Evaluation Of Scholarly Sources

The controversy I initially picked had to do with studies and data of the Physiology of a biker in the Tour De France who was suspected of doping. To find scholarly sources on the issue I had to widen my results to performance enhancers in cycling in general. In this blog post I am analyzing two scholarly sources on the issue.

Merlin2525. "Injection." 04/18/14 via Clipart. Public Domain Dedication License.

The two articles I found, one titled, “The Rise of Success in Sports and the Rise of Doping Cultures,” (article 1) and the other titled, “Regulating Performance-Enhancing Technologies: A Comparison of Professional Cycling and Derivatives Trading” (article 2) both approach the subject of doping from different angles. Article 1 analyzes the decisions of professional athletes, and determines the pros and cons of doping in sports relative to their gained success and the opinion of other athletes. Article 2 discusses the impact of doping in cycling, and the evolution of performance enhancing methods, on the financial aspect of doping, and the market this created.

Article 1 was published in the Scandinavian Journal of Economics (SJE), and article 2 is from the Annals of the American Academy of Political Science (AAAPS).

Both articles cite numerous other scholarly sources. These sources range from economic journals, to sports medicine studies, to legal cases, all of which contain an extent of information related to the subject of doping and athletics.

Article 1 was written by Holger Strulik, a professor at the University of Hannover in Germany. Article 2 was written by Nancy Reichman and Ophir Sefiha. Reichman is a professor at the University of Denver, and Sefiha is a professor at Western Carolina University.

Both articles are very complex, and are meant for a well read and educated audience. Both are lengthy, and not easy reads, and are not for just anybody. Article 1 is intended for anyone curious about the pros and cons of doping on a very complex level, whereas article 2 has a more Economic focus.

Both of the articles I found using the JSTOR search engine, then copy and pasted the title of the articles into Google to find PDF versions of both.