Mid-project review

Is my project following my original plan? How has my plan developed? In my planning review, I planned with my Gantt Chart to have my research complete by the start of the Easter holidays and my essay draft complete by the end of the Easter holidays. However, a number of aspects meant that this did not go to plan. Firstly, my organisation over the weeks leading up to the holidays and during Easter was not good. I did not have a clear idea of exactly what I was going to complete and when which led to the second issue, which was time-management. Throughout the project I have been careful with organising myself so that I know what has priority during times such as mock exams and also ensuring I have a good balance between EPQ and my other A-levels, especially in relation to how many of my school study periods I dedicated to each subject. However, in the Easter holidays I struggled with balancing my job, homework from my subjects, socialising and EPQ. I was overly ambitious with how many hours I worked in the first week and ended up spending most of the rest of the time on homework. I ended up meeting very few of the goals I had for the Easter holidays, however, I am still not significantly behind with my project. Therefore, I still hope to complete my project before the summer holidays for the same reasons I previously stated in my planning review, and although I am not where I initially planned to be this setback has shown me what I need to improve to complete my project as I initially planned to instead of in September. I have learnt to have more organised and precise planning as this will help me to stay focused and know exactly what I need to do and when. I have found that I work better and more efficiently when I know exactly what I need to be doing and have a very structured approach to work. I originally created my Gantt chart to help with my time management and planning of my project, and although it has been useful as a to-do list for my project, it hasn’t been the best resource for my organisation in the EPQ. I found that although I was filling in the dates and updating what I had completed I wasn’t using it as much as I intended to. Instead, I have been making mini to-do lists for every couple of weeks, or simply going through my research in my folder as I find it. Therefore, its lack of effectiveness and the short amount of time left needed to complete my project prompted me to also create a short-term deadline calendar that I created using a excel academic calendar template. As the next 2 months will be very busy for me in Sixth Form, I have combined all my major EPQ deadlines with my major A-level dates so that I know exactly what to prioritise and when. For example, I have not planned to complete the Final Product Review until after my Year 12 Mocks are complete so that during the week, of exams I do not have to worry about completing any EPQ. I also created a much simpler table which is a summary of all my EPQ deadlines I have in the calendar for easy reference. My research log and the notes I have in it which analysing my sources are also different now than they were previously as my plan has changed a lot from the first Candidate Proposal to the final project title. For example, I wrote in November that ‘The soldier’s actions in this video are also extremely important towards my essay title as it contradicts the blame that they arguably hold in relation to the war crimes’ about the Napalm girl video. However, as my essay is no longer about the war crimes of the Vietnam War this is no longer relevant. Because my altered essay title some of my earlier research, although it helped me have more background knowledge on the Vietnam War, is now much less relevant than I initially stated. A significant challenge I have faced in my project recently has been surrounding my range of sources specifically relating to a Vietnamese scientific report study. As I progressed throughout my secondary research, it became clear that a large majority of the sources on the scientific evidence behind Agent Orange have concluded that the chemical in Agent Orange (2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin) does not cause any disease of have any negative affects except for choroacne. However, considering that these are all only American reports that were conducted after Agent Orange had already been sprayed across Vietnam, the reliability of these studies should be evaluated as there is most likely bias. Because of this, I planned to find a study of the same chemical conducted by Vietnamese scientists or government and use this to evaluate the sources in my essay, however I have not been able to find any Vietnamese scientific report or study on 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin. Therefore, I will have to address this issue in the essay and write about the possible bias of these sources is difficult to prove as I can only find evidence of American studies.

