Alix Posted January 16, 2009 Report Share Posted January 16, 2009 I really need some advice on my topic. I'm really stressing as everyone else in my class has their research question and we have a preliminary bibliography due on February 6th and I still am struggling to find a good research topic let alone research... I'm really interested in propaganda and thought of doing a comparative study of British and Nazi propaganda during the Second World War or doing it on the role of the Treaty of Versailles in Hitler's rise to power. Any advice or suggestions would be appreciated!! Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hyperbole Posted January 17, 2009 Report Share Posted January 17, 2009 [quote name='Alix' post='33826' date='Jan 16 2009, 08:01 PM']I really need some advice on my topic. I'm really stressing as everyone else in my class has their research question and we have a preliminary bibliography due on February 6th and I still am struggling to find a good research topic let alone research... I'm really interested in propaganda and thought of doing a comparative study of British and Nazi propaganda during the Second World War or doing it on the role of the Treaty of Versailles in Hitler's rise to power. Any advice or suggestions would be appreciated!![/quote] I think the propaganda topic sounds really interesting, and quite doable. Especially if you focus your research question on a certain aspect of it, because otherwise I can imagine that it easily gets way, way too extensive. For example, you could choose to compare and contrast the ways in which propaganda was targeted to different groups, or how art and culture was used as propaganda, or something more narrowed down like that. One of the best pieces of advice I can give for the formulation of a research question is to make it as narrow as possible, and make it wider later if it's necessary! To my ears, the topic on Hitler's rise to power doesn't sound at all as exciting, but I don't think it's a bad topic at all. Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vvi Posted January 17, 2009 Report Share Posted January 17, 2009 Are you very determined to do Hitler? The problem with him is, he's the most studied and most overdone topic for historical investigation's or EE's. Same goes for Mao and Stalin. I would suggest picking another dictator, less well known but more than 10 years old. Like Peron and Pinochet in South America. Chile and Argentina are great countries to compare in terms of propaganda because they are so close to each other, yet they had such different histories. Don't do the rise of Hitler. It's such a common question in IB exams, which means that examiners have read so many papers on it that it will be very easy for them to mark you down since they have read hundreds of essays on the same thing. They won't mark you down because you're doing a common topic, but because they will know all the arguments and all the different historians points of view inside out. You could compare British WWII propaganda with Margaret Thatcher's propaganda. Like Hyperbole said, compare only certain aspects (like radio and television or radio and newspapers) and have a point to it. E.g. Compare and contrast the radio and television propaganda of ____ and ________ and it's effects on achieving public support for their foreign policies. Don't just have your title as "Compare and contrast ________'s propaganda". Your investigation needs to have a point; why are you comparing them? Obviously not for fun. If you can think of any historical event on your own country, that would be great. My classmate did an EE related to the pullout of the British mandate in Palestine, since she's Palestinian. Other people in Finland have analysed Finnish and Soviet diplomacy during the Cold War. Some unexplored aspect of a country's history is original, and means that you can actually come up with your own thesis statement rather than use all the one's already out there. Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alix Posted January 21, 2009 Author Report Share Posted January 21, 2009 (edited) Thanks for the advice, I agree that Hitler's rise to power is a bit generic, and I think propaganda may be more interesting. Yeah, I need to narrow it.. maybe radio and poster propaganda? At least I have a topic and I will do some research which could help me formulate the research question. Thanks! Edited January 21, 2009 by Alix Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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