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History EE on historical basis of video games


mhudson

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My old history teacher helped me come up with the idea of taking modern war video games and investigating how historically accurate they are. It was approved by the IB coordinator at my school, but I told everyone else and they think that its a bad subject for an extended essay. Can someone give me advice? Is that a good topic?

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While I do find the topic interesting...there is an underlining joke to it almost. It's as if, or at least it comes off to other people that way (this might not be your case), that some IB students lack the capacity to develop a history-based EE. Think about college. This is the aim of the EE, and its usually graded by college staff. The point is to get you to sit down and develop a fabric of thoughts that is so wide and long, that you must paint a meticulous pattern on the garb in order to get the score you want.

history based EE should focus around a very specific issue, that is extreme unique. Like: How did the Danube River in central Belgrade effect the quality of life during the Bombing of Belgrade.

Pulling sources out of context - no not like that. Twisting their purpose for something wonderful. For example, using the topic above I would probably look into books that simply stated the hardships endured and the nasty water quality of the river - rather than specifically look for sources that are labeled "effects of Danube River on Belgrade during Bombing". That was, you are searching - you are exploring history. Of course, you want to include those explicit sources as well.

I have found that my Staff at the school is never right. and the students, always more helpful.

Get more opinions before you make a decision. best of luck!!

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The thing is, in History EE's you have to evaluate evidence and consider historians' different viewpoints of the subejct and come to a conclusion. I'm not sure how well that topic fits in with the criteria for the History EE, which you can find here http://tedibextendedessay.wikispaces.com/file/view/Extended+essay+2009.pdf.

Firstly "The topic chosen must focus on the human past, be worthy of study, and lend itself to systematic investigation in line with the published assessment criteria. Essays that focus on events of the last 10 years are not acceptable, as these are regarded as current affairs, not history." Most of the video games you would talk about would be more recent than this, and video games don't relate direcly to the human past.

Secondly, "Students must choose a research question that is not of a trivial nature. Research questions that do not lead to systematic investigation, critical analysis and detailed understanding are unlikely to be suitable. Social history does include areas such as music and sport, but these are only acceptable for a history extended essay if they are tackled from a historical perspective." Video games seme to fit in with social history, and you aren't examining them from a historical prespective directly.

I think you would be better off choosing a question related to human history and not that of video games. Like biochem said, teachers (even those who have taught the IB for many years) aren't always great at giving advice about research questions. My sister's geography teacher told her that doing her EE on "The effects of corruption in Kenya" would be a great idea, even though the topic is obviously too broad. I convinced her to leave the topic altogether and to go with her second choice of investigating certain aspects of African literature.

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The thing is, in History EE's you have to evaluate evidence and consider historians' different viewpoints of the subejct and come to a conclusion. I'm not sure how well that topic fits in with the criteria for the History EE, which you can find here http://tedibextendedessay.wikispaces.com/file/view/Extended+essay+2009.pdf.

Firstly "The topic chosen must focus on the human past, be worthy of study, and lend itself to systematic investigation in line with the published assessment criteria. Essays that focus on events of the last 10 years are not acceptable, as these are regarded as current affairs, not history." Most of the video games you would talk about would be more recent than this, and video games don't relate direcly to the human past.

Secondly, "Students must choose a research question that is not of a trivial nature. Research questions that do not lead to systematic investigation, critical analysis and detailed understanding are unlikely to be suitable. Social history does include areas such as music and sport, but these are only acceptable for a history extended essay if they are tackled from a historical perspective." Video games seme to fit in with social history, and you aren't examining them from a historical prespective directly.

I think you would be better off choosing a question related to human history and not that of video games. Like biochem said, teachers (even those who have taught the IB for many years) aren't always great at giving advice about research questions. My sister's geography teacher told her that doing her EE on "The effects of corruption in Kenya" would be a great idea, even though the topic is obviously too broad. I convinced her to leave the topic altogether and to go with her second choice of investigating certain aspects of African literature.

