ugh. i hafta write a paper tonight and im really unmotivated. i've had exams all week and im really burnt out. can't bring myself to write it. on a similar note, i need help from someone who is really good at writing on narrowing down my topic to a research question. my prof gave us some sort of worksheet to use for it but it was really complicated and confused me. my topic is generally paranoia about government and im using the iran-contra scandal as my case. (btw my writing class is in conspiracy theory. odd right). i was planning on doing 'what does the existance conspiracy theories like the one about iran-contra tell us about paranoia of government?' but im not sure that my research question is phrased well. anyone with some experience in writing willing to help me rephrase my question in a way that will make writing my paper overall better? (tomorrow my research proposal is due, but i need to have my research question finalized for that)
If you put more effort into everything you write, you would probably find formal writing projects easier. Not trying to be an internet grammar nazi, I mean that as constructive advice. As a former teacher, use the worksheet. I suspect you might not be putting a lot of effort into it, because generally topic worksheets are something that the teacher/prof will repeatedly go back to during lecture. Let's consider this line: Take your own question, and try and remove unnecessary words. That's an 18 word question, could it be asked in 15? 12? 10? Finally, what is the goal of the paper (research? persuasive? informative? other?)? Your topic question should be focused towards that particular goal. For example: "If I wanted to be persuaded about topic X, what question would I ask an expert?"
its a research paper. sorry about the poor grammar in my initial post. how does 'what does the Iran-contra conspiracy theory tell us about paranoia of government?' sound?
To do that topic you would need to first tell me about iran-contra conspiracy theories. Then you would need to apply that information to draw conclusions about "What does that tell us about X." Unless you've got a 20 page paper to write, why try to do 2 things? Isn't doing 1 thing easier?
How would you describe "paranoia of government"? Just clear that up for me, and I might be able to assist... Also, do you have any sources, like a book, about the Iran-Contra conspiracy theories? Just like, general political shit, and politicians being lying fuck heads? Not telling the public the entire truth?
You are making this A LOT harder than it's intended. Focus on the topic, make a brief rough draft with key points and evidence, and finalize it.
Yeah, the research paper has to be 10-15 pages, so I feel like I can get a good grip on the topic in my paper. I have a copy of Dark Alliance, which is one of the definitive sources on the Iran-Contra scandal, along with some other texts on the situation. I'm not really focusing on the part about Iran. I was aiming more towards the part with the C.I.A. smuggling cocaine into the country to fund the Contra revolution in Honduras (i think it was Honduras. I'm a little rusty on the details currently). I was also planning on using the Iran-Contra scandal as my case (an example I was going to use to prove the theoretical framework). The framing parts of my research paper are kind of what I'm having trouble with. I would describe paranoia of government as feeling as though they're not telling us the entire truth on things? That they're being hypocritical? Having a sneaking suspicion that government wouldn't mind taking over the world? That sort of thing generally.
can you give the essay question? If it is about the paranoia of a nation state you could write a fair amount about political realism. I just finished an essay about it and one of the main principals of political realism is that all states are naturally paranoid about their safety and the safety of their interests. Ergo the whole Iran situation.
There was no specific question. We just had to choose something that dealt with a conspiracy theory (I chose the C.I.A. smuggling drugs because that in particular interests me) and develop a question around that.