Here is the second posting for this past week and what the thoughts have been.
After nearly 4 weeks of research I am actually questioning whether my topic is a good topic to research and write on for not one, but two classes. Professor Petrik has told me all along that the topic would not be easy and i have been somewhat stubborn all along because it is a topic that interests me. Now that I have done some general research on the subject and struggled with finding sources it makes me wonder whether or not to continue to pursue the topic or rush to find a new one and get research done for it.
Finding primary sources has proven to be a more difficult task than I was previously willing to recognize. I think the main reason for that is that most writings on the children of Iraq have been done since September 11, 2001. Most of the articles i am finding are less than a year old. Since the our subject is history, I only browse through the articles quickly to see if there is any historical references, but I find very little and am slowly getting more frustrated since I cannot make money doing this research and cannot invest full days into researching more in depth. I still have a deep desire to find out more on Saddam and the Baathe Party's use of children to prevent a revolt against the Iraqi leadership.
I think my course of action from here is going to be that I will go to listen to the librarian today and see what resources I still have available and have not used yet. Depending on what I find I will either use those resources to investigate more or choose to move on and find another subject within the next day or two. I am hesitant to find a new topic because of the coordination between both History 300 and my History 499 classes to approve the topic and then most likely take time out of work to start fresh with the topic. Since I already need to go back and complete typepad post #3 with the ten ideas for topics, I plan on completing that tonight after the library tour in order to have some ideas ready to move on should I choose to move off this topic.
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