Research & Writing

Search Engines & Portals

Refseek is an academic search engine for students and researchers which locates relevant academic search results from web pages, books, encyclopedias, and journals.

SweetSearch is a search engine for students. It searches only credible Web sites approved by Internet research experts.  There is also a dedicated SweetSearch for History.

Best of History Websites is a portal which contains annotated links to over 1200 history web sites organized by era and/or discipline.

The Roy Rosenweig Center for History and New Media (CHNM) at George Mason University "has used digital media and computer technology to democratize history—to incorporate multiple voices, reach diverse audiences, and encourage popular participation in presenting and preserving the past. CHNM uses digital media and technology to preserve and present history online, transform scholarship across the humanities, and advance historical education and understanding." In other words, it's a pretty cool site (actually a pretty cool collection of sites) you ought to check out. Especially check out the Teaching and Learning, Research and Tools, and Collecting and Exhibiting sites at CHNM.

Writing Research Reports

The DHS Library Learning Commons has a number of useful documents and resources including a link to the library's online databases and catalog.  Passwords may be required. Here's a list of those passwords but note, if you're accessing these resources from home, you'll need to be logged into your school Google Account.

NoodleTools is a web-based note-taking, outlining and organizational tool for writing research papers.  Use your school Google credentials to sign in.  Make sure you're connected to the DHS version if you've previously used the site at Middlesex.  If you're not on the DHS version, you won't be able to share your work with me.

Turnitin.com is another resource you will use for submitting some, but not all, of your research assignments.

Here’s a link to another resource based on some work done at Bowdoin College.   I've summarized a section of the Bowdoin guide in this pdf. 

Additional resources you may find useful:

An Illustrated Book of Bad Arguments -- this excellent resource takes a hard, but playful look at some classic issues with bad logic. Check it out.

Writing Lessons from NY Times blogger Constance Hale. The link will take you to the 7th in the series, but find them all by clicking on the link embedded in the article.

Her own blog, Sin and Syntax, is also worth checking out.

Purdue OWL (Online Writing Lab) for 7-12 Instructors and Students has lots of resources for helping with the writing process. The main OWL site has even more. And this section of the site has an excellent summary of the MLA style.  (Expand the menu on the site to see details.)

Schlabach's Ten Commandments of Good Historical Writing

This Washington and Lee University Library site has a collection of policies and tutorials regarding plagiarism.

Bedford St. Martins has discontinued the formerly free Diana Hacker website.  The new student site requires payment, but Hacker's work is thorough, as you can see in this PDF of the information that used to be on the website. It is a little less convenient to use however as you have to search through the whole document to find what you need. 

"A Recipe" PowerPoint that we used in class to help kick-off the Alexander the Great research project.

Christopher Hitchens' "Unspoken Truths" - Vanity Fair, June 2011 "Until cancer attacked his vocal cords, the author didn’t fully appreciate what was meant by “a writer’s voice,” or the essential link between speech and prose. As a man who loved to talk, he turns to the masters of such conversation, both in history and in his own circle."

Jerry Weissman's "The Benefits of Speaking Aloud" - "Writers have long known that speaking aloud what they have written in silence helps them to shape their ideas."

From the Chronicle of Higher Education's Lingua Franca Blog - a perspective on the use of passive voice: "Mistakes are Made (But Using the Passive Isn't One of Them)"

From McSweeney's -- a cool little publishing company (I especially like its Lucky Peach quarterly food and writing journal) - the Ultimate Guide to Writing Better than You Normally Do.

If you are "really" interested in research and thinking - consider "Psychology of Intelligence Analysis" by Richards J. Heuer, Jr. - which is a compendium of articles originally published as internal CIA documents to support its analytical staff.