• After 15+ years, we've made a big change: Android Forums is now Early Bird Club. Learn more here.

A 10 page research paper, what do you think so far of my subject

sfbloodbrother

sfbloodbrother

Extreme Android User
Hi all :)

ASSIGNMENT:
10 Page research paper. Must be researchable. If the topic is too open than it's a bad topic, because it will not be able to fit in a 10 page research paper. It must be doable in about 2 months. Research takes a lot of time. I think I can do it, just have to apply my time. I'm posting this here because I would like others to give me their opinion on what they think of my topic. It's better to have another look at something before it's official. Let me know what you think of my topic and what I can do to better my ideas.

So, this is currently in the works, and I think I can find better sources for this one within a better time period rather than doing the cold war, because the cold war was about 40 years long, and so much happened in that cold war that I don't think that I can choose a single topic within that war and still reach my goal that I wanted to. So, I decided to change topics. (Which is okay, I'm still ahead of schedule for the class.

So, what I am thinking of doing instead is just the result of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. More specifically what was America's reaction to the bombings? I need to get more narrow with this topic though.

I have turned this into Italics because I am switching angles on my research topic. I didn't want to delete it all, so I just kinda changed the way it looks. You don't have to read this because my topic changed.
So, my homework assignment is to come up with an idea for a research paper with a very narrow subject. For example, if I were to write about civil rights, it will have to be very specific about something that happened during the civil rights, as with just that subject it would be like a 20,000 page research paper.

So, I have chosen something that I am interested in and I want to hear your thoughts on whether you think that this is doable in 2 months, researchable meaning that I can find specific sources from Verified publishers - no one page scratch the surface garbage we mostly find online, and whether you think that the subject is narrow enough to even fit in a 10 page research paper.

So, my idea for my research paper has to do with the event of the Cuban Missile Crisis of the 1960's. (Hey, maybe if some of you experienced that in your life, I could do a interview). More specifically I want to research the affect that the fear of America breaking out into a nuclear war with the USSR had on Americans and how this changed their behavior. (Behavior. for example some American't went out and bought a fallout shelter, Schools taught the duck and cover (Which was useless) and for some the thought of WW3 was GOOD because it meant the government would support businesses again by paying them to make anything for the war, which would help the economy.)

I think I have a pretty narrow topic, buy I would like a second opinion on this before I start writing the inquiry contract for my professor.
 
sfbloodbrother said:
More specifically I want to research the affect that the fear of America breaking out into a nuclear war with the USSR had on Americans and how this changed their behavior. (Behavior. for example some American't went out and bought a fallout shelter
Click to expand...
Fallout shelters go back to the late 50s.

Schools taught the duck and cover
Click to expand...
Not because of the Cuban Missile Crisis - we were doing duck and cover in the late 40s.

I think I have a pretty narrow topic, buy I would like a second opinion on this before I start writing the inquiry contract for my professor.
Click to expand...
The topic is pretty arrow, but your ideas are straying VERY far from the topic. Remember, it was a VERY tense 2 weeks, but that's all it was - 2 weeks. We were scared that something might happen, but we weren't walking around scared for months or years because of it. The Cold War had many of us scared for years, but the CMC was a short thing, that most people were completely unaware of until it was announced publicly, and it was over almost as quickly. The public was probably aware of the situation for no more than a week at the most. The "crisis" began on October 27th and was over by October 28th. It wasn't something that was on everyone's mind for months (or even weeks).

Remember, we lived under threat of nuclear attack from about 1949 right through the end of the Cold War (over 40 years), so 2 weeks of "Russia has missiles in Cuba" hardly registered as anything more than more of the same.
 
I'd have to agree. Given the level of media coverage of such things in the '60s, it was missed by more of the population than it affected. I'm not sure if there would be any qualified or authoritative sources that discuss how this one short event changed U.S. attitudes about "the bomb" or Soviet encroachment into U.S. proximity.

The '60s were really more about the conflicts in the east, like the Cambodia civil war from 1965-1970 and Vietnam which actually began in 1959.
 
Rukbat said:
Fallout shelters go back to the late 50s.

Not because of the Cuban Missile Crisis - we were doing duck and cover in the late 40s.

The topic is pretty arrow, but your ideas are straying VERY far from the topic. Remember, it was a VERY tense 2 weeks, but that's all it was - 2 weeks. We were scared that something might happen, but we weren't walking around scared for months or years because of it. The Cold War had many of us scared for years, but the CMC was a short thing, that most people were completely unaware of until it was announced publicly, and it was over almost as quickly. The public was probably aware of the situation for no more than a week at the most. The "crisis" began on October 27th and was over by October 28th. It wasn't something that was on everyone's mind for months (or even weeks).

Remember, we lived under threat of nuclear attack from about 1949 right through the end of the Cold War (over 40 years), so 2 weeks of "Russia has missiles in Cuba" hardly registered as anything more than more of the same.
Click to expand...

Thanks for your detailed response. How do you think I can narrow the subject down to a time frame where I can research the topic of the effect of people being scared of a Nuclear war?

If I can't narrow down this topic, I may have to switch it to something else. My second idea was about the Manhattan Project, but I haven't thought about it that much lately.
 
lunatic59 said:
I'd have to agree. Given the level of media coverage of such things in the '60s, it was missed by more of the population than it affected. I'm not sure if there would be any qualified or authoritative sources that discuss how this one short event changed U.S. attitudes about "the bomb" or Soviet encroachment into U.S. proximity.

The '60s were really more about the conflicts in the east, like the Cambodia civil war from 1965-1970 and Vietnam which actually began in 1959.
Click to expand...

So many people covered the Vietnam war, so I don't want to do something that everyone has done in the past. Plus it's not a war that I'm interested in.
 
sfbloodbrother said:
Being what?
Click to expand...

Xenophobic ... afraid/suspicious of foreign things/people.

But I disagree. We are and continue to be selectively xenophobic, it's just that the focus of our fear has shifted.

As to your revised topic. I like it. I've always found Robert Oppenheimer's reaction and subsequent actions to be quite telling.
 
lunatic59 said:
Xenophobic ... afraid/suspicious of foreign things/people.

But I disagree. We are and continue to be selectively xenophobic, it's just that the focus of our fear has shifted.

As to your revised topic. I like it. I've always found Robert Oppenheimer's reaction and subsequent actions to be quite telling.
Click to expand...

Yes. I was browsing and found this great website about it. But I only read half of the story because the website had a horrible layout and was weird to read.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom