IA Spanish Civil war 1936-39

[Candidate 2011]

Hey guys,

I've began writing up my history IA, yet am still unsure whether the topic is good enough or not

my topic is "why did the republicans lose the Spanish Civil war 1936-39?"

thoughts?

[Drake Glau]

WAY too broad. That has the potential of SEVERAL thousand words, if not tens of thousands o.O

I'd advise trying to find a specific reason for why they lost. Did they have a worse training system? Less trained soldiers? Bad economy? Lack of equipment? Lack of leadership?

I don't know much about this so I'm just throwing stuff out there.

You only have 600 words to present your evidence and 600 to analyze it, keep this in mind.

[laryxle]

I'd really advise against doing this topic; it is almost exactly the same as some past exam paper 3 questions, so it won't be seen as very original and it would have to be absolutely exceptional to do well. Doing well would also be hindered by the word limit, as I don't think you can answer this question well in under 2000 words.

Perhaps you could focus on some aspect of the Spanish Civil War that you find interesting, or one of the reasons why the Republicans lost (e.g. disunity, lack of organisation). The Spanish Civil War is quite a popular topic though so finding something original could be difficult; maybe go right back to Spain in the 19th century and do something about the very long term causes?

[Candidate 2011]

WAY too broad. That has the potential of SEVERAL thousand words, if not tens of thousands o.O

I'd advise trying to find a specific reason for why they lost. Did they have a worse training system? Less trained soldiers? Bad economy? Lack of equipment? Lack of leadership?

I don't know much about this so I'm just throwing stuff out there.

You only have 600 words to present your evidence and 600 to analyze it, keep this in mind.

I guess your right, i'm suprised my teacher didn't mention that its way too broad!

thankyou!

I'd really advise against doing this topic; it is almost exactly the same as some past exam paper 3 questions, so it won't be seen as very original and it would have to be absolutely exceptional to do well. Doing well would also be hindered by the word limit, as I don't think you can answer this question well in under 2000 words.

Perhaps you could focus on some aspect of the Spanish Civil War that you find interesting, or one of the reasons why the Republicans lost (e.g. disunity, lack of organisation). The Spanish Civil War is quite a popular topic though so finding something original could be difficult; maybe go right back to Spain in the 19th century and do something about the very long term causes?

do you think it's a better idea if I just complete it on something other than the spanish civil war? im not exactly a big fan of history not do i enjoy it, so i'd like to keep it as simple as possible!

[spinks-07]

that topic is extremely broad, you could honestly write a whole book on that

i did my history IA on the spanish civil war, i got predicted a 7 on it, my topic was, To what extent did foreign involvement affect the outcome of the spanish civil war?

this was a very good topic to write about, as foreign involvement was one of the leading factors in the spanish civil war.

currently im writing my EE on the spanish civil war also, and my topic is, To what extent did Republican disunity lead to a Nationalist victory?

as u can see, both of my topics are extremely concise, they focus on one major component of the war.

ps. the spanish civil war is known as the first propaganda war, that was up in the running for me, but u could use if u wanted

[Candidate 2011]

that topic is extremely broad, you could honestly write a whole book on that

i did my history IA on the spanish civil war, i got predicted a 7 on it, my topic was, To what extent did foreign involvement affect the outcome of the spanish civil war?

this was a very good topic to write about, as foreign involvement was one of the leading factors in the spanish civil war.

currently im writing my EE on the spanish civil war also, and my topic is, To what extent did Republican disunity lead to a Nationalist victory?

as u can see, both of my topics are extremely concise, they focus on one major component of the war.

ps. the spanish civil war is known as the first propaganda war, that was up in the running for me, but u could use if u wanted

That's a really great topic! well, atm i've kind of narrowed it down a little to something along the lines of 'to what extent did disunity amongst the republicans lead to their defeat..' something like that.

but then I read your doing your EE about something like that and thats like 4000 words which makes me think, is my topic still too broad?

i'm getting really frustrated and may resort to pulling my hair! To make matters worse i'm on summer break and have no way to get to my teacher (somethings wrong with the school site) so yeah

I hope you do achieve that predicted 7! Goodluck

[Julie]

Honestly, I would stay away from the whole idea of the Spanish civil War and reasons for the republicans loss... Way too broad, but also, way too common. That is a question which would appear on one of your History papers... also, it would be really hard to find documents/sources on that topic...

I suggested this to one other person before, and I hate to say it again:

My suggestion is to:

• sit down and come up with a new topic
  
• if you have your heart set on the Spanish civil war, try to focus on someone specific/something specific
  
• if you don't have your heart set on the Spanish civil war, sit down and brainstorm time periods/people/incidents you find interesting, after that, find a controversial topic on one of them, but make sure it is one where you can find sources
  
• formulate a question you want to answer about it
  
• turn that question into a statement
  
• make sure your topic is not too broad, and your time period is not too narrow...
  

This is an example our teacher gave us of a IA in history that was a 7:

How Significant was Fidel Castro’s Role in the Missile Crisis of 1962?

Hope I'm not being too frank about it... my teacher is pretty harsh as far as topics go, so I learned a lot about what to do/not to do/topics to stay away from/questions to stay away from/etc etc... I got a 6 on my IA... so... that's pretty good in my opinion, and I know it could have been better

[zoeparis]

On 12/31/2010 at 7:56 PM, spinks-07 said:

that topic is extremely broad, you could honestly write a whole book on that

i did my history IA on the spanish civil war, i got predicted a 7 on it, my topic was, To what extent did foreign involvement affect the outcome of the spanish civil war?

this was a very good topic to write about, as foreign involvement was one of the leading factors in the spanish civil war.

currently im writing my EE on the spanish civil war also, and my topic is, To what extent did Republican disunity lead to a Nationalist victory?

as u can see, both of my topics are extremely concise, they focus on one major component of the war.

ps. the spanish civil war is known as the first propaganda war, that was up in the running for me, but u could use if u wanted

can u please share your IA with me