World War II in 2 pages- GO!

April 8, 2013 9:19 AM

I have to write a 2 page paper on the subject after the fold. Can you please reccommend me books/journals/articles that cover the topic? The shorter, the better.

This is the topic, as outlined in the syllabus.
What is the difference between the war in the Pacific Theater and The Atlantic Theater during World War II. Are the two situations basically identical? If not, where do the two situations differ?

Now, I will warn you. This class is a low, low, low level history online class for a community college, where I'm getting a degree in an art field. I only need 3 sources (a book, a journal, and a web article, though for the book I'm just going to wander into the library and pick one at random, it's mostly topical journal articles/web articles that I need help locating). The minimum length is 2 pages. The maximum is 4. I plan on doing this in an afternoon.

posted by FirstMateKate to Education (5 answers total)

Okay. To be less irritated and a little more helpful: Don't pick a random book. Take a good dictionary, look up the article on wwII, read that article and pick the book cited most in the narrower topic area you want to research. Take two afternoons for doing this. Same with the article. Web resource: use Wikipedia as a start, look at their literature and link list at the end.

(Even in a low level community college class about a topic that's not your main topic, literature research is typically pitched as a learning result, as a reason why you're supposed to be doing the paper. Not something people here should help you with at all)
posted by Namlit at 9:59 AM on April 8, 2013 [5 favorites]

Does your community college have a library? This is exactly the kind of question that reference librarians are there to help you with. Instead of picking a random book, put your search terms ("Pacific Theater," "Atlantic Theater," "WWII history," whatever seems to work) into the online catalog and make a list of books that seem like they might be helpful. Depending on your school you might also be able to find journal articles in the same way. Again, librarians can help.

(And yes. This is the second time you've asked for this kind of help on AskMe, but learning to do research is an important skill for a lot of different fields--the point is not that you need to learn about WWII, it's that you learn how to find out about it.)
posted by epanalepsis at 11:02 AM on April 8, 2013 [4 favorites]

Ask the librarian in your campus library. They will be able to direct you to resources you have access to as a student. We'd just be guessing whether the journal is one your library subscribes to, for example.

And yeah, learning how to find info is a great skill. The librarian will model that for you, hopefully, and next time you'll be able to do it on your own.
posted by donnagirl at 12:01 PM on April 8, 2013

Response by poster: Okay... i seem to have hit a nerve in a seemingly neutral topic. I was being flippant previously. Saying I was going to pick a random book is so absurd that I figured, surely, you'd understand it was a joke. So I guess I'll go ahead and clarify some things:
I know about all of the resources you all have mentioned. I feel that its a bit of a reach to try and assume that I just flat out don't know the purpose of research papers, and even more of a reach to speak as if you know anything of my abilities as a student after asking one question (no, epanalepsis, asking for a dummy article to take the place of Lorem Ipsum in a mockup is not equivalent).

I am going through a shitstorm of personal issues that's eating up about 120% of my time, but didn't want to include that. I thought if I were to ask a straightforward question I would receive straightforward answers. But I've underestimated askme's tendency to be presumptuous.

So, if anyone has any resources (online directories, databases, etc) or any advice other than "look it up" or "ask a librarian", Iwould appappreciate it.
posted by FirstMateKate at 5:49 PM on April 8, 2013

I wasn't being flippant or presumptuous - I *am* a librarian. The things I would point a student to on my campus are licensed resources that you may not even have access to. Your question isn't awful, it's just one best posed to a local librarian. Kind of like all the "go ask a lawyer" answers people get sometimes. Your question strayed a little into "do my homework" territory, and that rarely goes well.

So really, ask your librarian. They might even have an online chat service that would help if you don't have time to physically go to the library right now. If you tell me where you go to school, I'll check their website and make more concrete suggestions.
posted by donnagirl at 6:10 PM on April 8, 2013 [1 favorite]