[URGENT] HL History IA question!

[Guest sadfasdfeeeeee]

I have to email my teacher for him to approve my history IA question. I emailed him Thrusday and he didn't get it so I lost a couple of days and re-emailed him again today. The first part are the questions that I came up with while the second is his reply. I'm trying to stray away from WWII, any help please!!! It's urgent and due tomorrow (12/08).

[quote=questions]Was the assassination of the Austria-Hungarian heir Archduke Franz Ferdinand was
the cause of WWI?

Was the treaty between Austria-Hungry and Germany the cause of WWI?

Was the invention of the German U-boat Germany's greatest downfall?

What impact on modern technology did the innovation of war weapons during WWI
have?[/quote]
[quote=reply]Chris,
All of the questions are too broad. You need to narrow the scope of what you
are investigating. For instance the "treaty" between Germany and Austria
Hungary is really the "blank cheque". You need more detail for one of these
otherwise it will be either a narrative paper or one that lacks the detail
needed for a good grade.[/quote]

[deissi]

Your teacher is right, your paper needs to be a lot more focused. Also, if it's due tomorrow (and it's a full History IA), all I can say is good luck with that and hope you don't procrastinate ever again.

[Guest sadfasdfeeeeee]

[quote name='deissi' post='29875' date='Dec 7 2008, 04:53 PM']Your teacher is right, your paper needs to be a lot more focused. Also, if it's due tomorrow (and it's a full History IA), all I can say is good luck with that and hope you don't procrastinate ever again.[/quote]
It's not the whole thing, he just needs to approve the question by tomorrow. The IA isn't due till February.

Can you give me some tips on how to make the questions more focused?

Came up with one but I don't know if it's focused enough or if it'll turn into a narrative
"Was the battle of the Somme or the Schlieffen plan the turning point to the Germans during WWI?" (I'll choose one but I'm not doing comparison research on both right now to find out that it's not narrow enough)
"Was the 2nd Battle of the Marne the most influential war to the Germans during WWI?" (meaning of influential - influenced the tactics of WWI)

And It's not my fault that I'm doing it last minute, I would have been able to do more research but I didn't know that he didn't get the email until today.

Edited December 7, 2008 by Cmertin

[eblake]

[quote name='Cmertin' post='29876' date='Dec 7 2008, 04:56 PM']It's not the whole thing, he just needs to approve the question by tomorrow. The IA isn't due till February.

Can you give me some tips on how to make the questions more focused?

Came up with one but I don't know if it's focused enough or if it'll turn into a narrative
"Was the battle of the Somme or the Schlieffen plan the turning point to the Germans during WWI?" (I'll choose one but I'm not doing comparison research on both right now to find out that it's not narrow enough)
"Was the 2nd Battle of the Marne the most influential war to the Germans during WWI?" (meaning of influential - influenced the tactics of WWI)

And It's not my fault that I'm doing it last minute, I would have been able to do more research but I didn't know that he didn't get the email until today.[/quote]


Don't finalize your question until you've researched your topic. Read, and find an issue with two diverging POVs. [b] See below. [/b]Find what the divergence comes down to, form an opinion of your own, layout a plan for how you're gonna prove you're right. THEN formulate a question as to correspond exactly to your argument and thesis. If you're just pulling one out of your head, based on some general reading you've done - which is what this seems like - chances are your IA isn't gonna be focused, which means your question is going to be hard to answer. Obviously if you don't address your own question well, you're basically screwed no matter what the content of your IA is.


SO. in lieu of this, I suggest you do some more reading and decide on your own whether your question is specific/focused enough that your IA will address it. I'm no expert on tactics in WWI, or WWI at all really, so I can't tell you if any of the ones you posted are good questions. But the general strategy to posing a question for long essays is to ask one you already know you can confidently answer - no one except you, not even your history teacher, knows what that question is. Ignore how lame that just sounded and how much you want to make excuses/didn't have time/late response from teacher, you're in IB, deal with it.


[b][Edit][/b]example of how to formulate a research question in history:

I read about the days in the White House before the decision to drop the atomic bomb on hiroshima; i.e. what President Truman and his advisors were saying, etc.
I found that there are [b]three[/b] views on the decision: one, that there wasn't a 'real' decision, as in Truman just went with the flow of things and authorized the bomb, two that the situation was desperate and he had to use it - again, no 'real' decision, and three, that Truman wanted to impress the rest of the world so he decided to blow up a bunch of Japanese.

at this point, it's pretty obvious the divergence I was talking about rests on whether there was a 'real' decision.
Hence my research question was there.

As TOK will tell you, you don't have a question unless you have prior knowledge. I made that mistake with my EE, the not-reading and just randomly asking a question, and that.. wasted.. a lot.. of time. Don't do that..

Edited December 13, 2008 by eblake