A Student’s Guide to History provides the practical help students need to be effective in their history courses. In addition to introducing students to the nature of the discipline, it teaches a wide range of skills from preparing for exams to approaching common writing assignments, and it explains the research and documentation process using numerous examples throughout. With clear and accessible advice, A Student’s Guide to History is an indispensable resource for history students. New, easy-to-reference chapter organization. Shorter, more manageable chapters now focus on more specific concepts, such as building a history essay and documenting sources, so students can more easily find the information they need. Expanded coverage of working with sources. A new chapter explains how to examine any source of historical evidence — primary or secondary, written or nonwritten, print or digital. New Guidelines boxes for evaluating primary sources, a new section on sound and video recordings, new warnings about Wikipedia, and more on finding primary sources online equip students to engage in a wide range of historical work. More attention to analysis and argument. New sample writing assignments demonstrate how to analyze and compare primary and secondary sources and present theses with supporting evidence. The research chapters now offer more advice on developing a thesis, using evidence, formulating worthwhile research questions, and writing more persuasive papers. New visual citation guidelines boxes annotate sample pages from books, published letters, print articles, database articles, and Web sites, and key them to model notes and bibliographic entries to show students how to find publication information and properly cite these common sources.

This guide provides comprehensive coverage of the historian’s research process — from formulating a research question to how to find, evaluate, and work with sources of all types — written and nonwritten, in print and online. The writing process is explained thoroughly as advice on creating a strong thesis and writing an effective paper culminates with a model student research paper. The appendices and companion Web site point students to the most helpful research resources.

Taking you through a historian’s research process, Student’s Guide to History helps you through the writing process from formulating a research question to working with sources, all to help you become better at writing your own research papers.

This guide provides comprehensive coverage of the historians research process — from formulating a research question to how to find, evaluate, and work with sources of all types — written and nonwritten, in print and online. The writing process is explained thoroughly as advice on creating a strong thesis and writing an effective paper culminates with a model student research paper. The appendixes point students to the most helpful research resources.