Possible Research Topics

Single-sex schools

This topic is rather close to home for me. I am the eldest of six children, all of whom have different personalities, strengths, and schooling. I have gotten into many arguments with my siblings, defending my all-girl’s school and stating that it has made me a better person. They, in turn, defend their co-ed school by pointing out the social and real-world advantages. The issue in my family is larger than I can say, because our arguments can sway our parents’ opinions on where they should send the younger children in high school. Should they send us all to similar schools? Can we all get into similar schools? Should they play it by ear and listen to each of our voices? Why can’t we just go to public school? Through debating with my brothers, I have heard both sides of the story. I went to an all-girls school, my brother went to a private co-ed high school, another went to a public co-ed high school, and lastly my other brother went to an all-boys high school. We all try to convince the younger siblings which one is best, because it is truly up to them. What I need to research is statistics that reveal differences in academic success, social skills, and personality changes, if any. Perhaps there are other topics about different methods of schooling that I have not heard of. I’m not sure if I should go into home schooling, because I don’t know much about the topic. My audience would be adults who are trying to decide what type of school to send their children to. There are many rumors floating around about the lack of social skills and even prevalent homosexuality of children who attend single-sex schools. I am looking to disprove those rumors and shine light on the many pros of attending a single-sex school.

 

 

 

Effect of Technology Use on Young Children

My youngest sibling, Rachelle, created her Facebook account in kindergarten. She was five years old. She walks around with a 3DS in hand, constantly begging to use my laptop or smartphone. She knows how to use my mother’s smartphone better than she does. Rachelle uses Xbox more than I do, playing videogames with her friends in school. Did I mention she is 8 years old? She rarely sees her friends in person outside of school, but constantly texts and plays videogames with them through social media. I have seen, first hand, the bad effects of technology on young children. On the other hand, I have seen the good ones. She enjoys reading through websites that contain animations that go along with stories. She (occasionally) plays educational videogames and watches YouTube videos on how to cook, how to draw, and so forth. I would need to research statistics that can reveal negative or positive impacts on technology and social skills. With the world going “paperless,” people encourage the use of laptops and technology to replace books. They believe in the use of technology to advance learning. But, I believe technology should be limited and controlled. My sister focuses far too much on the social aspects of technology. I would target adults with young children who may fear that technology is ruining their child.

The Danger of Stereotypes

Stereotypes and propaganda: two things that influence the perception of things that we truly do not understand. These things aim to reach a person before he or she has any knowledge of what is being exaggerated or altered. Stereotypes and propaganda can be about ethnicities, countries, and products: just about anything. In the exhibit “Monster and Marvels” presented at Stony Brook University, Asian stereotypes in American comics are revealed through the use of images and excerpts from these American comics. Because Asians are a minority in the United States, many people were unaware of Asian culture. These comic book characters may have been their only exposure to Asian people, and because comic books are targeted at youth, their influence increased exponentially. Some stereotypes are still present today.

Two stereotypes that interested me were the ones that focused on the personality of Asian women. The two stereotypes were Lotus Blossom and the Temptress. These two personalities are like two sides of a coin; one presented a submissive woman who lived to please her lover, while the other was a rather powerful, dominating woman who lived to please herself. Both include sexual stereotypes that seemed new to me and were not present in today’s society as much as it was in the past. There is still an image of a conservative, submissive Asian wife and mother and, even today, there is a bad reputation for Asian prostitution. But, the idea of an Asian woman willing to sacrifice her life for her husband’s wishes, or an Asian woman who uses her sexuality to gain power is not directly present today.

A stereotype that is present today is the idea that females are inferior in the math and science fields. It is a fact that there are fewer females in these areas in the world today, but that does not mean that women are intellectually inferior to men in this realm. I had the privilege of being able to attend an all-girl’s school during high school, and I never had suffered through this stereotype. This allowed me to continue of my pursuit of greater knowledge in math and science without being deterred by sexist stereotypes. Sadly, during college, I became more aware of this stereotype. I would notice that people would gravitate towards men to ask for help in chemistry or biology. I believe that women are fully capable of achieving the same things that men do. This stereotype is very dangerous because it may discourage women from studying math and science.

