So 191: Helpful Hints for Project Research

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2005 Country Studies

Some 2005 Country Studies

Country	Expert
Tanzania	Crissy Y.
Zimbabwe	Heather F.
Indonesia	Mike. W.
Sri Lanka	Meghan C.
Brazil	Colleen D.
Egypt	Meg C.

 

If you see a good article or data source for someone else's country -- please remember to tell them about it...

Table of Contents:

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Tips for working on your web page

Part 1

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Part 2

Part 2 is all about internal class divisions in your country.   Who has the power/wealth/income?  Some information might be quite useful:

Finding out whether or not there are  racial, tribal, language or religious divisions in your country that affect individuals' class positions might require some digging on your part.  A good place to look for contemporary data is the State Department's 2004 Human Rights Report and the archive of past State Department's Human Rights Reports (archive).   They are submitted annually by the U.S. Department of State to the U.S. Congress. The reports cover internationally recognized individual, civil, political, and worker rights, as set forth in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. So when there are systematic acts of racial, tribal, religious, or language discrimination they get reported.

Also read the appropriate sections of your Country Study.  The section entitled "Social Sectors" discusses class groups.  There usually are also sections on "Ethnic Groups" and "Religion."   You can also check out AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL CAMPAIGNS, which contains information on a number of human rights campaigns undertaken by this human rights organization.

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Think of Part 3 as a "Report Card"

You can construct your own groups of measures. Having done this you will now be able to assess in which areas your country has made significant progress and in which areas little improvement has been made. Remember, there are many different aspects to the "development" process. Countries might make significant strides in certain areas while not improving much in others. Looking at grouped measures will allow you to "grade" the performance of your country by area.

Practically, I would try to summarize your country's experience with each group of measures in a paragraph or two. For example, in one paragraph try to deal with "Measures of Health and Welfare." You can refer to charts and tables in this paragraph and it should conclude with a sentence in which you assess whether or not your country has made significant progress in improving its citizens' level of health and welfare. This section also should have a concluding paragraph that assesses the overall experience of social change your country -- a paragraph in which you clearly identify the areas where much or little progress has been made.

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Part 4

Do a special LEXIS-NEXIS Academic Universe  search.   Here is how to do a special Lexis-Nexis search for a current economic report on your country.  At the initial Lexis-Nexis screen choose the "Business" option.  At the "Business" screen, choose the "Business News" option.  In the box next to "Keyword" type this phrase: "country-name's economy" (for example:  "Iran's economy") -- do not forget to include the quote marks (") around this phrase.  You can leave the Date box set at six months since you want a recent report. You should get several good reports.  One of the best is the World of Information Country Report.  The MEED Quarterly Report, and recent articles in The Economist are also very good.

WAYS TO GET WORLD BANK DATA

World Bank African Data --  It is just for African countries, but this is way to access social indicators of development data as well as thematic maps and reports.

World Bank's "Regional Summaries" -- You can find the recent assessment of regional economic developments for Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, Europe and Central Asia, Latin America and Caribbean, and the Middle East and North Africa.  These short reviews will allow you to place a particular country's performance within a regional perspective. World Bank's Global Economic Prospects 2005>

The World Bank's "Country Briefs"  --  Click on your country and then find the link to the "Country Brief" for your country.

World Bank's "Data Page"  -- Provides access to information on a variety of topics contained in the tables of the World Development Report and well as other sources.

You actually have already collected much economic data in prior part of the projects -- see below:

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Part 5

• Part 1:  Will international relations (its position in the World System) constrain development?
• Part 2:  Will internal conditions (class, ethnic, racial divisions) constrain development?
• Part 3:  Will education, health, demographic or environments factors constrain development?
• Part 4:  Will economic factors constrain development?

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Tips for working on your web page

First Step in making a web page  --  answering this question:

What do you want to accomplish with your web page?

communicate with others?

provide access to general resources?

get visitors more engaged with your country material?

Second Step --  learning how to compose a web page:

You need to use some kind of "html" editing software to make a web page.  Netscape  --  the browser  --  comes with a very simple and free editor that's available on all university computers.  It is called Netscape Composer.  When you are in Netscape Navigator (the browser) you can open up Netscape Composer by either going to the "File Menu" and clicking on "Edit Page" or by clicking on the tiny icon of a pad and paper on the bottom right-hand side of the screen.  Clicking on the icon will open up a blank page.  Clicking on "Edit Page" will open up for editing the page you are currently visiting in the browser --  a handy thing if there is something you wish to "borrow" from the page you are visiting.