I think you are right about this, except everyone has told me to choose a subject I have an interest in. I chose something that I love - video games. I have thought for a long time and nothing else would interest me more than video games as my topic. My advisor and IB Coordinator said my subject is a good subject, but I have seen a list of everyone else's, and compared to theirs, mine does not seem to compare. It is almost embarrassing, because some people laughed when they read my topic. If I were to choose video games and their historical accuracy, it would come across to the rest of my class mates as a cop-out of doing work. Also, in the criteria, (which my school has not exactly given) "the topic must be worthy of study" does not seem to fit with my subject. I was under the impression that the rubric you used was for the IB History Internal Assessment and not the EE. I am probably wrong, but it seems similar (my school has probably failed to give me the right information, since this is the first year they have had IB). Anyway, even if I found one particular war and investigated how accurately 3 different video games portrayed it, that would not be good enough? Do you think that is "trivial in nature"? If so, how can I examine it from a historical perspective, because I would really like to do video games?

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If your classmates had that reaction to your current EE topic, then the examiner may have the same reaction. Do you take Business? You could do an EE on some business aspect of marketing/advertising/selling video games. That would seem to me to be a better way of approaching the topic of video games, as there is a huge market worldwide. You could choose a video game company/specific video game and research it's market potential, etc. Even if you don't take Business as an IB subject, you can still write an EE on it. You could also fit the topic in under Economics, and investigate differing elasticities of demand and the complementary relationship between video games and computers (you would have to learn some economic theory in order to do this, same as for business). But if you're really set on doing video games, then you are probably willing to do what it takes.

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Viivi said a lot of good points but I'd like to just point out a few things about History EEs in general. For History, I would definitely stick to more 'mainstream' history - well known events, places and people. One, you'll have more sources. It may be hard to be very original but you can't go much off tangent, unless you begin to suggest that the USA caused WWI or something.

Though the EE guide states social history EE are ok as long as you approach it from a historical perspective, I think such essay would be really hard to write well. One is lack of sources. Two is that it can often overlap with other subjects, sociology especially. My History teacher used to mark History EE and he told us about one that talked something about dolphins hunting that ended up having nothing to do with History, or one about a person's family history that just went into a rant about society. In the end, I wouild say go for something slightly mudane but write it well rather than try to be original and then messing it up totally. Originality isn't allocated that many mark in the EE. It is important to an extent but since everything is according to criteria, sometimes it's better to conform.

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Okay, I talked to my advisor, and I have decided to do away with the whole subject of video games. You all are right that there are not enough sources and it is not historically relevant enough. I have decided to go with something in British history, because I used to live there. How does this sound? Winston Churchill's policies toward the mideast after World War II and their impact. I think it is specific enough. Please let me know what you think.

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It would be better if you phrased your topic in question form, as they are easier to answer in your EE and make it more specific. But you're going in the right direction, your question is almost there.

I think you should choose one of Churchill's policies towards the Middle East in that time period, and analyse it's impact on the region/new developments (like the emergence of Israel as a state). It may even be better to choose the impact on just one country, as after WWII Israel became a state, and so the attitudes of the entire Middle East aren't the same because of that. e.g. "What was the impact of Churchill's _______ policy on Israeli-Palestinian relations after WWII?"

Did Churchill's policy have a specific name (US presidents' policies always have names, like the New Deal)? If so, then you should use that name in your question. So basically "What was the effect of Churchill's _______(name of policy) on the Middle East after WWII?" I think it might be better to consider a specific effect, such as the changing of attitudes towards Britain as a result of the policy. A policy can have many effects (political, social, economic, military) and it may be too much to attempt to discuss all of those in an EE.

An example of a question like that would be "What was the impact of Churchill's policy of (foreign intervention) on the attitudes of Middle Easterners towards Britain after WWII?" or "What was the _____(social, economic, whatever) impact of Chruchill's policy of ______ on the Middle East after WWII?"

Hope those gave you some ideas as to which direction you can take your topic.

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Just to contribute to the video games discussion: In my school one of my friends did her EE on the historical accuracy of the Tudors-series compared to real known history. I think it ended up being pretty ok and our history teacher was also satisfied with it. In her EE she claimed that the topic was important to study, because it discussed the popularisation of history and how history might be "twisted" to entertain people more. So in theory you could do it on video games as well, but that might be a lot more difficult than a TV-series. There would probably be much more complications, because in TV-series there's much more background given than in video games and all that.

