History IA

[talktome]

Hi all, I've been trying to give my teacher a Perfect History IA research question as he has rejected over 13 of mine. I'm REALLY lost right now, I've tried all sorts of country, but I really want to do one on China, so I would really appreciate it if you can give suggestions. I've tried cliche questions for Taiping Rebellion, Hundred Flowers campaign, Great Leap and Cultural... :/

[sweetnsimple786]

That sucks. We can't give you a question, but from my little bit of experience, I know it's usually a fight to pick something that is both well-known and obscure so that you can find enough material on it and not sound like you're completely unoriginal. Why do you want to do one on China? What is it about the country that interests you? It'll be hard to do something that's several centuries old, so you might want to stick to the last few hundred years. Honestly, you want to avoid "cliched" questions as much as you can. You can do something about a really famous occurance or event like the Cultural Revolution and still be creative and original by picking a less common aspect. Try to go with something you'd like to research, and once you have a topic, Google it to see if there is information readily available [you probably won't cite the information you found here, but it's typically a good indicator for how easily you can find resources], and then phrase your topic into a question, and try not to make it answerable in one word. Go with "Why did..." and "To what extent.." kind of questions. Good luck!

[Sponge123]

I also did my IA on China, and though I can't give you a research question, I can give you some tips on how I came up with mine. First, focus on a specific time period/event (Great Leap, Civil War, etc.) Do a lot of background reading on that subject area before you pick your research question. I didn't pick my research question until very late, but since I had such an in-depth knowledge of the topic from all of my pre-research, picking the question wasn't so hard, and once I had one, I already had most of the info that I needed. I find that "To what extent..." is the best way to start any research question; since history is not clear-cut in its answers, this kind of question allows you to make an argument while still taking into account other factors that might contradict what you're saying. Hope this helps.