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Writing a good Historical Investigation


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Does anybody know around how many primary/secondary sources we should have? I know there's no fixed number, but I'm doing mine on the breakdown of the Radical Civic Union in Argentina during Hipolito Yrigoyen's presidency and I'm having a ton of trouble finding primary sources.

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Does anybody know around how many primary/secondary sources we should have? I know there's no fixed number, but I'm doing mine on the breakdown of the Radical Civic Union in Argentina during Hipolito Yrigoyen's presidency and I'm having a ton of trouble finding primary sources.

 

There isn't a fixed number, you're right. However, the nature of the topic will dictate how many primary/secondary sources you'll have. Some topics lend themselves to having mostly primary sources with only a small amount of secondary sources, such as topics that are centered around a particular historical item (a letter, film, etc). Some topics lend themselves to mostly secondary sources with few, if any, primary sources, such as topics on ancient history. Some topics focus on obscure topics and there may not be very many sources at all of any kind out there. So work with what you've got for what kind of topic you've got. You can usually find at least one primary source, and if you're having trouble with finding more, focus on finding quality secondary sources.

 

The number of sources will be the number of sources you need to fully answer and support your question with what was available to you. I believe I had around 10 sources when I was done, with two or three being primary sources and the rest being secondary sources.

 

A tip for finding additional sources would be to look at the references used by the historians in the secondary sources you've already found. You can usually find some primary sources in there, as well as a bunch of new secondary sources.

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  • 5 weeks later...

hey, i really have a HUGE problem... i have to submit my IA topic and question today! but i really don't know what topic to chose...

 

i thought of doing something about the one-child-policy in china and its effect on the chinese society and economy, but i figured that might not b personal enough...

 

then i thought of investigating one of charlie chaplins movies, either modern times or the dictator, and how these were important political statements in the time and what influence they had on the people

 

but these topics are so vague and i really can't decide 

 

does one of you have a suggestion???

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Hi, I am currently doing my IA and my research question is : To what extent did "Glasnost" contributed to the rise of nationalist movements whithin the Soviet Union? 

 

Do you think this might be too broad? If so, how could I narrow it down? I'd really appreciate someone's feedback. Thank you. 

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Hi, I am currently doing my IA and my research question is : To what extent did "Glasnost" contributed to the rise of nationalist movements whithin the Soviet Union? 

 

Do you think this might be too broad? If so, how could I narrow it down? I'd really appreciate someone's feedback. Thank you. 

 

I would pick just one or two nationalist movements to focus on, and potentially limit your scope to a particular time period if needed.

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Does anybody know around how many primary/secondary sources we should have? I know there's no fixed number, but I'm doing mine on the breakdown of the Radical Civic Union in Argentina during Hipolito Yrigoyen's presidency and I'm having a ton of trouble finding primary sources.

 do you still need help with this one? i think i could help you!

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One of my sources is a princeton website which says it shouldn't be cited because its information is from wikipedia. So what should I do? Should I quote wikipedia instead?

Follow link to Wikipedia, and then find where in the wiki article your piece of information you're trying to site is. There should be a citation! Most wikis require adequate documentation of the sources used to write the article. that way, u can cite the actual info rather than wikipedia or Princeton... (which was from wikipedia) Hope this helps!

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  • 3 weeks later...

Hey there! - This is preeetty important because I've done my whole summary of evidence in a Table format.


 


I am investigating to what extent the counterculture movement of the 1960s (the hippies) changed the role of American women, so I've done a table comparing different statistics and facts about the role of women before the movement, during the movement, and after the movement


 


I've now been told that it may not be a valid format and it is due very soon so I am panicking a little bit  :unsure:   :(


 


Thank you

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I am sort of confused as to how I should cite things. Right now I have place-holders for each book followed by page numbers. I plan on using find & replace to add my citations in. I have heard mention of summaries and paraphrasing, and other ways of quoting things, but I don't understand the difference in the formatting of the footnote. I have also heard of different formats (MLA etc.). On the example Investigation I was given there were footnotes that had ISBN numbers after them. I have not found a format that includes ISBN numbers, and I am worried that the wrong format could lose me marks. Does anyone know what format would be best, and would be accepted by the IB?

