Need some help with my idea (1 Viewer)

[lilkiwifruit]

I was thinking of doing my Mw on the Tiannanmen Square massacre but i don't know if there will be enough sources from the Chinese historians because china is still like communist and they are still trying to cover up the incident. I was either going to compare Chinese and Western historians or maybe assess the impact of the incident to the rest of the world....
If this doesn't work out, i was thinking of the Stolen Generations of Half caste children in Aust.
Any suggestions? Should i abandon these ideas and try something else? I would really appreciate your help

 

[rhapsody11]

I was thinking of doing my Mw on the Tiannanmen Square massacre

Try something more original, I'd say. There are a lot of TSquare mw essays, and it'd be hard to make an impact.

but i don't know if there will be enough sources from the Chinese historians because china is still like communist and they are still trying to cover up the incident.

Is that like China = communist, so none of them are religious?

There are heaps of Chinese sources on the matter.

I was either going to compare Chinese and Western historians or maybe assess the impact of the incident to the rest of the world....

I'm not sure what explicit differences you'd find.

If this doesn't work out, i was thinking of the Stolen Generations of Half caste children in Aust.
Any suggestions? Should i abandon these ideas and try something else? I would really appreciate your help

Yeah, I'd abandon those ideas. You won't find anything interesting on the Stolen Generation other than a bunch of left-wing horseshit.

Look in the thread ancient_nut created.

 

[lilkiwifruit]

ahhhhhhh damn it......i wish my teacher had actually told me that we should find issues that were more original!!! Now I've already filled out half of my log book...found stack loads of shit on the topic...
sorry people...im just pissed off that no one told me this before when i initially chose my topic.. So what should i do?? Is it too late to change it?

 

[lilkiwifruit]

And yea i have looked at ancient_nut's thread and i really don't want to do any of those topics..im just not very interested in ancient history

 

[xeuyrawp]

And yea i have looked at ancient_nut's thread and i really don't want to do any of those topics..im just not very interested in ancient history

Fair enough

ahhhhhhh damn it......i wish my teacher had actually told me that we should find issues that were more original!!! Now I've already filled out half of my log book...found stack loads of shit on the topic...
sorry people...im just pissed off that no one told me this before when i initially chose my topic.. So what should i do?? Is it too late to change it?

I guess it depends on two things:

1. Have you done enough work for it to be a 'waste' if you change? Alternatively, can you narrow down the focus a bit?

2. If you change, will it consume too much time?

If you have no other ideas, don't abandon your current one. Only abandon your current idea if you find a better one.

 

[AlleyCat]

i agree with pwar, to a degree.

dont change your topic without good reason, but be flexible in regards to the spectrum of the question, to fit the wordcount and task description.

the main problem i had last year was that i continually changed my question indiscriminantly, leaving me less and less time to complete the project. and if you think about it, the content of the question is somewhat irrelevant.

good luck with the project, on topic, i think both those ideas are pretty solid. do the one that you are more interested in, for the basic reason that you will have to do a lot of reading on the topic.

 

[xeuyrawp]

i agree with pwar, to a degree.

dont change your topic without good reason, but be flexible in regards to the spectrum of the question, to fit the wordcount and task description.

the main problem i had last year was that i continually changed my question indiscriminantly, leaving me less and less time to complete the project. and if you think about it, the content of the question is somewhat irrelevant.

good luck with the project, on topic, i think both those ideas are pretty solid. do the one that you are more interested in, for the basic reason that you will have to do a lot of reading on the topic.

Yeah, that's why I said '2. If you change, will it consume too much time?'

If you're close to hand-in date, never change a topic. You may not like what you do, but it's better to hand something in than keep looking for something you may or may not like.

 

[lilkiwifruit]

hey thanks for all the advice! I've been to the state library to find info on the Tiananmen Square massacre and I only got 4 books whereas, next to them, I found like a whole stack on some guy called "Mao Zedong"..
Would it be wise for me to change topic to study this famous person just because there is more info on him?

 

[xeuyrawp]

hey thanks for all the advice! I've been to the state library to find info on the Tiananmen Square massacre and I only got 4 books whereas, next to them, I found like a whole stack on some guy called "Mao Zedong"..
Would it be wise for me to change topic to study this famous person just because there is more info on him?

Well Mao was the central figure in the Tiannanmen Square event -- the cultural revolution, which climaxed at the square, was enacted very much by him.

I'll be blunt and say that if you hadn't really heard of Mao, maybe the area you're doing isn't appropriate. It's generally a good idea for students to research and write a MW about areas they're 1. familiar with, and 2. interested in.

 

[lilkiwifruit]

Well Mao was the central figure in the Tiannanmen Square event -- the cultural revolution, which climaxed at the square, was enacted very much by him.