If you do not have Netscape on your office or home computer you can "download" a copy for free from the Netscape site.  The place to download Netscape Communicator 4.79  (the version that is on university computers) is:
http://wp.netscape.com/download/0509102/10000-en-win32-4.79-base-128_qual.html

Things we will learn on our first "web" class:

• How to open up a blank page in Composer and begin making a page
• Fonts  --   sizes, kinds, and colors
• Inserting  --  lines, images, links, and tables
• Formatting  --  using a "table" to get things where you want on a page
• Page Attributes  --  "naming" your page and giving it a background color
• NEVER USE SPACES  OR ODD CHARACTERS WHEN NAMING YOUR PAGE(s)!
• NEVER USE SPACES OR ODD CHARACTERS WHEN NAMING LINKS, IMAGES, OR FILES!
• using "targets" and constructing a table of contents
• Naming your first page "index.htm"
• Saving your page(s) and images on a floppy or zip disk
• Transferring your files to your own computer

Things we will learn on our second "web" class:

• Cutting and Pasting into your page  --  inserting material you already have in other files
• Converting Microsoft Word and Excel documents into html documents
• "Editing" pages you are browsing and saving them as pages for later use
• *using symbols (arrows, etc.) to link to pages  --  see below
• making an image into a link
• organizing your pages in subdirectories
• **relative and absolute links  -- the advantages of relative links.  See below
• working in the right "screen resolution" so that your pages look good on everybody's computer
• using "screen capture" software to make an image of a screen or part of a screen for use on your web page.
• developing multiple pages with relative links

 

*Useful Symbols for Your Web Page

• Just "right click" on the symbol that you want and "Save Image As" to your disk.
• Then, in Netscape Composer, insert the image on your page where you want it.
• Finally, "right click" on the symbol, go to "Image Properties," choose the "Link" tab, and enter the htm "page" that you want to go to when that symbol is clicked.

Right Arrow (or "next page": 

"Table of Contents":

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When you make a "link" to a page of your own, you can do it in two ways.  You can give that page's "absolute" address or its "relative" address.  The absolute address would be the address someone would have to write to get to that page from, say, their computer at home or in a dorm room.  The "relative" address is where that page can be found on the faculty server relative to the page where the link is being made.

Here is an example  --  I have a page that is a syllabus for my So 191 course on Social Change in Developing Countries.  Its address is:
http://www.faculty.fairfield.edu/faculty/hodgson/Courses/so191/SO191SYL.htm.
On the syllabus I have a link to a page giving students "Helpful Hints" on doing their research project.  Students can get this Helpful Hints page at this "absolute" address:
http://www.faculty.fairfield.edu/faculty/hodgson/Courses/so191/So191hh.htm
When I make this link I could use this full, "absolute," address. When I hit the "Link" icon in Composer I could type this full "absolute" address:
http://www.faculty.fairfield.edu/faculty/hodgson/Courses/so191/So191hh.htm
I  could also make a link to this page with a "relative" address.  When I hit the "Link" icon in Composer I could simply type:
So191hh.htm
This would work because these two files are in the same directory on the faculty server.

What if the page I want to link to is in a subdirectory below the directory where the So 191 syllabus file is found?
On the So 191 syllabus I have a link to a reading, "Life Is Unfair: Inequality in the World," by Nancy Birdsall.  Students can get this reading at this "absolute" address:
http://www.faculty.fairfield.edu/faculty/hodgson/Courses/so191/GlobalIssues/LifeIsUnfair.html
It's found in a subdirectory -- "GlobalIssues"  -- that contains the full text of certain readings.
When I make this link I could use this page's full, "absolute," address:
http://www.faculty.fairfield.edu/faculty/hodgson/Courses/so191/GlobalIssues/LifeIsUnfair.html
 I could also make a link to this page with this  "relative" address:
/GlobalIssues/LifeIsUnfair.html.
In this relative address I simply put the subdirectory and the name of the file..

In short, any file that resides in the same folder can be referred to by its name alone.   If a referenced file is in a subdirectory just include the name of the subdirectory before the actual file name. If the file resides one directory up in the structure, use the syntax ../LifeIsUnfair.html to indicate that file can be found one folder up (or ..//LifeIsUnfair.html if it's two folders up, and so on).  The number of "/" refers to the number of "up" jumps one has to make.

You should use relative addresses for your links.  Why --  because things change!  Computer and Network Services could change the name of the faculty server  -- like they did a year ago.    What if the faculty server changed from "www.faculty.fairfield.edu" to "www.facserver.fairfield.edu"?  If that happened then all your absolute links would be "wrong" and you would have to change each one.  If you use relative links then all your links still would be correct.

Warning to Web Page Authors:

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     hodgson@fair1.fairfield.edu