A short guide to writing about history

About this book

A Short Guide to Writing about History is an ideal complement for any history course intended to teach students to think and write like historians. This engaging and practical text will teach students how to go beyond reporting the basic dates and facts of their history books and show them how to infuse their writing with their own ideas and unique perspective. Covering brief essays and the documented resource paper, the text explores the writing and researching processes, different modes of historical writing (including argument), and offers guidelines for improving style as well as documenting sources. A focus on historical writing makes this the appropriate text for all history students. Discipline-inclusive samples, drawn from a variety of areas throughout the discipline, include a full-length research paper, a strong model for students. Reference charts provide handy quick-reference resources on using, evaluating, and citing online sources. Frequent "Writer's Checklist" sections remind students of key questions to ask before starting a writing project and provide guidelines for avoiding plagiarism, peer editing (a process that more and more instructors are using to evaluate student work) and much more. A comprehensive documentation chapter (Ch. 8) offers a wealth of examples and models for citing sources correctly and avoiding plagiarism. - Publisher.