My summary of the comments and advice from my supervisor My supervisors’ main piece of advice was to ensure I maximise the efficiency of my remaining time if I want to still make my deadline. One of the ways he advised doing this was to stop worrying about having every aspect of my research perfectly complete before starting to plan and write my essay, as research is an ongoing task that does not have to be final. He explained that as long as I have enough research to answer the question, which we agreed I am very close to having, I should be able to start writing, and by starting the evaluative process of starting to write and answer the question I will know exactly which parts of my research still need to be developed a little more to sufficiently answer my question. Also, my supervisor emphasised the importance of finding the best way for me to work as everyone works best with different methods of researching, writing and just generally staying organised. A point he mentioned was with the essay draft writing; he explained that it would probably be more beneficial for me to write one draft and then edit this draft continuously until I am happy with it as opposed to writing multiple separate drafts, as this is how I work best in essay writing. The final point he made was that even though I have planned to meet the summer holiday deadline for the project, if I am struggling with this deadline, I have extra time. Because my sixth forms official EPQ deadline is September, my deadline can be extended to then and it would still be on time. Even though I did not make the Easter holiday deadlines, my deadlines were early anyway so I am not behind on the project. He also briefly mentioned that I could try and make my title concise and entirely analytical, not descriptive.

Modifications I have made as a result of my discussion with my supervisor at this stage The first change I made was to alter my title slightly from Agent Orange: What were the effects and who is to blame’ to ‘Agent Orange in the Vietnam War: To what extent is the US Government to blame for the effects’. The first change I made was changing the ‘who is to blame’ to ‘to what extent is the US Government to blame’. This was for two reasons – firstly, something I noticed throughout my research is that most of the sources I come across cover the extent of the blame of the American Government for Agent Orange. There are a few occasional mentions of blame of other possible guilty parties, for example, some of my sources revolve around the potential blame of Monsanto Company. However, I have not been able to find enough information to proportionally cover the potential blame of every possible guilty party. Therefore, I plan to use the information I have found on the American Government in my final essay to evaluate their blame, and then either support or contradict this evidence with the information on other potential guilty parties. This will widen my perspective on the argument and allow me to reach a more justified conclusion, as I will not just be looking at directly linked sources but multiple factors that all hold weight to the final judgement. Secondly, by changing the ‘who’ to ‘to what extent’, I have followed the advice of my supervisor by using more analytical phrasing, which will encourage me to consistently use higher level evaluative skills in my essay. This links to how I also removed the ‘what were the effects.’ This is because this is purely descriptive and is simply repeating research that had already been conducted. To produce a report that builds upon the works of other scholars, I must use the work already conducted to produce a new idea or angle on my chosen topic. Furthermore, my supervisor suggested that in my report, I will cover the effects in my introduction anyway. So, I have decided to alter my essay plan and move what I would have covered in the ‘what were the effects’ section to the introduction of my essay to provide context and basis for the analysis in the main body of the report. Another change I made was to bring forward my deadline for my research to be finished, and instead lengthen the amount of time I have given myself to write the essay draft. This was because of the comment my supervisor made about how it would be better to start writing soon and then as I go along, I will know exactly what loose ends there are in my research. This will also save me a lot of time doing research that potentially won’t be used in my final product.

My final title and agreed form of project product I will be doing a 5000-word essay. The title will be ‘Agent Orange in the Vietnam War: To what extent is the US Government to blame for the effects.’

My planned next steps to complete my project My planned next steps are outlined in my short-term deadline tracker. The most immediate step will be to complete the majority of my research so that when my deadline comes around to start writing my first draft I am in a position for where I have enough information to answer my question. If whilst writing there is any aspect that I think I could go into more detail on, I will do more research as I go. Therefore, I have not planned to have my research log complete until after the final essay has been written. The final topics I will briefly look into before starting my essay draft are- ·         Ranch hand study ·         Geneva convention ·         Americas history of War Crimes and any specific examples in past wars. ·         Human rights act ·         How human rights differ in war The last four topics I believe will be relevant as they link to how at the Universal deceleration of human rights, the United States was arguably the biggest advocate, however, since then they have been the biggest breaker of human rights in war. Therefore, I want to research to what extent is the effects of Agent Orange considered a war crime to add to the argument of the US governments potential blame. Also, the reason the Human rights convention is such a vital piece of evidence is because unlike the majority of my sources which are from American perspectives only, Human Rights were decided on by 58 countries which means it essentially eliminates bias.