 6 Sept. 2007. Espn., 19 Oct. 2009 <http://espn.go.com/special/s/drugsandsports/steroids.html>

RJA #8c: Multimedia

Resource searched or tool used: Blinkx
Keywords used: steroid use in the NFL
Search strategies used (including operators and types of searches): +steroid use in the NFL-
Date of search: 9/12/09
Number of hits: 24,000
Relevance of hits (on a scale of 1 to 5): 3.5

RJA #8b: Social Media

Resource searched or tool used: Technorati
Keywords used: steroid use in the NFL
Search strategies used (including operators and types of searches): +steroid use in the NFL-
Date of search: 9/12/09
Number of hits: 72
Relevance of hits (on a scale of 1 to 5): 3

Resource searched or tool used: iResearch Reporter
Keywords used: performance enhancing drugs use in the NFL
Search strategies used (including operators and types of searches): +performance enhancing drugs use in the NFL-
Date of search: 9/12/9
Number of hits: 3
Relevance of hits (on a scale of 1 to 5): 3

RJA #8a: Websites

Resource searched or tool used: Zakta
Keywords used: Performance enhancing drugs
Search strategies used (including operators and types of searches): +Performance enhancing drugs-
Date of search: 9/12/09
Number of hits: 10
Relevance of hits (on a scale of 1 to 5): 4

Resource searched or tool used: Cacti Search
Keywords used: Steroids in the NFL
Search strategies used (including operators and types of searches): +Steroids in the NFL-
Date of search: 9/12/09
Number of hits: 19
Relevance of hits (on a scale of 1 to 5): 4

Resource searched or tool used: Search Monster
Keywords used: steroids in the NFL
Search strategies used (including operators and types of searches): + steroids in the NFL-
Date of search: 9/12/09
Number of hits: 10
Relevance of hits (on a scale of 1 to 5): 1

Resource searched or tool used: IncyWincy
Keywords used: steroids in the NFL
Search strategies used (including operators and types of searches): +Steroids in the NFL-
Date of search: 9/12/09
Number of hits: 7,637
Relevance of hits (on a scale of 1 to 5): 2

Internet Research Project

For my internet research tool I was given Keotag. The link for keotag is http://keotag.com/. Keotag is a search engine that helps you search keywords through other search engines. You enter a Keyword for the first step, than for step 2 you pick a website/blog/search engine (delicious, twitter, google, windows live search, technorati), and finally for step 3 keotag will produce links to websites that pertain to your topic. A couple of strengths is that it produces many types of links that are related to what your keywords, and it searches differnet types of search engines. The thing I did not like is that It limits its searches only to a couple of links, it brings up links that are questionable on their credability. I was not able to find an advanced search function, one option you can use is that you can search for tags that pertain to your keyword.

RJA #7c: Field Research Plan

For my field research i plan to conduct a survey. I plan to survey people that I work with and also people that I meet at the gym. I plan to do my survey sometime during the next two weeks, I just have to choose and finalize my questions that I plan to have for my survey.

These are a couple of questions I might ask:

1. Do you think steroid use in The NFL and MLB be allowed?
2. Is steroid or performance enhancing drug use, cheating?
3. Are performance enhancing drugs being accepted now more than before?
4. Have you used any performance enhancing drugs?
5. What sport do you thing has the higher performance drug use, MLB or NFL?

RJA #7b: Internet Research Tool Test

• Resource searched: Keotag


• Keywords used: Performance enhancing drugs in the NFL


• Search Strategies used: +performance enhancing Drugs in NFL-


• Date of search: 10/01/09


• Number of hits: 15


• relevance of hits (1-5): 2.5

RJA #7a: Internet Research Tools

The Internet research tools that I use the most are Google and Yahoo!. I use these search engines because they are easy to use and are easy to access from anywhere. One thing that i like about these search engines are that they produce many links. One thing I dislike about these search engines are that sometimes they produce hits that aren't relevant to what I'm looking for.

1. http://www.google.com/
2. http://www.yahoo.com/