Ethics Crisis Solved?

So after further (read: any) consideration of the Intro research paper assignment I have figured out that the assignment is not actually a research paper on a particular subject. It is evaluation of different methods of research. This is pretty much bogus. (I also watched Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure this weekend)

So basically the assignment due tomorrow is to find eight different websites about a topic and write a one to two paragraph consideration of three of them (the sources) based certain criteria. In the weeks to come we will do a section on text based sources and one on scholarly articles and then a cumulative paper on the usefulness of different types of sources. So basically I can't figure out how this really helps us learn about specific international issues.

On closer thought though I think its a great assignment for an intro class, because it is really helpful to know how best to do research. I think this is sort of what you learn in Writing 123 or just through experience otherwise, so its refreshing to focus on the process, instead of the analysis. I could definitely use some refining of my research paper writing technique. This will be helpful for my two actual big research projects later this term in Negotiation and New Testament.

The topic I am choosing is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, for several reasons. Firstly, I have been reading about this issue in various international news sources and I can anticipate some of the source bias issues that will come up. Also, this is one of the four topics we can choose from in International Negotiation class for our HUGE (50%) project, and this is the most controversial and interesting, and also the easiest to research. The other options for that project are the relations between the U.S. and either Iraq, Iran, or North Korea. If I don't get Israel because its too popular a topic or whatever I'll probably pick Korea. Every body knows that Iraq and Iran are basically secondary expressions of the Israeli-Palestinian thing anyway. Boring. And they can't be solved without fixing Palestine, which probably wont ever happen. Boo.

The main point is that this solves the ethics issue, because I seriously, seriously doubt that the professors of either class would mind the overlap, and I actually think they would appreciate my clever problem solving. In this case the topic is almost completely arbitrary. If I was doing two heavily weighted projects on the same topic, sharing the same research and analysis, I really would be cheating myself on potential learning.