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History EE: Soviet Union; Is my question too broad?


_abby

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Hi!

This is my first post...sorry if I mess anything up. :)

Anyway...I'm currently working on the third draft of my History EE, and one of the main comments I got was that my research question is too broad. Now, this was just today that I got my marking criteria back, so I haven't had a chance to talk to the teacher about it yet (and I will!), but I thought my question was pretty dang specific.

So, basically, I was wondering if anyone had any insight for me. This is my question:

What conditions in the Soviet Union led to the August coup of 1991 and what role did the coup play in the collapse of the Soviet Union?

I've kind of thought about it, and revised it a little, but I feel like it's still asking the same thing, but with more ramble:

How did changes in social and economic conditions in the Soviet Union under Gorbachev from previous leaders lead to the August coup of 1991 and what role did the coup play in the collapse of the Soviet Union?

And it also doesn't really feel like it's very grammatically correct, either.

So, yeah. If anyone is willing to help me, I'd REALLY appreciate it!

Thanks!

:D

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Your question doesn't seem too broad, but I don't know anything about the time period, so I'm not sure how in-depth you can be expected to go.

I'd just make a small change from What conditions in the Soviet Union led to the August coup of 1991 and what role did the coup play in the collapse of the Soviet Union? to How did the social and economic conditions in the SU lead to the August coup in 1991, and how did this coup cause the collapse of the SU [or something like that]? If you are able to really expand on the first or second part of your RQ, then you can cut that part off and write an EE on it, possibly, which might mean that you don't need to include this part. Does that make sense?

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Kind of, yeah.

The coup itself is kind of in-between regarding expansion, but there is a lot of controversy surrounding it, and a lot of differing opinions on it, so there is plenty of stuff to write about, but I wanted to concentrate more not on the event itself, but on the stuff surrounding it, both recent (i.e, Gorbachev era) and older (Stalin, etc) (If that makes sense...I'm not sure that it does. :D)

Thank you!

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I guess now as I reread your topic, I'm thinking that if you can break up your EE into "what caused coup" and "what coup caused" and each is EE length, then it's hard to combine both because you'll be expected to research and analyze with 4000 words worth for each, not 2000, you know? Definitely keep an open mind until you talk to your teacher. he'll be able to advise you more clearly.

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Yeah, I see your point. I'll to talk to my advisor, see what he says, but I'll probably end up cutting at least a part out of the question. For me, it's a matter of coming up with a question that would answer my (already-written) essay, without me having to re-write huge chunks of it.

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