Historical investigation on China help!

[Iblife]

Hi everyone!

I am planing to do my IA on China and here are two topics I came up with:

To what extent did China's policy of opening up to the outside world benefit the Chinese economy?

To what extent did China's policy of opening up to the outside world, introduced by Deng xiao peng, improve the lives of civilians in china?

My teacher say I should not make my topic too broad. I haven't done much research in my topic but i think that the chinese economy can be a very broad subject so I don't know if I should take question 1.

Regarding question 2, I am actually more interested in this question, however I fear that there is not many reseources or information on this because I have not seem much online.

What do you guys think about my questions? Are they good topics for a historical investigation?

[bella0914]

I'm planning on doing something on China too. In a big hurry to pick a topic though, so I'm a little worried it won't be good. Urgh. One week. But I think your second one is better, but even that could be a tiny bit more specific. But seems good. Advisors know better though.

Edited November 9, 2010 by bella0914

[larry]

Actual best thing to do? Do some background research. You'll find out what resources are readily available at your school, and get some idea of how manageable a topic it is - is it conceivably explain-able in 1600 words when comparing different historians' views on the subject? If it's not, you're also going to have to know the background information to refine the topic to something more foccussed.

Just be careful with your wording of the question, so you don't have to deal with all the other factors that were influencing the chinese economy at the time: maybe "How did China's policy of opening up to the outside world affect the Chinese economy?". I might be being paranoid there, though. As bella0914 said, discuss it with your teacher is the best option (amazing as we all are on this forum, teachers are still very useful)