Research Proposal

Research Proposal: 2 pages

• your name, your supervisor’s name and the session in which you are submitting your essay
• a clear statement of your proposed research question
• an explanation of why the topic is relevant on the personal, local and global levels
• the dimensions of the issue that will be examined as well as some dimensions that will not be addressed
• the areas of expertise (subjects and fields) that will inform the investigation plus a brief explanation of how each chosen disciplinary perspective will contribute to your understanding of your chosen topic
• a clear statement about the link between the local and global realities being explored
• a description of your planned approach, the resources and data you plan to use and the advisers you are consulting
• a series of key questions for which you would like to receive feedback from your supervisor.
• This paragraph can eventually serve as the basis for the abstract of the extended essay

Emma Lentchner

Supervisor: Mr. Hamilton

Session 1 (?)

For my IB tenth month assignment of the extended essay I have decided to focus my interests in that of the interdisciplinary field of World Studies. Here I will be focusing on the question “to what extent does the analysis of the United State’s involvement in World War II validate the ultimate irony of George Orwell’s premise that War is Peace?” To fully analyze and answer this question I will be breaking down the world studies subject into three different courses including literature, history, and economics.

This topic is therefore extremely interesting to me on both a personal and global level as, as someone who is already interested in the subject of international relations, I believe that there is a large portion of truth behind these words. Historians and politicians alike believe that humanity studies and acknowledges the world and its past mistakes in order to refrain from making them again. It is therefore with this in my that I personally find great interest into seeing just how similarly our current world matches to the ludicrous dystopian society that Orwell describes. This also then correlates to relating on a larger and more global relevance, in the way that by looking into this question, it is indirectly helping to view the world from another angle. As I mentioned before, with an interest in the field of international relations as well, and by delving more in depth with this topic, I am not only going to be gaining knowledge of the superficial level of the question, but will also be required to look into country’s political and economic relations, economic standings, etc, all of which help with an overarching view on the way that global politics progress.

The dimension in which I plan to take this essay is economically. While I could also do so in ways such as geopolitically or even locally and through the eyes of the civilian population, I personally thought that doing so economically allowed me, as mentioned before, to explore an area that I previously had very limited experience in. Therefore also to focus the essay, I plan to look solely into this area, and not focus so much on geopolitical or ideological aspects -- looking most specifically at the way that economic justification of Orwell’s statement.

The areas of expertise that I will have to build up in order to gain maximum understanding of the issue that I am researching are that of the novel itself, the history of World War II and a full grasp of knowledge on the United State’s involvement, the economic situations of the time period and how it related to each country individually, as well as the modern historian’s opinion on the entirety of the situation. These aspects directly relate to the three disciplinary topics that I have chosen for the essay. Literature; which directly relates to the understanding of the book and the irony that Orwell attempts to make.  Secondly, history in managing to relate what the novel is describing to the modern day - understanding just what about our world allows us to replicate the dystopian situation that Orwell describes. Finally, economics as well, to tie the previous two together in a way that essentially “proves” the concept in a non-fictional world.

To fully achieve the understanding of all these things I am already aware that more than just internet research is going to be necessary. Currently I believe that one of the greatest assets I can exploit is the ability to interview people. Teachers within the school such as my literature teacher can help me to better understand the concepts of the novel and to help me make sure that I am proving, essentially, the correct theorem. Also, I know that my family has access to several a person in the business society whom I can interview in order to better understand the economic situation and what it meant for a country to be in - and even still how a situation like that could relate to the modern economy today.