Informative Webpage Assignment for Introduction to International Relations
Informative Webpage--For this assignment, you need to write a 5-6 section webpage on your course page for POLS 2100. The goal of your webpage is to inform an educated audience about your topic. It must rely on credible sources (no Wikipedia, no “Joe-Bob’s Website) that are properly cited. I don’t care if your citations are MLA, APA, footnotes, or endnotes. Don’t let your sources take over your webpage: I want to hear your brain thinking when I read it, with quotes and data being used to support your writing rather than taking the place of your writing. Your informative webpage should be written in third person—no “I think this” and “I argue that”—and should be written professionally for an educated audience. Take a good look at the informative webpage scoring rubric at the end of this syllabus, because that is what I’ll be using to grade your memo. When you have completed two sections of your webpage, I encourage you to send me the link via the Canvas messaging system, and I’ll give you some feedback on how it’s progressing.
Since I like directing students with respect to topics, but I also get tired of reading more than five webpages on the same topic, I will hold a first-come-first-served lottery in the second week of the course. Expect an all-class announcement at that time in which I solicit the top three topics you’d like to choose. The earliest responders are more likely to get one of their top choices. (See, it pays to pay attention in life.) These are the only possible topics for informative webpages this semester, so be thinking about them in anticipation of the second-week announcement:
Climate Change—I would suggest a webpage with the following sections: Background and History of Climate Change; International Inaction on Climate Change (Describing the history of weak international agreements/treaties); Climate Change as a Threat Multiplier (Which is how the U.S. military is looking at it); Public Opinion on Climate Change (Document public awareness and opinion on the issue); Addressing Climate Change (What are the most promising developments for reducing greenhouse gas emissions?)
The Global Arms Trade—Possible sections for your webpage: The Size and Scope of the Global Arms Trade; The U.S. as a Leading Arms Merchant; Fueling Conflicts with Arms (Highlighting some conflicts that continue because of imported arms); The Domestic Politics of the Arms Trade (What factors and political relationships in the arms supplying countries drive the continued trade in weapons?)
Global Food Crisis—Some sections you might want to have in your webpage: A Look at Global Hunger (Where are the places where food shortages are most acute and what are the effects thereof?); The Food Crisis of 2008 (What was it? What were its political effects?); Factors Driving the Food Crisis (What are the general causes of the food crisis?); Addressing Food Insecurity (What are nation-states and international organizations doing to combat the food crisis?)
The Millennium Development Goals—Possible sections for your webpage: What are the Millennium Development Goals? (background, history, list of the goals, etc.); One page for each of the seven goals (skip the one on Global Partnership) in which you describe the goal in more detail and write about what is being done to address the goal and what kind of progress is being made.
Is Globalization Coming to an End?— Possible sections for your site: Brief History of Globalization; Globalization Depends on Cheap Fuel Prices; Globalization Depends on Economic Growth; Globalization and Ecological Limits; Globalization in Reverse (What would the economic effects be of a reversal in globalization?). I strongly suggest the following resources: Jeff Rubin, Your World is About to Get a Whole Lot Smaller. Oil and the End of Globalization (2009); Jeff Rubin, The End of Growth (2012); Richard Heinberg, The End of Growth. Adapting to Our New Economic Reality (2011); Donella Meadows, Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Update (2004); and this piece about airline travel http://www.energybulletin.net/stories/2012-08-18/running-empty-big-airlines-big-trouble.
The Arab Spring—You might consider these sections in your informative website: Overview of the Arab Spring; Causes of the Arab Spring; Case Study—Tunisia; Case Study—Egypt; Case Study—Syria; The Arab Spring and U.S. Foreign Policy.
The Drug War in Mexico—I would suggest the following sections for your website: Background and History of the Drug War in Mexico; Violence in the Border Area; Causes of the Mexican Drug War; U.S. and Mexican Responses to the Drug War.
Resource Wars—Some possible sections of your webpage would be: Limited Resources in the 21st Century (in which you outline the vital resources that nation-states might want to fight over); Oil in the Middle East; Oil in East Asia; Oil in the Arctic; Water Conflicts; Farmland in Africa. You must acquire the work of Michael T. Klare, particularly The Race for What’s Left (2012), but there are many sources for this topic.