IA Tongzhi Restoration vs Meiji Restoration

[Julia]

For my IA, I'm thinking of doing "How effective was the Tongzhi Restoration of China compared to the Meiji Restoration of Japan?"

Is this question too broad? I'm also worried that the answer is too obvious, but I have no idea what else to do. What do you guys think?

[Scade]

Being absolutely ignorant about Japanese history I maybe shouldn't dip into this, but well I can't resist

Just looking at the question it does sound like a rather broad topic so I would narrow it down. Just look at the format in which you're supposed to do your IA; it places huge limits on the topic. Secondly, you should be thinking about sources. What kind of source material are you planning to use? It doesn't really seem like your topic gives chances for an extensive treatment and comparison of various sources. I would definitely recommend a topic which allows you to use primary source(s).

And yeah, the answer to your question should not be obvious. You need to give things a bit of twist to be in the top margin. If the answer is somehow obvious, your topic should have some other kind of novelty or significance, which would be using interesting sources from an unexpected angle, but might arrive at a more or less obvious conclusion.

Perhaps not to abandon the idea completely, you might want to take a look of some works on the topic, which might give you more ideas and get you towards more original thinking. Perhaps find some one aspect, which you could compare, or examine something else than simply the effectiveness of the two restorations, but still compare the two (if you absolutely want to be doing something comparative).