I am interested in this research question for many reasons, one being that I have always been involved in sports from a young age.  I played sports throughout my childhood and up through my high school years.  Even today I keep up with sports and I follow South Carolina's many sports.  This research does not directly affect my values, however, it may affect how I view sports injuries and the changes they make to prevent concussions.  My own personal experience with this subject is quite close.  When I was in 10th grade of high school, I suffered a concussion while I was on the baseball team.  I got hit in the head with a baseball and immediately suffered a concussion.  I have also witnessed several other concussions take place while on the baseball field. These instances opened my eyes to the risks of concussions.  I am qualified to write about this because of my experience with the issue and my research of the topic.


This article claims that stopping concussions is near impossible to do. To completely prevent them we would have to change human behavior.  If we changed human behavior then that would change how sports are played all together. American citizens would not be keen to changes in how our sports are played.

The overall interest of this article is to show how concussions are so hard to prevent. There are obvious interests of the actual meaning of what a concussion is and how dangerous they can really be.  The dynamics of the brain injury is defined and broken down showing great knowledge of the subject.

The author of this article seems very credible in the way that the article is written and due to his credentials.  He has a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering, and is also a professor of kinesiology at Penn State.  There doesn't appear to be any bias in this article as he backs up his claims with extensive scientific support on the issue.


The article is based on the discovery of a new disease related to NFL football players and concussions.  The autopsy of a former NFL player revealed a disease that had never been seen before.  This is what the movie "Concussion" is based upon with Will Smith as the leading actor.

This article does not affect my values but it should  open the eyes to the public on how many different possible outcomes there are from concussions in sports.  A new disease was discovered and it was due to hitting in sports.  If a new disease was discovered there must be many different possible outcomes.

This article is credible due to the fact that he discovered this disease, CTE.  The awareness of this disease has since spread.  The NFL turned the other cheek and would continue to deny that a disease was found. The purpose of his autopsy and finding the disease was not of personal merit but a faith journey that shows the priorities of humans.


This is a scholarly article that is very informational and reveals a majority of the science that goes behind concussions. It goes on to explain what CTE is, and everything that comes along with it. It explains how it is mostly brought upon the players and it touches on preventative measures.

The values of this article is clear.  It is an article that's purpose is to explain in detail the correlation of concussions and CTE. It explains in depth the impacts that CTE has and the possible symptoms that may occur.

The credibility of this article is rates as very credible. There are three different authors with extensive backgrounds that deal with science and medicine. There does not seem to be any bias as all claims are backed up with data or scientific evidence. 

This research question is very arguable as it is a very prevalent occurrence during current times.  There are two sides to the argument and one side is backed by billion dollar industries like the NFL.  This sets up the question to have many feasible sources that could be used for the writing.  Through the sources that I used there was a common theme that awareness is key to being able to prevent the terrible effects of concussions.  One of the sources is a great informational source that gives me a true meaning of what CTE is and the impact it has on the victims. The different perspectives of the sources show how there are many different views relating to this topic.  The different sides open possibilities of many perspectives and opens my mind up to both sides of the issue. I may revise my research question by making it more broad to include more information that I may find in the future.