I'll be blunt and say that if you hadn't really heard of Mao, maybe the area you're doing isn't appropriate. It's generally a good idea for students to research and write a MW about areas they're 1. familiar with, and 2. interested in.

wait.. didn't the Tiananmen Square Massacre happen in 1989 which is like after Mao's death? I thought the TSM was centred around the figure, Zhao Ziyang and that it had nothing to do with the cultural revolution which happened in the 1960s before Mao's death. I've actually done alot of reading in Chinese modern history due this MW.
I was actually thinking, maybe I could study the changing historical perspectives of Mao's role in the cultural revolution or maybe just the study of changing historical perspectives on his leadership. I really need to find a topic and I'm so stressed about it because the holidays are ending fast. I really appreciate everyone's suggestions

 

[cem]

wait.. didn't the Tiananmen Square Massacre happen in 1989 which is like after Mao's death? I thought the TSM was centred around the figure, Zhao Ziyang and that it had nothing to do with the cultural revolution which happened in the 1960s before Mao's death. I've actually done alot of reading in Chinese modern history due this MW.
I was actually thinking, maybe I could study the changing historical perspectives of Mao's role in the cultural revolution or maybe just the study of changing historical perspectives on his leadership. I really need to find a topic and I'm so stressed about it because the holidays are ending fast. I really appreciate everyone's suggestions

You are correct in that Mao was well and truly dea by the time of the Tianammen Square massacre.


Just an aside which would be useless in itself but may hightlight some of the difficulty with the topic from the Chinese persepective.


Last January I visited China on an organised tour and when we entered TS we asked our Chinese guide and the local Beijing guide (there were two of them) where the tanks entered the square.

The Chinese guide who came from Shanghai said nothing.

The Beijing guide asked us what we were talking about and then said he had never heard of anything like we described happening in the square ever!!! He would have been a teenager at the time and told us he had been born and bred in Beijing. It is hard to believe that a year ago tomorrow I was in TS.


Chinese sources would have to be very carefully discussed relative to whether they were government sources, or dissidents etc.

 

[lilkiwifruit]

yea I've noticed that too.. I asked some of my friends from China who is studying in Australia now and they absolutely don't know what I'm talking about! It's like this whole incident has been wiped out of the history books. One girl that did know about it said that her history teacher had to close all the doors and curtains to teach them about TSM in fear of being "heard" by the officials and this was only 2 yrs ago.. scary!

 

[lilkiwifruit]

so would Mao Zedong be a good topic to do? or has it been overdone as well

 

[hopeles5ly]

yea I've noticed that too.. I asked some of my friends from China who is studying in Australia now and they absolutely don't know what I'm talking about! It's like this whole incident has been wiped out of the history books. One girl that did know about it said that her history teacher had to close all the doors and curtains to teach them about TSM in fear of being "heard" by the officials and this was only 2 yrs ago.. scary!

the media in china practically controls what news and affairs are given out to the large chinese population. thus much of the population would have no idea of the events of tiannamen square. anyways how far have you gotten on your major work?

 

[xeuyrawp]

wait.. didn't the Tiananmen Square Massacre

Oh, ok, remember that a lot of events happened there -- the most important of which were the cultural revolution (which happened under Mao) and the Massacre.

I thought you were referring to the former event.

The Massacre as a topic really has been bled out; I don't see how you could extract anything from it beyond the predictable Chinese/non-Chinese views of the event.

 

[xeuyrawp]

the media in china practically controls what news and affairs are given out to the large chinese population. thus much of the population would have no idea of the events of tiannamen square. anyways how far have you gotten on your major work?

It's not 'practically', they do control the media. Not only can they legally destroy stories and media companies, but there's really only 'one' media. Also remember that media needs government funding, which they can control...

 

[lilkiwifruit]

the media in china practically controls what news and affairs are given out to the large chinese population. thus much of the population would have no idea of the events of tiannamen square. anyways how far have you gotten on your major work?

all I've done is fill out half of my log book with useless information thats why I'm thinking of changing my topic.

 

[lilkiwifruit]

The Massacre as a topic really has been bled out; I don't see how you could extract anything from it beyond the predictable Chinese/non-Chinese views of the event.

yea thats like the biggest problem with this topic ><" I can't find any great sources from the chinese side and the Chinese Gov't is still covering it up. Before I totally ditch my first idea, Has anyone studied Mao Zedong before? Are there like any great historical debate surrounding this person?

 

[hopeles5ly]

yea thats like the biggest problem with this topic ><" I can't find any great sources from the chinese side and the Chinese Gov't is still covering it up. Before I totally ditch my first idea, Has anyone studied Mao Zedong before? Are there like any great historical debate surrounding this person?

ive studied AROUND him if you know what that means? maybe you could base your research on how the chinese government and other individuals have been trying to cover up the negative aspects of Mao Zedong life and the actual person he was. problem is there might not be a lot of sources and historian perspectives.

 

[lilkiwifruit]

I borrowed heaps of biographies on him today. This is like a really stupid question but can we refer to those authors as "historians"?