Poilka Posted January 2, 2016 Report Share Posted January 2, 2016 (edited) Hello everyone, I have started my IA history HL and I need help, my research question is : To what extent did the cult of personality in North Korea impact its culture and ideology. The only way to make my research is to find ressources from the internet but I can not find any book that relates to this subject (history books...) I found indeed a lot of source that can help me but apparently it is not recommended at all to only have websites as sources. Thanks you very much in advance, Poilka. Edited January 2, 2016 by Poilka Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arrowhead Posted January 2, 2016 Report Share Posted January 2, 2016 Well, I would recommend trying to find articles/Google Books online that have helpful sections on your topic and then look in the footnotes of those sections for other books. Also, bear in mind, that you don't necessarily need to have books, you can also have essays that have been published in academic journals as your 'non-electronic' sources. I would also recommend narrowing your topic a little more. Maybe to a specific North Korean leader or time period? Think about it. I think your question is a bit too broad for a 1,500-word essay at the moment. 2 Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Poilka Posted January 2, 2016 Author Report Share Posted January 2, 2016 Thanks you so much I think I would like to focus more on the Kim Il Sung's regime because it is the first time that Korea was really under the cult of personality present everywhere. What do you think about this research question more focused : How did Kim Il Sung manage to impose a cult of personality that impacted so intensely North Korea ? I'm not really sure about this RQ because I would like to talk about what happened there, all the cult of personality devoted to him and not only his way to get it. (but maybe I can still talk about it with this RQ?) Also I have found two ressources, could you tell me if they are great enough as primary sources? : -http://scholarworks.arcadia.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1011&context=senior_theses-The Cleanest Race: How North Koreans See Themselves and Why It Matters by B.R. Myers Thanks you again very much for your help, Poilka. Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
IB_taking_over Posted January 3, 2016 Report Share Posted January 3, 2016 (edited) Also I have found two ressources, could you tell me if they are great enough as primary sources? : -http://scholarworks.arcadia.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1011&context=senior_theses-The Cleanest Race: How North Koreans See Themselves and Why It Matters by B.R. Myers Thanks you again very much for your help, Poilka. The senior thesis is a secondary source (written by someone not there at the time) which doesn't make it bad or anything. The difference, in terms of writing an IA, between primary and secondary sources is negligible. If you can find primary sources use them, but don't make yourself crazy trying to find them. IB really cares about having print [electronically published articles and book count as this] vs websites. Edited January 3, 2016 by IB_taking_over 1 Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arrowhead Posted January 3, 2016 Report Share Posted January 3, 2016 Agreed with IB_Taking_Over, I wouldn't be too worried about not being able to find primary sources. Considering the subject matter of your essay, it will not exactly be shocking if a lot of personal diaries and memoirs of people living in those times have not seen the light of day. However, often times, in secondary sources, there are references to primary sources (in the footnotes) and you can then look online for those primary sources to beef up your own essay. 1 Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Poilka Posted January 3, 2016 Author Report Share Posted January 3, 2016 I found archives of conversations that could help me finding the primary sources I need, thanks you so much to both of you I did not really know the difference between a primary source and secondary source, thanks you for the light ! Just last question, can we "steal" references from other works that we have found if they fit perfectly the theme of my Research Question ? Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vioh Posted January 3, 2016 Report Share Posted January 3, 2016 (edited) I have started my IA history HL and I need help, my research question is: To what extent did the cult of personality in North Korea impact its culture and ideology. The only way to make my research is to find ressources from the internet but I can not find any book that relates to this subject (history books...). I found indeed a lot of source that can help me but apparently it is not recommended at all to only have websites as sources.I think I would like to focus more on the Kim Il Sung's regime because it is the first time that Korea was really under the cult of personality present everywhere. What do you think about this research question more focused: How did Kim Il Sung manage to impose a cult of personality that impacted so intensely North Korea? I'm not really sure about this RQ because I would like to talk about what happened there, all the cult of personality devoted to him and not only his way to get it. (but maybe I can still talk about it with this RQ? Also I have found two ressources, could you tell me if they are great enough as primary sources?-http://scholarworks.arcadia.