Writing Research Papers in History

The college-level research paper goes beyond a summary of book chapters and research articles. An acceptable paper takes a clearly defined topic or idea, supports it through research of the current literature and presents it in a logical and consistent fashion. Below are resources describe the process of writing a research paper in history.

Student Guides for Doing Research in History

• Writing in the Disciplines: History
  This online guide produced by the University of Richmond provides tips for students in writing research papers as well as analytical essays.

Using the Chicago Manual of Style for Writing Your Research Paper

• University of Chicago, "The Chicago Manual of Style: The essential guide for writers, editors and publishers, 14th ed." Chicago: University of Chicago, 1993. This print resource provides all the rules that govern the formatting of your final manuscript. Please note that this style guide governs more than just the organization of your bibliography. There are rules, for example, concerning your paper's font size, margins, pagination and punctuation. You can locate this guide in virtually any public or academic library.
• Research and Documentation Online - History
  Produced by Diana Hacker, author of several writing handbooks, this resource explains common formatting and documentation using "The Chicago Manual of Style."
• Writer's Handbook - Chicago Style
  This online writing guide produced by the Writing Center at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, provides advice for documenting resources within footnotes as well as on the "works cited" page.