Emel Cokgoren
What I Already Knew/ What I Wanted to Know
When people think of the word “dangerous” they think of risk, terror, and
overall fear. Imagine waking up every morning fearing what the leader of your
country has in store for every civilian. My family was watching the elections on
t.v. for who was becoming the next president in Turkey. I was only 12 years old at
the time and knew nothing about politics or elections. As I grew up, i became more
familiar with who the president was.
I already know that the president’s name is Recep Tayyip Erdogan. I also
know that he is changing the country for the better but more so for the worse. He
also has done many good things for Turkey.
I needed to know more about him to see if he truly was a good leader for my
country. Will I be able to visit my country whenever i want to or would i go
through problems? Will i be able to roam around and not get looked at in a weird
way because I don’t “look the part?” After asking myself these questions, i finally
decided to do some research on him.
I made a list of the things i needed to know about him. From that list, I was
able to form my research question: Is the president of Turkey benefiting the lives of
Turkish Citizens? Later, I was able to form an answer.
The Story of My Search
My search took about three weeks. I began my research by doing some
background reading in google advanced search about the president of Turkey. One
of the articles stated how he approved a referendum by 51 percent to 49 percent
marked by voting irregularities. Another article states that over the past few years
he has favoured cheap credit and high growth over inflation. In May, after he
announced he would exercise more control over the central bank in the years to
come and proclaimed, bizarrely, that high interest rates cause inflation, the lira
went into free fall.
From there i did an online search combining the terms Recep Tayyip
Erdogan and safety in the google search engine. I chose to use one of the first
articles that came up. The information on him was current, well organized, and
easy to understand, and it provided answers to my research question.
My sister knows more about the president then i do so i decided to interview
her for my paper. She was a great source of research because she keeps up with the
news everyday so she educated me on the current events.
During the next week i did more research in class and i printed out three
articles. The vocabulary was much more technical in one article than the other. I
used the NCC library databases to search for these articles and i was surprised that
i found a lot of information.
By the end of the third week, i felt i had plenty of information. My original
search question remained the same: Is the President of Turkey benefiting the lives
of Turkish citizens? I was able to define exactly what it was that i wanted to
manage. I ended up narrowing my topic to three areas: safety, the dollar currency,
and if he’s doing well for the country.
The Search Results
According to the information in the articles the lira has lost a third of
its value against the dollar since the start of emergency rule in July 2016, pushing
