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Historical Research and Writing Sites

Created and Maintained by
Richard W. Slatta
NCSU Logo
Students: Use the links below to research thought (or focus) questions and other projects for your history courses. Your syllabus will include topical references to web sites listed below. Not to worry. You will NOT be using all these links.
Updated
Links
  • Online Finding Aides (at the bottom of the page)
  • General History Sites
  • Historical Research and Writing with Primary Sources
  • How to Use Primary Sources
  • Online Primary Sources
  • Citations for Print and Electronic Sources
  • Copyright, Fair Use, and Plagiarism
  • Research Tips
  • Writing Tips
  • Historiography
  • Genealogy: Finding Your Ancestors
  • Latin American History Sites

    • push pin
    Flag of Panama Useful Research Tools
    and Search Engines     Flag of Spain
    1. Electronic Database for History From this alphabetical listing, select
      • Historical Abstracts
      • America: History and Life (if you topic involves a US as well as Latin American aspect)
        The following resources are also useful but not as vital as the above.
      • ArchivesUSA (if you need information about archival holdings elsewhere in the US)
      • Britannica Online (do not cite this nor any other encyclopedia in a college-level assignment. However, Britannica is useful to basic, factual background information as you begin a new project.)
      • Expanded Academic ASAP (general interest articles, some of which are authoritative enough to cite)
      • JSTOR (issues of older scholarly journals--full text)
      • MasterFILE Premiere (general interest articles, some authoritative enough to cite)
      • netLibrary (full text of scholarly e-books/ searchable)
      • Web of Science (search Social Science Citation Index and Arts and Humanities Citation Index to find journal articles)
      Search Engines:
    2. Britannica Search Engine Generally turns up fewer, but more academically sound sites than more generic search engines. Britannica editors actually review the sites for content.
    3. HotBot Search Engine Rated Number One by ZDNet Editors
    4. Google Search Engine
    5. Dog Pile
    push pinGeneral History Sites
    1. History Matters
    2. National History Day
    3. Online Personal Web Apps
    4. Ref Desk When a little info is all you need [Colin Powell likes this site, so this may be where US foreign policy comes from.)
    5. Richard Jensen's Very Good Guide to the WWW
    6. Encyclopedia Britannica (Accessible only from the NCSU Campus or with proxy settings.)
    7. Yahoo - Humanities: History
    8. News and Historical Hookups
    9. Academic and Historical Research Links by Dennis Hidalgo
      Historical Research & Writing with Primary Sources
      How to Use Primary Sources
    10. How to Do Library Research Using Primary Sources UC Berkeley Library
    11. Types of Primary Souces
    12. Library of Congress Instructions for Using Primary Sources
    13. National Archives Digital Classroom: Primary Sources, Activities, and Training for Educators and Students
    14. Yale University Library Primary Sources Research
      Online Primary Sources
    15. Wide Range of Documents and Primary Sources
    16. Repositories of Primary Sources: A listing of over 4000 websites
    17. Virtual Jamestown
    18. National Musuem of American History
    19. Internet Modern History Sourcebook
    20. Valley of the Shadow: http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/vshadow2/sources.html
    21. MOA: Making of America
    22. Documenting the American South
      Citations for Print and Electronic Sources
    23. Columbia University Press Citation Guide
    24. Andrew Harnack and Eugene Kleppinger's Online: A Reference Guide to Using Internet Sources
    25. Stet: UNC Press Handbook for Authors
    26. Citing Electronic Information in History Papers by Maurice Crousem, Department of History, The University of Memphis
    27. Better Editor.org: Menu of many online citation guides
    28. Citing E-Documents Excerpts from International Standard ISO 690-2, Information and documentation -- Bibliographic references -- Part 2: Electronic documents or parts thereof
    29. How to Cite Electronic Documents
      Copyright, Fair Use, Plagiarism
    30. "History Matters" Reference Desk: Citing Digital Resources / Copyright and Fair Use Information / Evaluating Digital Resources / Standards-History and Social Studies
    31. US Copyright Office
    32. Copyright Website
    33. Stanford Fair Use Site Keyword searchable site with extensive links and good, clear information.
    34. Linking Rights
    35. Association of Research Libraries Copyright Links
    36. Plagiarism Page by Sherman Dorn
    37. Plagiarism and Anti-Plagiarism Rutgers University. Excellent tips on how to identify e-plagiarism, such as papers copied from the Internet.