A situation where I have been perceived through a stereotype is a common one, and relevant to the exhibit “Monster and Marvels.” Throughout my life I have been constantly barraged with Asian female stereotypes, with people blaming things from my eyesight to my academic skill on the fact that I am Asian. In high school I was often approached because I was one of the only Asian people in the class, and, naturally, I would know the material best. Sometimes I felt like this Asian stereotype truly diminished my accomplishments. If I were any other race, would people praise my academic accomplishments? A common conversation would be: “You did well on your test!” “Well, duh, she’s Asian,” someone would chime in. Eventually, this stereotype became a part of me, raising my expectations of myself. Sadly, I began to blame my ease of learning on my race. Hopefully in the future, the stereotype changes.

Topics of Research Paper

“No dealing, no killing” is not a good discipline to conserve rare animals. Having heard the slogan for many times, I have never thought about there will be any problem with it. However, killers seem do not stop slaughtering animals. Newspapers publish reports of slaughter as many as before the slogan appearing. Thus, I start to reflect whether the slogan works well or not. I have already known a few examples to illustrate that the slogan cannot effectively stop the killing. I need to find out more strong examples and experts’ opinions to develop and support my argument. Some may think the slogan is effective. Because if people stop buying the elements of rare animals, the dealers will have no chance to earn profits so eventually they will quit this field. I would like to reach media and experts, because they have great influence on society. If some medias report some new methods with verification of experts, people change their way to conserve rare animals rather than the old and ineffective one.

Another topic I am interested in is that zoo should exist in the world. When I was very young, my parents always took me to some zoos to know animals. Gradually, I liked to visits zoos because by watching animals’ behaviors like foraging and playing together, I felt surprising and delighted. So when someone put forwards that we should not keep zoos, I am not unwilling to support this point of view. As I grow up, I realize that the reason for zoos’ existence is not only for visitors’ delight, but also it is a good place to conserve animals as well. Some argue that zoos also serve to educate people especially children, because children have much contact with zoos and they are more willing to protect things they like. Other people, arguing against the idea, hold that zoos are worse environment than the wild. If animals live in the wild, they will grow better. As for this idea, I will post enough evidence to fight against. I plan to reach zoos’ owner, since they have ability to improve the quality of zoos and arrange funny activities to educate children.

Monsters and Marvels

As I visited the exhibition of “Monster and Marvels”, the most surprising character is Sandra Woosan also called Lady Shiva. This alias comes from an Indian god Shiva who has great power to control reproduction and dissolution. As for as I am concerned, the cartographer might think both of them as women bring their superiority to the full play.

Sandra Woosan takes advantages of her extreme beauty to seduce others and eventually kills them. As we can see from the picture, she wears a dress which presents her chest and legs, enabling us fully sense her sexuality. Furthermore, most of other pictures show viewers her charming face and perfect figure. However, her characteristics give a strong contrast with her appearance. She kills people without any hesitation or sympathy. Viewer may wonder how such a beautiful woman has a cruel heart to assassinate others. This is the common Asian women’s image in Americans during 19^th century when America invaded and occupied Asian，because they were easy to be hooked by Asian women and found themselves being transformed rather than transforming. This vulnerability makes them suspicious of whether Asian women have some magical power.

These stereotypes remain exist. In the movie “Charlie’s Angels”, Asian American Liu Yuling acts as a female agent who is wise and beautiful but is hired by a secret person to kill people. This character looks like Sandra Woosan. Another Asian actress, Yang Ziqiong also acts as an agent in the movie “007: tomorrow never dies”.

In Chinese culture, Japanese are depicted most in China’s movies about Sino Japanese wars. For example, the movie “The Flowers of The war”, most Japanese are demonstrated to be horrible and cruel. They kill a large number of Chinese and use various ways to torch them such as burying them when they are alive and experiencing on them for bacterial wars. When Chinese watch the movie, they tend to be excited and irritated and gradually develop an anti-Japan emotion. The dangerous emotion will lead people to do many irrational things like stopping buying goods imported by Japan and crashing cars of Japanese brands.