Pick something that's good for learning English and getting good grades.

You can pick tons of subjects your schoolmates may be interested in that are less obscure and are about just as recent/new or obscure and that generally just as bad.

Anyway, only thing she might have done wrong is not make clear what the subject is going to be used for. If she said 'introduce us to you fascinating but obscure hobby' then some people aren't going to find 10 books or 10 scholarly articles, obviously. But I bet she didn't. I mean, if she really is a professor.

riptide

5673 Posts

July 17 2009 15:16 GMT

#22

Stick to the topic man, stick to the topic. Part of learning to be an academic is learning to find scholars and critics who say what you want them to say. People might disagree with this, but that's pretty much how I see the field. There is a PhD out there who has said pretty much everything (within reason, although some well outside it) there is to say. Your job is finding out what you think and then supporting it with famous people quotes/ideas.

So, take a step back from the topic. Progaming, hmmm, how would you break that down? Sports? Sporting culture? Mass movements, social movements, social motivation, social trends. Psychology, perhaps? Winning, losing, mentality. Finances, marketing?

Your topic, is fine. You just need an angle. Think about what exactly you want to say, and then come up with a thesis statement. In finding your angle, however, ah, this is where you will need to do some, and preferably a lot of preliminary reading.

To sum up - plenty of people have said things that you can apply to progaming. You just need to find out what you want to say, and then find the sources to back you up.

Diomedes

464 Posts

July 17 2009 15:19 GMT

#23

If he wants to attempt that he has to be sending emails all over Korean universities if maybe there is someone there doing a PhD on esports.

Naib

Hungary4843 Posts

July 17 2009 15:20 GMT

#24

Whine about it to the other filipinos @ GArena, maybe they'll have an idea.

NonY

8748 Posts

July 17 2009 15:21 GMT

#25

Like riptide said, you are just looking for the wrong books. Find histories of other sports. Find books written about competitive board games (chess, etc). Find a book on the psychology of sports fans. Find a book on what gets people to watch things. So with your major references, you can build a very inclusive characterization of sport, and then argue that progaming has the ability to fulfill that characterization.

riptide

5673 Posts

July 17 2009 15:21 GMT

#26

My point is that he doesn't need someone who is doing a PhD on ESPORTS to write an essay on ESPORTS. Read my post, please.

Then read this post as well -

On July 18 2009 00:21 Liquid`NonY wrote:
Like riptide said, you are just looking for the wrong books. Find histories of other sports. Find books written about competitive board games (chess, etc). Find a book on the psychology of sports fans. Find a book on what gets people to watch things. So with your major references, you can build a very inclusive characterization of sport, and then argue that progaming has the ability to fulfill that characterization.

Edit - If I understand the assignment correctly, your teacher just wants to see if you guys can research and put together a decent paper. I don't think the topic matters nearly as much how good the paper is, in terms of argument, structure and form in general.

SilverSkyLark

Philippines8437 Posts

July 17 2009 15:27 GMT

#27

On July 18 2009 00:21 riptide wrote:
My point is that he doesn't need someone who is doing a PhD on ESPORTS to write an essay on ESPORTS. Read my post, please.

Then read this post as well -

Show nested quote +

Hmm, yeah, I need to find a new angle on it...thanks a lot for the encouragement..:D

MoltkeWarding

5195 Posts

July 17 2009 15:29 GMT

#28

With Obama's plans to put everyone in college, e-sports will soon gain acceptance as a respectable academic discipline. You'll see.

Empyrean

16971 Posts

July 17 2009 15:41 GMT

#29

On July 18 2009 00:29 MoltkeWarding wrote:
With Obama's plans to put everyone in college, e-sports will soon gain acceptance as a respectable academic discipline. You'll see.

I think that's an absolutely horrid idea. Not everyone needs a college education :/

Also I'm going to lunch now XD

illu

Canada2531 Posts

July 17 2009 15:50 GMT

#30

On July 17 2009 23:54 SilverSkyLark wrote:

Show nested quote +

Well, not really....

