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# 11 Working towards a conclusion

If you have studied with The Open University or written assignments at another university, you will know that a good written argument works towards a conclusion, drawing on the evidence that has been presented. A further skill in drawing an argument together is careful use of language to convey that there are often uncertainties in claimed facts or arguments. For example, you have already heard how ‘claims’ can be a useful term. Also, use of hedging words (such as ‘maybe’, ‘appear to’, ‘perhaps’, ‘indicate’, ‘suggest’, ‘sometimes’, ‘often’, ‘mostly’ ‘partly’ or ‘probably’) can ensure your writing recognises that evidence may not always be clear-cut.

You will now hear a group of academics from Loughborough University begin to pull together their discussion about doping in sport.

## Activity 11 Pulling together a discussion

Allow about 20 minutes

For context, immediately before this clip, the discussion featured some arguments for the use of doping, such as:

- Sport is part of the entertainment industry: we don’t regulate drug use in rock music or in acting/film-making.
- Fairness – poor countries don’t have access to computer analysis or expensive cycling/rowing/sailing equipment or high-altitude training camps, which maintains rich countries’ dominance in the Olympic Games medals table. For some, doping represents a cheap science.
- While harm reduction arguments against doping are often used, in contact sports we avoid saying, ‘don’t play rugby’, or, ‘don’t box’, because they’re dangerous. How can we legitimately say ‘avoid some drugs’ because they could be dangerous?

Listen to this audio and identify the following.

1. What are the main moral and commercial arguments for strongly supporting anti-doping?
2. What other complexities are raised in this attempt to conclude a discussion about doping?

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Working towards a conclusion
Transcript
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### Discussion

1. In their discussion the academics came to a clear conclusion about why anti-doping is so important. The main moral argument is about sport having distinctive qualities and moral characteristics (i.e. the ‘spirit of sport’). A commercial argument was expressed about the unique selling point of sport being its youthful and relatively clean image. They claimed this image needs to be protected in the mass media and among parents.
2. The complexities include the inconsistency of some parents being happy to risk their children taking human growth hormone drugs to develop for particular sports. Possible inconsistencies exist in sports organisations not always robustly policing their sports for fear of harming its commercial image. This opens debate to how effectively sports are governed, which has been deliberately kept out of scope to help keep the argument focused.

Although you have only scratched the surface of the doping issue, here is an example of what could be summarised as a tentative conclusion in our short doping example.

- Continued collaboration around the world is important to help tackle doping, and the establishment of WADA has been key to this.
- It is difficult to talk about drug-free sport since, as history shows, sport has never been clean and eliminating doping is virtually impossible, just as a crime-free society is unlikely. Instead, sport should aspire to reduce doping to the lowest levels it can.
- Sports being removed from the Olympic Games for continued doping offences may provide a good incentive for organisations to act robustly to preserve the spirit of sport.

Next you will look back at some of the main learning points from the course.

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OpenLearn - Doping: a contemporary sports issue case study
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