So I've started my paper

[Hax]

And I've picked cultural and technological transmission over the Silk Route as my subject. I've divided it in 4 chapters:

Chapter I - The History of the Silk Route

1.1 - Early History
1.2 - The Kingdom of Baktria, the Indo-Greeks and tribes of the Sakae.
1.3 - The Qin and Han dynasties of China
1.4 - The Parthians and Sassanids
1.5 - The Islamic Caliphate
1.6 - Genghis Khan and the Mongolian Empire

Chapter II - Cultural transmission

2.1 - Buddhism on the Silk Route
2.2 - Scientifical advances

Chapter III - Technological advances

Chapter IV - The Decline of the Silk Route.

================================

Now, I come to plead for help, my orgah friends. Are there some things I really must include, are there any good sources of information you know, etc, etc. Even though this is for the last grade of high school, I'll try to get it as scientifical as possible.

Thank you, in advance

- Hax

[Fragony]

Great subject. You do know what caused the decline of the silk-route do you

Dig into the early colonial expansion of Portugal and the pax mongolia.

[Hax]

I suppose the biggest reason was the start of the Age of Discoveries, with the European superpowers establishing permanent colonies in the East. Also the increasing use of sea trade routes.

[Fragony]

I suppose the biggest reason was the start of the Age of Discoveries, with the European superpowers establishing permanent colonies in the East. Also the increasing use of sea trade routes.

There is a reason the Portugese started looking for a searoute, it was a necesety, the silk road didn't decline it was cut off. If you want to write about the cultural exchange look for 'pax mongolia'. Pax means peace, and it ended, wth? I just gave you a great present.

edit, we are starting a social group for students of history by the way, given the subject of your WERKSTUK;) that is probably the direction you will be taking as well. It's a tough study especially the first year is a massacre expect more than half of your fellow students to fail miserably, and you will welcome a 5.6 like a gift from the gods. If so you need all the help you can get I suggest you join.




few tips,

1.1 - Early History
1.2 - The Kingdom of Baktria, the Indo-Greeks and tribes of the Sakae.
1.3 - The Qin and Han dynasties of China
1.4 - The Parthians and Sassanids
1.5 - The Islamic Caliphate
1.6 - Genghis Khan and the Mongolian Empire

^ You can't do this, keep it nice and tight, early history, you want to wrap 5000 years in one chapter, and for what really? What does it have to do with the silk road, it's general history that has no relation to your subject it's dead weight. Ask yourself only one question and work towards a conclusion. What do you want to know, why did the silk-road decline for example. Or how did the silk-road contribute to the cultural exchange between the west and the east. You need a clear subject regarding the silk road.


2.2 - Scientifical advances

Chapter III - Technological advances

^ Why do you put science with budhism, and make a technological chapter? Science and technoligy go hand in hand, explain how they thought about science. And how science led to better technology?

[Hax]

Oh, should have named that "Cultural transmission" or whatever. My mistake.

[Megas Methuselah]

That's a very broad topic, bro.

[Tellos Athenaios]

Chapter I can/should be scrapped as it stands because as already mentioned --not only is there simply no room in a paper (more of an essay, really); it also has actually fairly little to do with the Silk road itself, or rather the Silk road itself plays an important but small role in the whole. By this I mean that if you wind up telling about all those empires you will be telling more about those empires than their connection with the Silk road, which despite its major impact is still a fairly small part of that history. Furthermore the vast majority of trade on the Silk road wasn't really part of the Silk road itself, it is more of an aggregate trade made possible in those grand bazaars that sprang up on the Silk road -- or conversely: the Silk road merely came to be the new name of the ancient trading networks that had a prior existence. (Note that the part of the Silk road from at least Afghanistan to Brittain has very ancient Bronze age if not older predecessors: simply because Afghanistan was for a long time one of the precious few sources of such extravagant luxuries as Lapis Lazui (actually unique to Afghanistan in antiquity) & Rubies/Opals/Emeralds (not unique, still there were/are not _that_ many sources of them) and also because of its relative abundance of tin.)

Your paper will probably be more interesting to read (as well as write) if you focus on a facet of your ‘grand’ story that you now call ‘history of the Silk road’. Chapter II suffers from the same problem albeit to a lesser degree because you can more easily make a case out of cultural transmission (Chapter I would either have to acknowledge a bit of dead end, or wind up hopelessly impossible to integrate into a bigger context called paper).

[Hax]

Thank you very much, I will take these comments and carve something better with them.

I'll expand on it, it's 1:22 AM here and I want to go to bed.

Thanks again.