Oh the irony. LoLz.

o3.power91

Bahrain5288 Posts

July 17 2009 15:51 GMT

#31

On July 18 2009 00:20 Naib wrote:
Whine about it to the other filipinos @ GArena, maybe they'll have an idea.

Anyways, to OP, I wouldn't recommend continuing your assignment using progaming. Sure; you may be interested in it and I'm pretty sure you have a lot to say and talk about, however there are a few things you should consider (as many people have mentioned in this thread):

-It's better to choose a topic you are still interested in and is easy to find research material on (in my case, I may choose stuff like religion or philosophy).

-Since you are in school, and grades are important, it's better to work on something you are more confident in getting a better score in (not necessarily something boring).

I just finished the IB Diploma program. For those of you don't who know it, part of the program is a 4000 word essay (Extended Essay). Me and a friend of mine did our EEs in English A1 (highest level of English offered). His topic was "Family." My topic was "Religion." He didn't like his topic so much because he didn't think it was bold enough. He therefore changed his topic to "Sex." Note that we had around 7 months or so to work on this essay. My friend worked hard from the beginning and finished his essay on "Family" at around December (3 months before deadline). He then decided to change his topic to "Sex." Obviously he was discouraged by everyone (including the teacher who said that his original essay was pretty good). He ignored everyone's warnings (saying that everyone else wasn't as open-minded as he was) and worked on his new topic anyways. He finished it pretty quickly and handed in several drafts to the teacher to look through over and over again. I, on the other hand, got pretty lazy and began working on my essay a week before the deadline. It was moderated overseas though. I got a full letter grade higher than my friend. Anyways my point with this story is that it's not always the best choice to work on a topic that you really really want to stick to (ironic that you're calling your teacher closed minded isn't it

). Anyways, just my 2 cents

Stratos.FEAR

Canada706 Posts

July 17 2009 15:56 GMT

#32

does boxers biography count as a book source?

rally_point

Canada458 Posts

July 17 2009 16:03 GMT

#33

Good luck man. Actually if you do end up completing this paper... I would definitely like to take a read lol.

Just out of curiosity... what level of education is this? High school? College?

SilverSkyLark

Philippines8437 Posts

July 17 2009 16:29 GMT

#34

On July 18 2009 01:03 rally_point wrote:
Good luck man. Actually if you do end up completing this paper... I would definitely like to take a read lol.

Just out of curiosity... what level of education is this? High school? College?

College..:D

clazziquai

6685 Posts

July 17 2009 16:40 GMT

#35

It's school...just do it and get that shit over with ;p

micronesia

United States24640 Posts

July 17 2009 16:53 GMT

#36

I can recommend some books on the topic of progaming... for example: this book.

More seriously, you can take riptide/nony's advice or change topic (I recommend the latter unless you really want to do the former).

IntoTheWow

is awesome32274 Posts

July 17 2009 17:06 GMT

#37

I was going to post something but NonY already explained it :p

Pengu1n

United States552 Posts

July 17 2009 17:12 GMT

#38

your topic doesn't fit the requirements of the assignment, which is find 10 books. pick a new topic imo. it sucks tho cuz i agree its much easier to write about something your interested in.

MiniRoman

Canada3953 Posts

July 17 2009 17:20 GMT

#39

BOXER BOOK DUH.

But obviously you can't just write about Starleague and Korea off the top of your head citing internet forums. It's university bitch, not grade 10 english class

Myrmidon

United States9452 Posts

July 17 2009 17:29 GMT

#40

Other than the Boxer autobiography, there is the WCG documentary from National Geographic (the one following Xellos) if you need to source some facts about progaming. I'm not sure how credible/preferred documentaries are as sources, but they've got to be at least marginal (way above Internet, above local newspaper, above encyclopedia?).

Of course the majority of the sources are going to be the books and reputable journal articles on sports/gaming psychology, culture, and/or business.

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