A Student's Guide to History

A Student's Guide to Historyprovides 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 Historyis 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.

JULES R. BENJAMIN was a professor of history at Ithaca College for 30 years. His current research focuses on higher education in the digital age, and his scholarly works concern modern United States and Latin American diplomatic history. He is the author of several books and articles, including The United States and Cuba: Hegemony and Dependent Development, 1880–1934 (1977) and The United States and the Origins of the Cuban Revolution: An Empire of Liberty in an Age of National Liberation (1990).

Preface
A Note to Students 1. The Subject of History
What History Can Tell You
How Historians Work
Approaches to History
How You Can Use History 2. Succeeding in Your History Class
Keeping Up with Reading Assignments
Taking Notes in Class
Classroom Participation
Communicating Online 3. Working with Historical Evidence
Primary Sources
Secondary Sources
When a Secondary Source Becomes a Primary One
Accessing Sources in Print, in Person, and Online
Reading Written Sources
 “Reading” Nonwritten Sources 4. Building a History Essay
Why Clear Writing is Important
Preparing to Write
Drafting Your Essay
Revising Your Essay
Proofreading Your Essay
The Danger of Plagiarism 5. Preparing Specific Writing Assignments
Writing about Primary Sources
Writing about Secondary Sources
Writing Short Essays
Giving Presentations
Taking Exams 6. Researching a History Topic
Beginning the Research Process
Conducting Research
Evaluating Sources
Interpreting Sources and Taking Notes
Avoiding Plagiarism 7. Writing a Research Paper
Asserting Your Thesis
Organizing Your Evidence with an Outline
Writing the Text
Revising and Rewriting
Example of a Research Paper 8. Documenting Your Paper: Citing Sources in Chicago Style
Formatting Footnotes and Endnotes
Organizing a Bibliography
Documentation Models Appendix A: Resources for History Research
Appendix B: Historical Sources in Your Own Backyard
    
Glossary
Index