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1011&context=senior_theses-The Cleanest Race: How North Koreans See Themselves and Why It Matters by B.R. Myers Personally, I think this second question that you gave is badly phrased, and is wrongly focused with respect to your original intentions. Here are the problems with it:Your original intention was to study the extent at which the cult of personality in North Korea (NK) \ affected the culture of people living within that country. However, the way that you phrased your second question seems like your research is about the way Kim Il Sung imposed his cult of personality, which is a completely different topic and is quite far away from your original intention. Besides, in the second question, you also state that the cult of personality "impacted so intensely North Korea". I mean, isn't this exactly what you were trying to prove originally? Didn't you want to study about the extent of the impact?Regarding your first research topic which was to study how cult of personality impacted culture and ideology, I think the way that you phrased it is too vague, making it seems like an extremely broad topic for a 2000-word IA. I mean culture can be anything from fashion, food, languages, or the general way in which people live. That's too broad! Also, I don't really see how cult of personality could impact something like ideology. Isn't it the other way around? I mean, shouldn't ideology (in this case communism) impact the cult of personality?Finally, I think your word choice might not be suitable. The "how" question makes it seems like the IA is gonna be a descriptive essay, which is what you don't want. The IB recommends to use "to what extent", so that is perhaps something you should follow? Also, I was told to avoid words like "so", "very", "really much", etc. in academic essays, because students often use them wrongly, making their essays sound a bit like an over-exaggeration. So if you happen to use the word intensely (or better, immensely), I think you shouldn't use it together with the word "so".Since you want to do something about the way people lived during Kim Il Sung's time, I think you'd better change it to something like: To what extent did Kim Il Sung's cult of personality affect the norms and traditions of people living in North Korea? Or if you want to even be more specific, you can specify whether you'll focus on domestic life or something else. I don't know too much about North Korea, but take Mao's China for example, his regime wants to abolish Chinese traditional customs/cultures/belief-system in order to force people to worship Mao instead. That would definitely affected China at the cultural level. I suppose that the same thing also happened in NK. Finally, regarding the resources, the first one that you found seems more like an essay for a seminar, rather than a published material with peer reviews. So I would say it's less reliable compared to actual books. However, it's still much more reliable compared to many other free online sources, because this paper was at least produced by some researcher at a university. So you can definitely use it. Besides, it reflects lots of author's point of view, which might be useful for your essay. The second source that you found seems like a really good book. I read the wiki article about it, and it seems Christopher Hitchen liked the book very much as it changed his point of view about the ideology of NK regime. However, I don't know how much of use it is to your essay, because the book is primarily about the ideology, rather than the cult of personality. But give it a read, and decide for yourself whether you can use it. Lastly, a good place to start searching for materials is this wiki article. Go to the bottom and see its citations. Look for the books that you can use there. If you need help to find the actual book in order to read, send me a PM and I can help you with that. Btw, it seems to me that you were a bit confused between what primary and secondary sources really are. Most history books are secondary sources. Primary sources are only those that include first-hand accounts of some historical events (like memoirs, or autobiography, etc.). For a good essay, I think it's a must to have at least 2 – 3 history books (preferably by a historian, rather than a textbook writer). But it's ok to not include any primary sources at all, especially for this topic (because primary sources about NK are much more rare compared to other topics). Good luck! Edited January 3, 2016 by Vioh 1 Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
IB_taking_over Posted January 3, 2016 Report Share Posted January 3, 2016 I found archives of conversations that could help me finding the primary sources I need, thanks you so much to both of you I did not really know the difference between a primary source and secondary source, thanks you for the light ! Just last question, can we "steal" references from other works that we have found if they fit perfectly the theme of my Research Question ? This is a 'complex' question. I only known how to cite Chicago Style, other styles may be different. If you just look at the reference list and go from there, there is no need to cite the original work. At that point it's not really stealing. For example, If found Trinadtsatyi S’’ezd RKP (b): Stenograficheski Otchet in its original form, I wouldn't have to cite that it was in Russia Under the Bolshevik Regime. Since I used a information from Russia Under the Bolshevik Regime that was cited in Trinadtsatyi S’’ezd RKP (b): Stenograficheski Otchet I had to cite both. Trinadtsatyi S’’ezd RKP (b): Stenograficheski Otchet. Moscow, 1963. 653-54. As found in Pipes, Richard. “NEP: The False Thermidor†in Russia Under the Bolshevik Regime. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1993. If you find a source in another source (a photo, journal entry, proclamation, etc. a collection) then you need to cite both sources. [whatever source you are using, as found in, the work you found it in.] For example, this is a source I used for my IA that was found in an online collection of Lenin's Writing. Lenin, V. I. “The Tax in Kind (The Significance Of The New Policy And Its Conditions).†Moscow: 1921. As found in Sdobnikov, Yuri trans. Lenin’s Collected Works. Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1965. https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1921/apr/21.htm. (accessed 15 March, 2015). Hopefully this make sense, if not don't hesitate to ask more questions 1 Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Poilka Posted January 3, 2016 Author Report Share Posted January 3, 2016 Do I have to cite both sources in the footnotes or only in the bibliography at the end? Thanks you Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
IB_taking_over Posted January 3, 2016 Report Share Posted January 3, 2016 Footnotes and bibliography 2 Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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