[Megas Methuselah]

I never divided any of my essays into independent chapters with subtitles, etc. In all honesty, I see this merely as an excuse to replace an essay's proper organization. Rather, each paragraph should lead directly into the next paragraph to create a nicely flowing essay that is both rational and easy to read.

[Jolt]

Ugh. The Portuguese discoveries had 0% to do with anything related to Silk or the Silk Road. The original primary motivation was a religious one, to find Prester John, which they had heard was an extraordinarily powerful Christian ruler in the backyard of the Muslims, and from who they would ally to and together they would destroy the Turks and the Muslims and liberate the Holy Lands once again.

Of course those reasons began getting more financially related when the Portuguese crown saw that not only colonies could actually give profit (Madeiran sugar, from the very first Portuguese colony, was a luxury good highly praised throughout Europe until Brazillian plantations far surpassed it) but a European monopoly on trade in the Guinea gulf (Which Spain tried to meddle into until they got their fleet wiped out by our own) was also extremely profitable, acquiring several exotic and luxurious goods by trading them for worthless items suchs as glass necklaces, mirrors and other objects which were shiny or had a odd property, textiles were also used in those transactions. These were traded for African spices, slaves and decent amounts of gold. It was only then that the economical possibilities began being really accounted for. The great objective wasn't the silk routes but the spice routes. Thus if you see the cargo of Portuguese ships in transit in the Eastern Empire, you notice that they always bring massive amounts of spice to Europe, but little silk.

Though silk was heavily transacted in the Portuguese Empire, the large amounts were restricted only to the Macau/Chinese-Nagasaki/Japanese trade route.

[Fragony]

Been to a catholic school huh

No different from the land 'road' (it was more like a series of trading posts), spices have always been the primary trade. Hint of truth with a shipload of myth, I'll leave it to Haxie to what is more likely.

[Meneldil]

Honestly, that sounds like a huge topic. How long is your paper supposed to be?

I never divided any of my essays into independent chapters with subtitles, etc. In all honesty, I see this merely as an excuse to replace an essay's proper organization.

That's a typical continental Europe thing. I know it's a basic requirement in France and from what I've been told, Germany and Italy too. I'm pretty sure it's the same in Hax' country.

Edit : And as Fragony pointed out, I think you need to find a topic, what we frenchmen call a problematic. I'm not sure what are the expectations in high school, but later on, you will have to ask a question, and work your way to an answer. Papers usually have to answer something, to validate or invalidate an hypothesis. Hence why the whole first part seems a bit off the track.

[Fragony]

No if we don't know what it says in german/french/latin we better get a dictionary, there seems to be a sadistic touch not translating anything.

[Megas Methuselah]

That's a typical continental Europe thing. I know it's a basic requirement in France and from what I've been told, Germany and Italy too. I'm pretty sure it's the same in Hax' country.

Bah!

Edit : And as Fragony pointed out, I think you need to find a topic, what we frenchmen call a problematic. I'm not sure what are the expectations in high school, but later on, you will have to ask a question, and work your way to an answer. Papers usually have to answer something, to validate or invalidate an hypothesis. Hence why the whole first part seems a bit off the track.

Yeah, the Thesis Statement. The heart of every essay, the thesis statement is usually in the essay's introductory paragraph. The essay itself should revolve entirely around the thesis. In fact, I heard that the term "essay" has French roots (stand proud, Meneldil ), in that an essay tries (essayer; I think I butchered that French word, as I can't seem to remember my French too much at the moment) to answer a question.

[Fragony]

also, keep in mind who you are writing for, you are writing a paper not a book, you can assume the reader already has some knowledge about the silk road, knowledge on which he wants to expand.

[seireikhaan]

Dang, that's a HUGE paper. I would very much advise chopping it down, if you are expected to go into detail. To echo Frag, this is a paper, not a book. When I look at what you're trying to do, this looks like the sort of thing a person trying to achieve a PHD would do for a dissertation. Which are books, and usually take many years and lots of research. Depending on what the exact length of the paper is supposed to be, I would advise you take a more intensive look at one or two of the chapters that you've outlined, and do that. Otherwise, if you're like me anyways, you'll never fit enough info into the paper to make it satisfactorily in depth before you've turned it into a monster. Don't make this project too ambitious, or else you might end you burying yourself. Granted, I'm a bit biased in this regard, but I did 8 pages just on Mongol influences on the Silk Road, and I was severely irritated at the end quality, even though I got a top grade for the paper. Granted, I was covering more than just culture, but you see my point, no? A relatively small period of time can be very information intensive.