Just my thoughts... :P

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I'm also stuck on doing a topic on video games and it's too far now to change the entire subject but I can still alter my question and field it's under. I can't find what to tie them into, at first I was told my topic would fall under social and cultural anthropology but that isn't offered at my school and I don't have the opportunity to understand the field enough to write the EE about it. Any suggestions on what I could fit it under? It would be greatly appreciated, I'm running into so many dead ends it's getting very discouraging.

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I'm also stuck on doing a topic on video games and it's too far now to change the entire subject but I can still alter my question and field it's under. I can't find what to tie them into, at first I was told my topic would fall under social and cultural anthropology but that isn't offered at my school and I don't have the opportunity to understand the field enough to write the EE about it. Any suggestions on what I could fit it under? It would be greatly appreciated, I'm running into so many dead ends it's getting very discouraging.

So are you doing it only about video games or do you link it to history? Because if you link it to history, you could fit it under history as a subject. For example, take few games related to historical events (eg. WW2 is easy one and strategy games) and discuss how history is presented through them. But if not, you could always link it to psychology (if you study it) and talk about how video games reduce/increase violence etc. etc. Just some suggestions. :)

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but the thing is that these teachers don't know anything about IB. thanks anyway

well i think its a very unique one which no one even dared to try :)

and your ib coordinator approved it and your teacher gave you that idea

i say, why not go for it? its going to be an interesting topic :)

good luck!

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So are you doing it only about video games or do you link it to history? Because if you link it to history, you could fit it under history as a subject. For example, take few games related to historical events (eg. WW2 is easy one and strategy games) and discuss how history is presented through them. But if not, you could always link it to psychology (if you study it) and talk about how video games reduce/increase violence etc. etc. Just some suggestions. :)

Well I reworked it and now I'm using the virtual reality world proposed in a book from the 50's so I can tie in modern gaming and the view that was talked about in the book, so now it's English as the subject haha, thanks for the input though :)

Does that sound like a good idea? I need to make it really in-depth so it doesn't just end up like a research paper though.

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The thing is, I can't do the subject of video games in history or psychology. 1) There are not enough sources. 2) It is supposed to be of historical importance. Video games are not very important. 3) I am not taking Psychology. 4) The paper is intended to stretch the mind and come down to a super specific issue in history to show lots of thought and time. 5) Video games are seen as a joke to student, so what will stop the graders from thinking it is a joke?

Thanks for trying to help, but it just isn't going to work.

I have changed my subject to: What was Winston Churchill's foreign policy and how did it shape a country from the Middle East? (I don't know which country)

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my RQ is going to be "Can modern video games be seen as a step towards the virtual worlds from the novels 'Brave New World' and 'The Veldt.'"

I'm going to fix the grammar and all of that but that's basic idea now, connecting modern games to the futures discussed in the 1950's novels. Would that still seem like a joke to a grader? I really hope not haha of I'm really out of luck.

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The thing is, I can't do the subject of video games in history or psychology. 1) There are not enough sources. 2) It is supposed to be of historical importance. Video games are not very important. 3) I am not taking Psychology. 4) The paper is intended to stretch the mind and come down to a super specific issue in history to show lots of thought and time. 5) Video games are seen as a joke to student, so what will stop the graders from thinking it is a joke?

Thanks for trying to help, but it just isn't going to work.

I have changed my subject to: What was Winston Churchill's foreign policy and how did it shape a country from the Middle East? (I don't know which country)

Sorry to spoil your fun but, I think that:

1) There are enough sources, if you just know where to look for them.

2) Video games represent history to us and are a popularised picture of them, therefore it is important to investigate th picture they give. And that's just one important issue. :P

3) Okay.

4) I think this is possible with games and history. Most games are centralised around some theme.

5) You'll just have to write very well. :P If you can change his/her mind about video games, you've done extremely good job.

I'm starting to get more and more intrested about the topic myself, even though I've (luckily) written my EE already. :)

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