Resources : History : UMass Amherst

Writing Resources for Historians

These links and books will help you with specific aspects of historical research and writing.

History Department Style Sheet

Unless your professor specifies another style guide, use this style sheet for papers in history courses.

History Department Style Sheet

Online guides for writing research papers

Writing A Good History Paper (Hamilton College)
Reading, Writing and Researching for History: A Guide for College Students, by Patrick Rael (Bowdoin College)
Richardson's Rules of Order: Tips for Writing Research Papers for a College History Course by Heather Cox Richardson

How to read articles, books, and primary sources

How to Read a Secondary Source (PDF), by Patrick Rael (Bowdoin College) - see above for the entire document
How to Read a Primary Source (PDF), by Patrick Rael (Bowdoin College - see above for the entire document
A Student's Guide: How to Read a History Assignment, by Steven Kreis (Historyguide.org)

Online guides to style and grammar

The Elements of Style (1918 edition) by William Strunk
Guide to Grammar and Writing (study sheets, exercises, and links)
Chicago-Style Citation Quick Guide (Chicago Manual of Style)

Online guides to argumentation

Arguments, concepts, and philosophical terms by Jim Pryor, Princeton University (intended for philosophers, but the section on arguments is useful for history students)

Online Reference Works for Writers

Silva Rhetoricae: The Forest of Rhetoric - guide to classical rhetoric, including general concepts and a nearly exhaustive list of figures of speech
Oxford English Dictionary - the historical dictionary of the English language (access restricted to UMass campus community)

Writing Resources at UMass

Professional Writing and Technical Communication Program, including the Writing Center
History Department guidelines for Junior Writing Seminars

Writing Centers at other colleges and universities

Purdue University Online Writing Lab (OWL)
Harvard University Expository Writing Program
Hamilton College Writing Resources

Plagiarism - What it is and how to avoid it

The university's official policy on academic honesty is contained in the Code of Student Conduct booklet
http://www.indiana.edu/~wts/pamphlets/plagiarism.shtml -- Indiana University

Some useful books on writing and reading

Booth, Wayne C., Gregory G. Colomb, and Joseph M. Williams. The craft of research. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995. ISBN 0-226-06584-7. An excellent guide to research from the perspective of rhetoric; treats research and writing as mutually interacting activities.
Mann, Thomas. The Oxford guide to library research. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. ISBN 0-195-12313-1. User’s manual for the academic library.
McCoy, F. N. Researching and writing in history: A practical handbook for students. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974. ISBN 0-520-02621-7. A useful handbook for the beginning researcher. Some of the specific techniques are out of date (cf. Mann), but the book as a whole provides an overview of what goes into research, with more specific tips for historians than Booth, Colomb, and Williams.
Rampolla, Mary Lynn. A Pocket Guide to Writing in History. 8th Ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's Press, 2015. A concise guide outlining the finer details of research and writing for college history courses.
Turabian, Kate. A manual for writers of term papers, theses, and dissertations. 6th ed. Revised by John Grossman and Alice Bennett. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996. The nuts and bolts of formatting papers, writing footnotes, using abbreviations, etc. Some courses may require that your papers be formatted according to Turabian.
Williams, Joseph M. Style: Toward clarity and grace. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990. ISBN 0-226-89915-2. An excellent guide to improving your writing style. The textbook edition, published by Longman, has useful exercises but omits the detailed discussion of coherence that the Chicago edition contains.

Online Resources for Historians

This section is intended only as an entry to the wide range of historical material online and to provide links of local interest. See the first few items for more comprehensive history web guides. If a link no longer works, please inform the webmaster.

Starting Points...

History News Network, Center for History and New Media, George Mason University
Index of Resources for History, University of Kansas
WWW Services for Historians, AHC
Edsitement: The Best of Humanities on the Web, National Endowment for the Humanities, the Council of Great City Schools, MCI Communications Corp., National Trust for the Humanities
H-Net: Humanities & Social Sciences Online (includes discussion lists and job postings)
Links to History Departments Elsewhere, George Mason University

Resources for writing history

Now on a separate history writing page.

Sampling of Archival Resources

American Memory Project, Library of Congress
Digital Classroom, National Archives and Records Administration
Five Colleges Digital Archive Project (particularly focused on women's history), Five Colleges, Inc.
The Making of America: Primary Sources in American Social History, University of Michigan
The Making of America (Cornell University contributions) - digitized 19th-century books and magazines
New Deal Network (FDR and Depression Era Programs), The Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute
Online Exhibit Hall, National Archives and Records Administration
The Perseus Project: Exploring the Ancient World, Classics Department, Tufts University
United States Federal Court System & Decisions, Guide to Law Online, Library of Congress
Virtual Exhibits, Ministry of Culture and Communication, France

Cartographic and Demographic Resources

UMass Map Library (including digitized maps and GIS data)
Map Libraries on the World Wide Web, University of Minnesota
U.S. Historical Map Collection, University of Texas
U.S. Census Data, U.S. Census Bureau
Online Data Archive: Social Science Research Datasets, Data & Program Library Service, University of Wisconsin - Madison

Curriculum Development Ideas (syllabi, projects, etc.)

History Matters: Teaching the U.S. History Survey Course, American Social History Project/ Center for Media and Learning, City University of New York, Center for History and New Media/George Mason University

Resources