Freewrite for the Research Paper

            My research topic is going to be the use of steroids in sports.  This can range from high school athletes using steroids, to collegiate athletes, and even professional athletes and players.    I will include specific examples of different sports to show that the topic is relevant in sporting events.  Marion Jones is a track athlete that used a certain type of steroid and got her Olympic medals taken away from her and her team.  She acclaimed that she did not know she was given steroids, so I can include the different forms of steroids in this portion of the paper.  Steroids can be in the form of a pill, oil, and several others.  Another specific example to use can be Barry Bonds.  Steroids are popular in baseball and in this portion of the paper I can include the relevance of steroids in baseball and how Barry Bonds used them.  I can include statistics about the prevalence of steroids in different sports.  I can say which sports are more prone to use steroids and which sports have the most steroid abusers.  After using examples I can talk about the reasons to why people use steroids in the first place.  I will talk about how they enhance performance and can increase a person’s performance.  After I say the positive effects they can produce, I will talk about all of the negative effects that come with steroids.  I can talk about how they can hurt a person’s health lifelong and people may also have the chance to become addicted to them.  Other information that I can include in the paper can be the legality of steroids and how people can be hurt badly from the law and sporting officials by using steroids.  Athletes can be kicked off their sports team if they take steroids in college and professional athletes can get their accomplishments and medals stripped from them if they test positive for steroids.  There are other topics to include for steroids, like the cost of them and where people can purchase them.  Steroids are harmful to the human body and have high prevalence in different sports.

            I will find sources from several different resources.   One source I could use will be books describing the definition of what steroids are. I will find books that describe the positive and negative effects that steroids can bring.  I can also use articles that say specific examples of steroid use.   Online resources could be more helpful for finding more recent statistics and other information that books or articles may not have.  I could also interview athletes and coaches and ask them about their take on steroids and if they have ever used them. 

            Problems that I may run into when doing this research paper could be finding enough information for each topic I want to talk about.  Also, for the interview part that I may want to include, people may lie about their take or if they have used them because they know that most steroids are illegal.  This could be true for all statistics I want to look up, including online resources.

Timeline

2-15-12 Have four sources found and cited

2-17-12 Freewrite due

2-20-12 Have ten sources found, no more than 1-2 popular sources

2-29-12 Annotated Bibliography due

3-7-12 Outlines for pier review due

3-16-12 First draft due

3-26-12 Research log due

3-30-12 Final draft due