You show throughout this presentation that you have a clear understanding of Thucydides Trap. Your project is very well developed and shows that with your citations. I think the only thing here is that the methodology could have been focused on a little more than the literature review. For the purpose of the narration, I think you could have benefitted from splitting up your methodology slides and putting a little more emphasis on them to expand on reasoning and ideas. But other than that you show a clear ability to be able to have a well-developed project going forth.
Hey Jordan! I definitely enjoyed your presentation and I think that your topic/case selection looks very interesting, but I have a few pointers that might be helpful in terms of structuring the final narrative paper and doing a bit more reflecting on the process. First, though, I think you did a good job in justifying your puzzle that led you to this point. Case studies are great for looking at outliers (side note: I might stress this a bit more and perhaps reference some of the methodological material we’ve read in class), so it makes a lot of sense that you would take some of the exceptions to the Thucydides trap as cases. After that, you review the literature very thoroughly – I particularly liked the ways you related the schools of thought to each other and stressed their strengths and weaknesses as well as their contributions to your project through the variables they outline. However, I noticed you get into a lot of detail here and spend a good deal of time on it. For the format of a presentation, it might be worth taking a broader look at these schools of thought to leave yourself more time to discuss your methodology. I’d be very interested to hear more about how exactly you selected you cases, why that makes sense, and what you’re gaining and losing from pursuing a case study as opposed to a large-n or interpretivist piece, for example, since these questions are a part of the final narrative paper, too. Overall, it’s great to see how your topic has developed and I wish you the best heading into 306.
Other side note: is only considering cases before 1945 a “control variable” as you say, or is it simply limiting the scope in order to increase case comparability? These are the kinds of questions it will be important to elucidate.
Hi Jordan,
Your video was informative and it’s clear that you have a good understanding of where you want to go with your topic. You did a good job explaining both your puzzle as well as the placement of your research within existing scholarship. However, while the detail was beneficial, and will be particularly useful for your essay, it constituted the vast majority of your video. I would have appreciated if you had instead taken that time to delve deeper into your methodology and further explain that. For instance, I am still a bit confused as to which of the Mill’s Methods you plan on using. You mentioned process tracing, however that’s analysis of a singular case on it’s own, and it seemed like you will be comparing. Have you chosen the method of difference or similarity? Additionally, I am still a bit confused about your variables, while I understand how you used controls to limit the scope of your research, I am still unclear about the actual independent and dependent variables that you will be examining in your research. I think that you brought that up within your lit review, however, by the end of the video I was still unclear. You did a good job with the presentation and I think that you will be in a strong place as you move into both your essay and next semester’s research, however these are things to consider and to potentially apply to presentations in the future. I look forward to seeing where your research takes you.
Jordan,
You show throughout this presentation that you have a clear understanding of Thucydides Trap. Your project is very well developed and shows that with your citations. I think the only thing here is that the methodology could have been focused on a little more than the literature review. For the purpose of the narration, I think you could have benefitted from splitting up your methodology slides and putting a little more emphasis on them to expand on reasoning and ideas. But other than that you show a clear ability to be able to have a well-developed project going forth.
Hey Jordan! I definitely enjoyed your presentation and I think that your topic/case selection looks very interesting, but I have a few pointers that might be helpful in terms of structuring the final narrative paper and doing a bit more reflecting on the process. First, though, I think you did a good job in justifying your puzzle that led you to this point. Case studies are great for looking at outliers (side note: I might stress this a bit more and perhaps reference some of the methodological material we’ve read in class), so it makes a lot of sense that you would take some of the exceptions to the Thucydides trap as cases. After that, you review the literature very thoroughly – I particularly liked the ways you related the schools of thought to each other and stressed their strengths and weaknesses as well as their contributions to your project through the variables they outline. However, I noticed you get into a lot of detail here and spend a good deal of time on it. For the format of a presentation, it might be worth taking a broader look at these schools of thought to leave yourself more time to discuss your methodology. I’d be very interested to hear more about how exactly you selected you cases, why that makes sense, and what you’re gaining and losing from pursuing a case study as opposed to a large-n or interpretivist piece, for example, since these questions are a part of the final narrative paper, too. Overall, it’s great to see how your topic has developed and I wish you the best heading into 306.
Other side note: is only considering cases before 1945 a “control variable” as you say, or is it simply limiting the scope in order to increase case comparability? These are the kinds of questions it will be important to elucidate.
Hi Jordan,
Your video was informative and it’s clear that you have a good understanding of where you want to go with your topic. You did a good job explaining both your puzzle as well as the placement of your research within existing scholarship. However, while the detail was beneficial, and will be particularly useful for your essay, it constituted the vast majority of your video. I would have appreciated if you had instead taken that time to delve deeper into your methodology and further explain that. For instance, I am still a bit confused as to which of the Mill’s Methods you plan on using. You mentioned process tracing, however that’s analysis of a singular case on it’s own, and it seemed like you will be comparing. Have you chosen the method of difference or similarity? Additionally, I am still a bit confused about your variables, while I understand how you used controls to limit the scope of your research, I am still unclear about the actual independent and dependent variables that you will be examining in your research. I think that you brought that up within your lit review, however, by the end of the video I was still unclear. You did a good job with the presentation and I think that you will be in a strong place as you move into both your essay and next semester’s research, however these are things to consider and to potentially apply to presentations in the future. I look forward to seeing where your research takes you.