Newspaper assignment

For this assignment you need to pick one or more of the newspapers and write a short essay analyzing something you find there. You may be able to get a good paper from just one article, but you will probably have to follow a story through more than one day or find two or more stories, possibly from different newspapers, to compare. A fair number of these newspapers have archives, so you can go back a good bit to dig up what is happening rather than waiting around for something new. Note that many of these are in Asian languages, but most countries have at least one English-language paper, and some Asian paprs like Asahi Shimbun have English editions.

Coming up with a question

            You need to find a neat story or fact, of course, but you need to figure out what you are going to talk about. What is important or significant about what you are reading? You might look for examples that can be found in Asian and American papers or in different Asian papers. How is the Chinese view of Iraq different from that in Japan or the U.S.? Or you might find specifically historical issues being discussed. Historical preservation, the looting of antiquities, and school textbooks turn up in Asian papers all the time. Or you might find some issue that is better understood in the present by using some of the things we have learned in this class. Issues about the family and the status of women, war issues and others are quite common.

Research

            You may have to do a bit of research in order to figure out what is going on or what you want to say about it. Googling will probably be enough, although you need to be careful with it. Please cite anything you end up using. You could also come ask me for advice.

Writing the paper

            The paper does not have to be more than two or three pages long, although you can write more if you like. The paper should have a clear point to make. Don’t just summarize a couple of articles, make a point about something we can learn about Asia from reading these things. Note that when I say “we” I mean reasonably informed people who know quite a bit about Asia, which is what you are. Don't just tell me that there seems to be some dispute about textbooks between China and Japan, tell me something substantial about the current state of the problem. Please give proper citations for everything you use.