Year 10 History World War II Research Report 1 The aim of this report is to get you thinking about the

process you use to research a complex topic. What is your question? Was the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki justified?

Where did you start? I first started at Wikipedia. The Wikipedia article on the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki gives a broad overview of the event. This helped me to establish a simple understanding of the bombings and develop general questions about it.

What problems did you face and how did you solve them? I was struggling with where to start. In order to find out whether or not the bombing of Japan was justified I had to find out why America bombed it in the first place. I started to investigate Americas plans prior to the bombing Operation Downfall. This lead me down a stream of questions that could be further researched and provide more detail about the topic.

What search terms did you use? Atomic Bomb Hiroshima Nagasaki Operation Downfall

Justified

List the five resources you are proposing to use: Title Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki Author/ publisher Wikipedia URL if applicable http://en.wiki pedia.org/wiki /Atomic_bomb ings_of_Hiroshi ma_and_Nagas aki Downfall: The end of the imperial Japanese empire Doctors of Depravity Christopher Hudson http://www.d ailymail.co.uk/ news/article439776/Doct orsDepravity.ht ml The Invasion That Never Happened John T. Correll http://www.a irforcemag.co m/MagazineAr chive/Pages/2 009/June%2 02009/0609 invasion.aspx 2009 2007 Richard B Frank 1999 Year published 2013 This source gave me a nice broad outline of the events and allowed me to develop a basic understanding of the bombings. This book provided an understanding of the Americans thoughts prior to deciding to drop the atomic bomb After seeing the Americans actions I wanted some further insight into the crimes Japan had committed to evaluate whether or not the Bombing was justified This resource provided me with a deep understanding of what would have happened if they bombs were not dropped. As a result it allowed me to further look into the justification of the bombing Why chosen

Was the dropping of the atomic bombs necessary?

http://www.j apantoday.co m/category/o pinions/view/ was-thedropping-ofthe-atomicbombsnecessary

2010

This gave me very spread out arguments for and against the bombing to allow me to tie things up.

Does this represent a balanced list of resources? Why? I believe this is a balanced list of resources. It covers the broad aspect of the topic and doesnt focus on a particular aspect of it. It doesnt go too deep into detail nor does it go to broad. Achieving balance: You want a wide range of views on your topic. Try and find authors with differing, ideally opposing, views. Get resources that approach the topic with differing levels of depth. The web is good for overviews, books often provide depth and articles often give opinions.

Marking Criteria
Marks Information Seeking / Selecting and Evaluating Student gathered information from a variety of quality electronic and print resources, including appropriate databases. Sources are relevant, balanced and include critical readings relating to the thesis or problem. Student gathered information from a variety of relevant sources, print and electronic. Student gathered information from a limited range of sources and displayed modest effort in selecting quality sources Student gathered limited information that lacked relevance, quality, depth and balance.

Evaluation of sources
Student carefully analysed the resources used and drew appropriate and insightful conclusions.

Documentation Student documented/referenced all sources including visuals, interviews etc. References are complete and clear. Research report is complete and accurately filled in. Student documented/referenced sources. References are largely complete. Research report is almost complete and filled in. Student needs to use greater care in completing research report and documenting references. Student has presented an incomplete / partial research report and referencing is incomplete.

10-9

6-8

Student report shows good effort was made in analysing the evidence collected.

4-5

1-3

Student conclusions could be supported by stronger evidence. Level of analysis could have been deeper. Student conclusions simply involved restating information. Conclusions were not supported.

Total 7../ 10

I think you could go for more quality and direct relevance in your list of chosen resources. For example a Daily Mail article on war crimes is not directly relevant to the main issues in this debate and the source is not scholarly enough. The Japan Today discussion forum has an interesting but short opening by the moderator but the rest is opinion without much basis in evidence. You must replace at least one (if not both) of these for Stage II of this assignment. The Contested Spaces text book is a good alternative. Without making this change you would be too dependent on one or two resources for your essay. That would not do justice to this complex debate.