The Crack Epidemic in Washington DC
The three topics that I talked about last week really interest me. It is hard to decide which of the three to choose. Researching the city’s planning would be fun; researching what the city was like during the civil war would be enormously interesting. The topic that I am going to ultimately study is crack, and its effect on the city. Addiction is a condition that continues to affect millions in this country. I would like to research who were the sellers, and who were the buyers. Why did they chose to do what they did? In a city with a majority of African Americans, and high segregation, what effect did the crack epidemic along neighborhood lines, and vice versa?
To continue researching this topic, I will speak to a librarian who could assist me in finding material on this subject. I would also like to find interviews with the people involved on-line. Another step I will take is to find articles already written on the subject from the school databases. I will also keep a document with hyperlinks to the data that I find interesting and usable with a description of what I would like to use from each and why. By doing so, I won’t have the problems of the past, such as losing specific citations.
One step you’ll need to take in your iterative process is to define a time frame–remembering that this is a history class. And likely you will need to focus on particular neighborhood.
Rather than a word doc of citations, give Zotero a try. We will continue to work with it in class and there, you have a clearer way of searching and organizing your maerials than a word document allows!