Part A::: I have completed two assignment on the same topic and now professor wants us to write a discussion. Please read below…

“organize your revised research questions, current thesis statement, and an outline or checklist of your plan for conducting further research on your topic into a new discussion post. In a few paragraphs, discuss what relevant sources you have identified and the process for accessing those sources.”

I have attached the assignment that I have completed before on the topic. APA citation required.

Part B::: Respond to the posts below separately. When responding to your peers, critique their plan and offer suggestions for thinking like a historian. Does their plan suggest that they are thinking about change over time, context, causality, complexity, and contingency?

Post 1: When revising my research questions, I decided to focus on, what I felt were, two major events during Mao’s reign. My first, How did the Cultural Revolution impact the youth and older generation of China culturally and the relations between the two?, focus on the Cultural Revolution and the impact it had on China’s culture and the relationships between the older and younger generations. So far, my only source is a secondary source by Frank Dikotter, The Cultural Revolution A People’s History. I would like to find some primary sources portraying relationships between the older and younger generation, although I’m a bit skeptical I’ll find anything. I’d also like to see if I can find any secondary or primary sources providing information on the effect the Cultural Revolution had on China’s traditional culture, what changes came about, and did any of them have a lasting impact? How did the Great Leap Forward effect China’s economy and Mao’s plan to push his country past its competitors?, is my second revised research question. Again, I only really have one source also by Frank Dikotter, Looking back on the Great Leap Forward. Like my other source, it is a baseline, some place to start. I want to find more secondary and primary sources, if I can. I would like to find primary sources written by Mao about his plans or goals for China, but as I was reading some of his speeches around the Great Leap Forward time frame, I don’t feel they are exactly what I’m looking for. I think the secondary sources on China’s economy and how the Great Leap Forward impacted that will be easier to find. I’ve really only used the History Reference Center – EBSCO to find the sources I have at the moment. I did however use the Mao Zedong – Internet Archive, to look up if I could found Mao introducing the idea of the Great Leap Forward or the Shanghai meeting transcript, neither of which were available that I could find. I did try the other sites, but was a bit hesitant to actually use them, as the format was a but daunting and unfamiliar, so I chickened out a bit. And lastly, my thesis statement. I think this is where I will struggle the most. I don’t know why this is what I always have problems with writing, but it is. So, roughly, this is what I’ve come up with for my thesis statement; Mao’s ambitions and leadership greatly effected China’s culture and its economy. I know it need improvement and lots of work, so any critique would be much appreciated.

Post 2: My current thesis statement is Nelson Mandela played a significant role in the downfall of Apartheid. The two revised questions that I asked are: How did Nelson Mandela’s actions reverse the effects of the apartheid government in South Africa? How did the apartheid government influence racial and prejudiced ideas in other parts of the world? I used the Shapiro library a lot throughout this course to find relevant sources that would best suit the questions I would like to answer. I also used google scholar as well as that provided me with a lot more information on Apartheid. Just by searching the word Apartheid in google, it brought up so many sources that I can use as evidence in my paper. To better suit the specific questions I am asking I searched terms such as “Nelson Mandela and Apartheid” or “effects of Apartheid”. By searching these terms together it provided me with much more insight and different point of views on the topic. The sources I will be using are titled, “Apartheid Has No future,” and “Second letter from Nelson Mandela to Hendrik Verwoerd ” These are primary sources that I will be using. The first source, “Second letter from Nelson Mandela to Hendrik Verwoerd ” details a speech by Nelson Mandela calling all people of color to become one and fight against the segregation in South Africa. It also adds to my understanding of the topic because it details how people of color became one to overthrow and stop apartheid. The second source, “Apartheid Has No Future,”details the way in which Nelson Mandela confronted the apartheid government and how South Africa will rise to overthrow the government.