Why the Berlin Wall was Built from Viewpoint of the U.S., West Germany, East Germany, and U.S.S.R.

Choosing a Topic:

Since the purpose of this exercise is to explore how a single event can be interpreted differently based upon ones point of view, I recommend picking a topic that is likely to have produced different responses depending on the sources you consult. Such topics might include the origins of the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, the Great Leap Forward in China, the Chernobyl disaster in the USSR, the UNs role in the Rwandan genocide, or the 1964 escalation of US involvement in the Vietnamese conflict.

All of these events were controversial and therefore were interpreted differently by different nations, so your sources will provide you with varying points of view.

Try to focus your paper on a specific aspect of the event. For example, The Arab-Israeli Conflict is too broad, while The 1981 assassination of Anwar Sadat is a more manageable topic. Similarly, The Vietnam War is too broad, but Reaction to the Mai Lai massacre of March 1968 would be fine.

In focusing on a specific event, it will be helpful in giving your paper a structure if you pose a question to yourself that your paper will seek to answer. For example, Why was Sadat killed and why was this a significant event? You can then use your sources to answer this question.

Discuss the topic ideas with your instructor. If the instructor feels your topic choice or other choices are not appropriate, you will be notified. If you want to change your topic completely, please email your new choice to your instructor.

Choosing sources:

Once you have picked your topic, look for sources that are likely to give you different points of view. If you are doing the Cuban Missile Crisis, for example, it makes sense to look for US, Soviet, and Cuban sources since it is very unlikely that these three sources will be telling the same story. If you are doing any aspect of the Arab-Israeli-Palestinian crisis, you should try to find sources from both the Arab and Israeli perspectives. If you are doing a Latin American topic, try to find at least some sources that give the Latin American perspective.

Online sources can be used only if they are online version of printed materials. For example, you can use an article from the New York Times since you can get same article either in a printed or online version. You should be able to identify the author, name of the article / journal / book, and the date it was published. Open information sites or forums, such as Wikipedia, cannot be used since there is no single author and no way to verify the accuracy or credibility of the information provided. Web Blogs and similar open forums are also not considered valid sources unless I approve them in advance.