      Research Tips
    38. A Guide for Writing Research Papers, based on Modern Language Association (MLA) Documentation, Prepared by the Humanities Department and the Arthur C. Banks, Jr., Library, Capital Community College, Hartford, Connecticut
    39. A+ Research and Writing Step by Step
    40. The Historian's Sources, Library of Congress
    41. Historical Hookups: Topical Links
    42. Reading, Writing, and Researching for History by Professor Patrick Rael, Bowdoin College
    43. Doing History Effectively
    44. Outline of Successful Research Strategies
      OnlineResearch
    45. Using the Internet as a Resource for Historical Research and Writing by Roger A. Griffin, Ph.D., Austin Community College
    46. Research in the Electronic Age
    47. My Library Convenient Electronic Access to Library Resources
    48. Statistical Resources on the Web
    49. Doing Historical Research with Online Documents
    50. Biography of America Online US History Textbook
      Writing Tips
    51. The Elements of Style by William Strunk, Jr. First published in 1918, it remains an excellent guide to good writing. Unaware of life in the "real world," some NCSU students remain resistant to "writing across the curriculum," indeed, to writing at all. Strunk shows that my "radical" new writing demands--clarity, active voice, correct grammar --are very old, well established, still worth applying, and necessary to getting and holding a job in the Information Age.
    52. LEO: Literacy Education Online, homepage for The Write Place, the writing center at St. Cloud State University A wealth of resources, with answers to pratically every question of research, writing, grammar, logic, and much more. Use it!!
    53. Paradigm Online Writing Assistant
    54. Download Paradigm Online Writing Assistant to Your Hard Drive for Local Access
    55. A Student's Online Guide to Writing History by Jules Benjamin Based on the concise helpful printed guide published by Bedford/St. Martin's. Very good tips on research and writing.
    56. Writing Style and Technique
    57. How to Write a History Essay
    58. The Slot: Advice on Copy Editing from Bill Walsh, Washington Post
    59. Quotations from Writers on Writing
    60. Doing Historical Research with Online Documents
    61. Clifford's Advice on Doing History Effectively
    62. Yale University, The Process of Writing, 1986 Volume IV
    63. Yale University, Writing Across the Curriculum, 1981 Volume IV
    64. Northern Illinois University Writing Across the Curriculum Program
    65. Writing a Book Review
    66. Preparing an Effective Oral Presentation: Good Advice Georgia Tech University
      Scientific Writing: LabWrite
    67. NCSU LabWrite Home Page
    68. NCSU LabWrite Checklist
    69. LabWrite Resources Links to excellent tutorials on using Excel, graphing, descriptive statistics, and writing good scientific prose.
      Grammar and Composition Help
    70. Excercises in Fixing the Passive Voice
    71. Grammar and Style Notes Good advice from Jack Lynch at the University of Pennsylvania
    72. NCSU OWL (Online Writing Lab) Extensive questions and answers on grammar and style.
    73. Ready Reference Internet Resources: Writing & Style Guides
    74. Nuts and Bolts Guide to College Writing
    75. Resources for Writers and Teachers, Colorado State U.
    76. Purdue Univ. Online Writing LabExtensive Online Writing and Grammar Links Internet Public Library
    77. Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Thesaurus and Writing Aids
    78. Writing Style and Technique
      Historiography
    79. Tracing Social Constructs
    80. Postmodernism and the Crisis of Modernity taken from Joyce Appleby, Lynn Hunt, and Margaret Jacob, Telling the Truth About History (New York,1994): 198-237
    81. CROMOHS: Review of Historiography
    82. Links to Military History
      Genealogy: Finding Your Ancestors
    83. LDS (Mormon) Genealogy Service
    84. Genealogy Today
    85. Genealogy.com
    86. Roots Web
    87. World Genealogy Web Project
    88. Genealogy Home Page Excellent starting point, with lots of links to other resources.
    89. Family Treemaker Genealogy Software Home Page
    uparrow Back to the top of the page
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