McLaughlin / WR 13300 / Spr 2015

Research Essay Proposal/Exploratory Draft

Due In Class on 3/17; worth 10 points in the total score for your research paper
Directions: Complete the following proposal and exploratory draft for your research project (you
may type on a separate document, if you wish). A printed copy of your proposal and exploratory
draft is due IN CLASS on Tuesday, 3/17. I will meet with students individually to grade and
discuss these documents, which will be factored into your final research paper grade. To earn full
points, these items should be detailed and should reflect your careful thinking about your project.
Part 1: Research Proposal
YOUR NAME: Conor Ward
TOPIC (I am studying):
Social Media and Athletes

RESEARCH QUESTION(S) (...because I want to find out...)

How has social media effected the way sports fans view athletes?

AUDIENCE & SIGNIFICANCE (...in order to help _______ understand...)

Sports fans understand how their favorite players and teams social media presence has effected
their respective sport.
CONTEXT (This issue is important and timely because...)
Social media is becoming increasingly popular and it is interesting to see how it effects the sport
and its fans.
EXHIBIT (To illustrate my discussion of ______, I plan to focus on _______):
I plan to focus on particular sports and the way certain individuals and teams in said sport use
social media and then examine how this effects the way fans view the sport as a whole.

KEY SOURCES FOUND SO FAR:

MLAcitation

Typeofsource?News
article?Scholarly
journalarticle?Book?
Website?Other?

Whatdoesthesource
offeryourproject?
Background?Statistics?
Theory?Argument?
Counterargument?
Example?

Bad Behavior on Social Media News Article

Can Cost Student Athletes."
CBSNews. CBS Interactive,
11 Aug. 2014. Web. 17 Mar.
2015.

It gives look into how social

media can be harmful to athletes
and fans perception of them.

Talty, John. "How NFL

Athletes Use Social Media To
Build Their Brand, Land
Endorsement Deals."
International Business Times.
N.p., 21 Mar. 2012. Web. 17
Mar. 2015.

News Article

This article gives an explanation

of how athletes can use social
media to promote themselves. In
addition, it talks about how they
can attract more fans through
social media.

Gray, Kevin. "Twitter Athletes:

$5 Million in 140 Characters."
Mensjournal.com. N.p., Nov.
2011. Web. 17 Mar. 2015.

Journal Article

This article describes how

athletes can use their social
media account for monetary
purposes, such as marketing
endorsement products.

Beahm, Devin. "Social Media

Gives Professional Athletes
Powerful Platform."
SportTechie. N.p., 21 Jan.
2015. Web. 17 Mar. 2015.

New Article

This article gives insight into how

athletes can use social media to
further their own personal social
causes.

McLaughlin / WR 13300 / Spr 2015

Part 2: Exploratory Draft
.
1) You should begin with a statement of what you hope to accomplish with the project,
and with what audience (e.g., I plan to argue that the NCAA must revise its existing social media policy
in order to combat the recent increase in recruiting violations). Explain why you find this topic
interesting and important. Provide relevant background information to show the existing conversation
around your topic and the new perspective you hope to offer through your project.
I plan on arguing that their are unforeseen consequences of professional athletes using social media and
that these consequences can be positive and negative. So far I have found many articles on how major
athletes use social media. These articles talk bout how athletes can use social media for anything from
promoting endorsement products to talking about social concerns. There are also some articles that talk
about how social media can be negative for athletes, because some tend to post negative or even criminal
thins such as drug use on their accounts. I find this topic interesting, because it is extreme relevant to
modern sports and it is changing the way the professional sports leagues go about their business.

2) Identify and discuss the intended audience for this project and what this audience has
at stake in the topic you are researching. Questions to help you identify an audience: Who
will benefit? Who will lose something? Who is in a position to be persuaded to follow the
new course of thinking/action for which you plan to argue?

The intended audience for this paper would most likely be sports fans who are curious about how their
favorite sport is changing. If leagues change their policy on social media athletes and fans alike will be
effected, because many fans use social media to get insight into their favorite players lives, while athletes
use it to promote endorsement products, their social concerns, and most importantly themselves. It is the
athletes themselves most likely to lose out, because they use social media for many different self
beneficial purposes.

3) How do you imagine your essay unfolding at this point? What are the distinct
claims/points you anticipate making in order to convince your audience of your
arguments quality and relevance? Provide a tentative outline.

From my research, it seems as though I will be arguing that leagues should monitor their athletes social
media presence in order to keep the athletes themselves out of trouble and to make sure fans continue to
flock to the sport as opposed to being turned away by what they see online. Right now, it seems that I am
not far enough in my research to provide an outline, but I do intend to focus on certain sports as a whole
and then focus on individual athletes within those sports to get a full view of social medias effects.

4) Discuss what sources youve found so far and what other ones you would like to look
for. What kind of evidence will your audience expect? How will you accommodate those
expectations? Who do you anticipate might disagree with you, and why? What evidence
will they likely point to?

So far I have found plenty of newspaper articles, but I have yet to find many scholarly articles. It would
also be beneficial if I could find articles with statistics detailing how fans perception of athletes change
after the athletes join social media. Additionally, many of the articles I have found detail how athletes use
social media, but they do not detail the effects said social media account have.

5) Fifth section: Share any concerns or questions you have about the project. Where do
you anticipate running into problems?

So far I have had trouble finding scholarly articles on the subject because it is so new. However, their are
plenty of newspapers and sports websites that have focussed on the issue. Although, it would be helpful to
find a more scientific analysis of the issue. I hope this can be solved by trying to find a survey that has
been done on the subject.