Chapter 1. Chapter 1

1.1 Alexis Alvarez, from “Writing about the Impact of Competitive Sports on Adolescent Girls”

Below is an excerpt from a student essay in APA format. Check whether the student has properly cited her sources. Click on each sentence to see alternative versions, and then choose which version cites the source correctly. If the original version is correct, choose “No error.” When you are done, “submit” your response.

Teenage girls take steroids for some of the same reasons that professional athletes do—to increase stamina and strength and to acquire a lean, muscular body. However, girls also take steroids to compete for athletic scholarships (“Girls and Steroids”).

According to Charles Yesalis, a professor of sports science and senior author of a Penn State report, a lot of young women see steroid use as an investment in their future; athletes can take the hormones for a few months in high school, qualify for a college scholarship, and then stop taking the drugs before sophisticated lab tests can spot them.

What teenagers don’t realize, though, is that even a few months of steroid use can permanently damage the heart, trigger liver failure, stunt physical growth, and put a woman’s childbearing ability at risk. Steroids cause muscles to outgrow and injure the tendons and ligaments that attach them to the bone (Faigenbaum et al., 1998).

DeNoon quotes Farnaz Khadem, spokeswoman for the World Anti-Doping Agency, who said, A lot of these young people have no idea of what this is doing to their bodies. This is a real health danger. (DeNoon, 2004).