Deadline #14 HW #1

Brennan Dardis

Eng102 D. Adams

11/28/07

Cover Letter

This semester’s research project was certainly a new experience for me. I have never taken an online/hybrid course before. Needless to say it was confusing, frustrating, yet informative and fun.

What I felt I did well at for this research project was the actual research I did and my attempt at writing a unique stance on a controversial topic in sports. I went to two different libraries for my research, here at MCC and the Tempe public library. I was able to find five useful books for my research on top of the myriad of information on the internet. Spreading out the research project throughout the semester was a great asset as not every source is available at the time you need it. I challenged myself to go outside the norm and write a paper in favor of steroids. Although I agree with the points I made, if I was the commissioner of baseball, I would ban steroids and all of those individuals using them. It was a lot harder to find material in favor of steroids but I enjoyed the process.

Unfortunately there were problems with my research project as well. First of all my lack of meeting several deadlines was very detrimental. Computer access became an issue for me at the start of October due to moving. One thing I really liked about the class was the peer reviews and I was not able to take advantage of that for my WP#3. I also could have done a lot more grammar activities to better my own writing instead of just looking at and learning the topics.

All in all it was a great learning experience and I feel more confident about writing a research paper in the future.

Deadline #11 HW#3

This week was good for two reasons. One it helped see the possibilities I have for writing an introduction and a conclusion, and secondly I was able to see others takes on what they got from the intro/conclusion excercise. I now have over 12 highly usable sources but am having a hard time debating on which ones I want to use in the exact spot in my paper. There are so many stories and quotes I just don't know which ones to use! Overall the process is still going well though, hope everyone has a good weekend!

I posted on:
Kathy DL#11 HW#2
Coralee DL#11 HW#2
Stephann DL#11 HW#1
Justin DL #11 HW#2 and DL #11 HW#3

Deadline #11 HW#2

Intro #1

What keeps fans going to the ballpark? Is it the atmosphere, the food, the live entertainment? Baseball has been a storied sport throughout American history and touches millions of lives throughout the country. Most young boys grow up playing the sport and therefore have a closer relationship with it. However nostalgia and gimmicks alone are not what perpetuates baseball as a business, it’s the record of the home team. Everyone knows that in almost all sports putting up a higher score means victory. In baseball this comes in the form of runs produced. In recent years offensive output has been increased throughout the league and has been linked hand in hand with the ever so controversial subject, steroids. Are the good for the sport are the bad for the sport? In conjunction with proper medical and legal guidance steroids would be a benefit for baseball.

Intro #2

September 8th, 1998 was a date that rekindled the magic in a sport that seemed to be dying slowly. Baseball, the great American sport just four years removed from a strike that led to no postseason was being overtaken by football and basketball and little money was being put into teams except for the larger cities. Then came along a Mr. Mark McGwire and a Mr. Sammy Sosa. Throughout the 1998 season these two sluggers belted homeruns at an alarming rate inching themselves towards the season single homerun record of 61 set by Roger Maris in 1961. Both ended up breaking the record and they captured the attention of all of America. How did these two sluggers do it? The dark horse of baseball, steroids, seemingly held the answer. With larger muscles, and faster recovery times, baseball seemed to be picking up steam offensively. Although viewed by almost all as corrupt and dangerous, they do have their benefits for baseball players.

Conclusion #1

Who knows what can be possible for athletes at the 21st century moves on. Almost certainly though there will be a demand by the players themselves and their fans indirectly for uber steroids/supplements. Just imagine if medical technology could lead to super sight and super reflexes, athletes would be spider men and supermen. One thing is for sure though if regulated and controlled, the athletes of the future could be putting on performances one couldn’t dream of.

Conclusion #2

Under the proper rules and regulations and proper testing times, steroids can only be beneficial for athletes. For the enjoyment of the sport one writer (Tom Verducci) puts it best when he said, “In 1998 a 70-year-old man would have seen a major-leaguer hit 60 home runs in a season only once in his lifetime. By the time the man was 74, the feat had occurred six more times, all by players accused in the court of public opinion of having used performance-enhancing drugs.” Clearly there can be no coincidence, numbers don’t lie.

Deadline #11 HW#1

Ironically enough the only worthwhile substance I got from this weeks reading was on the exercises on drafting introductions and conclusions. I've always had a tough time thinking of exactly how I'm going to start a paper. Conclusions were always a bit easier for me because I'm from the mold of end with a good quote. I think of all the types of introductions you can choose from, albeit straightfoward, is defining your argument. Recently my preferred method has been leading with a story, as I prefer something that grabs my attention. On the contrary I think ending with a story is a bit distracting as I feel as it would detract from your main points and leave the reader thinking about the story alone. The only other useful reading material was the chapter on plagerism as it reminds you even summaries and paraphrasing can be in the grey area at times. I only got the first and last websites to work and they were just categories you could click into.

Deadline #10 HW#6

I went back to the grammar girl site (grammar.qdnow.com) and found that there was no new podcast, but her responses to questions. The most interesting question dealt with regular vs. irregular verbs in the past tense. I actually just used one in the last setence, dealt, the past tense of deal. The example on the site was dreamed vs dreamt. Others are like have and lay, instead of adding ed its ad and id accordingly. Another site I found this week that is kinda cool is called painintheenglish.com. Very similar to grammar girl, check it out!

Deadline #10 HW#2

Pampel, Fred. Drugs And Sports. New York: File on File Inc, 2007.

Best book found so far for the research project. The book starts with the earliest known accounts of doping. It covers amphetamines, steroids, blood doping, and hGH and other designer supplements. From there it covers the current testing policies and what players are doing to get around them. Although this project is only on baseball, it covers topics such as doping in the olympics, football, and collegiate sports. The most beneficial part of this book resides in the section called Minority Views in Favor of Steroid Use. This will be used to show some of the positives of doping in baseball, as most sources are clearly against steroids.

Canseco, Jose. Juiced. New York: Regan Books, 2005.

This is also one of the few sources available on the benefits of steroids. Providing dates, times, conversations, and personal accounts, Jose explains why he thinks steroids are a benefit to baseball players. As a user himself he explains how steroids enabled him to be the star athlete that he was/is. Mostly the correalation of his doping schedule and his output (offensive/defensive stats) will be used for this research project.

Deadline #10 HW#1

This weeks reading in Everything's An Argument was about causal arguments and proprosals. The chapter on causal arguments basically said that they aren't very good. It showed on you can either show how the effects led to a cause, or the causes led to effects. Although it outlined how you can form a causal argument such as the claim, reason, warrant, and then show the evidence while linking to another chain, I tend to agree with the book that these types of arguments are hard to follow and most of the times rarely facilitate an actual conclusion. The proposals chapter was covered earlier in the year as we have already written our research proposals :). The websites this week were really only 2 not 4 as the University of Lincoln Nebraska site and the maricopa site were not available. The other 2 weren't direct topics rather indexes of info that you can use.

This week was both productive and unproductive. As far as sources go I checked out 8 books from the library here and 2 from the tempe library. One of the books I got here is called Drugs and Sports, and not only does it have an overview of steroids in baseball, it has a section in the book called further research, listing sites and tips on how to obtain the most up to date knowledge. I have a feeling there are myriads of this type of book as it is called "Library in a Book", very helpful if you need more sources and there is one for your subject. Unfortunately although I have all of my research done, and all the pages/stats I will be using in my paper, I will not be submitting a WP3 draft due to my work schedule, and since I knew we didn't have class tonight I filled in for another shift. As Devon mentioned before about why not make 1 papers 2 papers, I am doing that for my speech class, also highly recommened if you're going to take a speech class, turn your paper into your speech!