Thank you!

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I am sort of confused as to how I should cite things. Right now I have place-holders for each book followed by page numbers. I plan on using find & replace to add my citations in. I have heard mention of summaries and paraphrasing, and other ways of quoting things, but I don't understand the difference in the formatting of the footnote. I have also heard of different formats (MLA etc.). On the example Investigation I was given there were footnotes that had ISBN numbers after them. I have not found a format that includes ISBN numbers, and I am worried that the wrong format could lose me marks. Does anyone know what format would be best, and would be accepted by the IB?

Thank you!

The format of the citations doesn't matter, just that it is the same throughout the IA. At my school we are told to use Chicago style. Basic Chicago format pdf. (There is also The Chicago Manual of Style (15th ed.) if you need more than just basic citations. Chicago also allows you you put "extra" text in the footnotes (the best part being it doesn't count toward the word count, the bad part being they examiner doesn't have to read it.)

 

Basically Chicago looks like:

Foot note:

     1. First name Last name, title ( Publication city: Publisher, Publication year), pg #.

Bibliography:

Last name, First name. title.  Publication city: Publisher, Publication year.

 

If you want more information feel free to message me. 

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Hi all :) I'm a May 2016, currently writing my History IA. problem is, my history teacher refuses to grade our IA's, or give us any sort of indication about how good they are. So we could be a 4, or a 7, we really have no idea, and it's stressing us out a bit because it counts a lot for SL. we also didn't get any instructions on formatting, table of contents etc.? Does anybody have any suggestions what I could do?

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Hi all :) I'm a May 2016, currently writing my History IA. problem is, my history teacher refuses to grade our IA's, or give us any sort of indication about how good they are. So we could be a 4, or a 7, we really have no idea, and it's stressing us out a bit because it counts a lot for SL. we also didn't get any instructions on formatting, table of contents etc.? Does anybody have any suggestions what I could do?

 

The resources at http://www.activehistory.co.uk are very helpful when it comes to IA. There are several examples of history IA with very high marks so you could write yours with the examples in mind. You could also ask some people at ibsurvival to read your IA and give you some tips.

 

There are plenty of resources on ibsurvival and google in terms of the format.

 

Hope this helped!

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Hi all :) I'm a May 2016, currently writing my History IA. problem is, my history teacher refuses to grade our IA's, or give us any sort of indication about how good they are. So we could be a 4, or a 7, we really have no idea, and it's stressing us out a bit because it counts a lot for SL. we also didn't get any instructions on formatting, table of contents etc.? Does anybody have any suggestions what I could do?

 

The resources at http://www.activehistory.co.uk are very helpful when it comes to IA. There are several examples of history IA with very high marks so you could write yours with the examples in mind. You could also ask some people at ibsurvival to read your IA and give you some tips.

 

There are plenty of resources on ibsurvival and google in terms of the format.

 

Hope this helped!

 

thanks a lot, this helped. I just keep worrying that the examples are too old because the syllabus changes all the time and IBO doesn't give any dates on their examples. but this will be helpful, thanks a lot :)

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Hi,

 

I'm about to start working on my IA in history HL.

I was wondering if you guys have any ideas for it.

thank you! :D

You need to pick something you are genuinely interested in, theoretically you can do it on anything from anytime but it's recommended that you work on something related to the syllabus. I can't be more detailed because your options are literally infinite.

As for my question, i'm pretty deadset on doing my AI on ancient history and I thought of doing a comparison on ancient and modern democracy. Problem is somewhere I read that the historical investigation should be based on something from at least ten years ago. Does this mean my idea isn't valid?

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