National History Day 2025
Rights & Responsibilities in History |
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Getting Started
Choose a topic
The annual National History Day contest theme is designed to help you think of a topic from any aspect of United States history. With the theme as a guide, you can create questions to investigate and explore with your research.
The theme for National History Day 2025 is "Rights & Responsibilities in History". Learn more on the National History Day theme page.
The theme for National History Day 2025 is "Rights & Responsibilities in History". Learn more on the National History Day theme page.
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Rights: Freedoms or privileges that individuals possess as human beings or as members of a society |
Responsibilities: Expectations of individuals as members of society |
Here are a few questions to ask yourself as you choose a topic:
Here are some major anniversaries in 2024 and 2025 that may help inspire some ideas.
You have almost unlimited freedom in choosing a topic and forming your research question, as long as it fits the theme and is related to U.S. history. Find one that excites you!
- What are major rights - civil rights, political rights, economic rights, or human rights - that you find interesting? What specific events, people, or ideas involve those rights?
- You can also start in the other direction: What ideas, events, or people do you find interesting or compelling? What rights or responsibilities helped influence, or were affected by, those events, ideas, or people?
- What do the ideas of "rights" and "responsibilities" mean to you? What would you add to the provided definitions?
- What rights or responsibilities don't exist or aren't protected, but should be?
Here are some major anniversaries in 2024 and 2025 that may help inspire some ideas.
You have almost unlimited freedom in choosing a topic and forming your research question, as long as it fits the theme and is related to U.S. history. Find one that excites you!
create a research question
Once you have selected your topic, you'll write your research question. This will be the basis for your entire project, and can be broken down into three steps.
Things to consider:
- Start with the main topic and focus of your paper. (i.e. Women's Suffrage)
- Ask a question about your topic in one sentence. (Example: Who fought for women's suffrage?)
- Revise this sentence by using specific terms. (Example: How did key figures work together to ratify women's suffrage into law? Were any groups excluded? If so, why?)
Things to consider:
- Is your chosen topic too broad or expansive for you to cover within the scope of your project? Your research question should focus on a specific area or aspect.
- Is your research question too narrow or obscure? It may be difficult to find enough resources and information on lesser-known topics.
Research
Library Databases
These library databases are great places to start your research journey.
Sign in using your school Google account!
Your username (before the @) and password will let you access databases and resources outside of school.
Sign in using your school Google account!
Your username (before the @) and password will let you access databases and resources outside of school.
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Search within multiple databases at once, efficiently narrowing results with filters.
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Offers overview of United States history, with reliable resources including overviews, news and magazine articles, primary sources, multimedia content, and biographies on historical events, decades, conflicts, wars, political and cultural movements, and people.
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Delivers complete, fully-reproduced issues of The New York Times (1851-2019), Chicago Tribune (1849-1998), and Chicago Defender (1909-1980). Explore historical events, social and consumer history, economics, literature, technology, and more.
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Explore the digitized collections of the largest library in the world, an invaluable resource for primary and secondary source research. Includes digitized maps, legal materials, audio interviews, music recordings, and much more.
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Books
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Destiny is the online catalog for all District 207 school libraries. You can find print books and ebooks, as well as see what is available at South and West's libraries. You can request to borrow items from the other schools.
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Tip: Use a book's table of contents and index to zero in on the information that's most useful and specific to your topic.
Public Libraries |
Find even more resources in print or online at your local library. They have a large collection of nonfiction, databases, and primary sources you can utilize. You can also request even more resources from around the country at your public library.
Your librarians at Maine East can help you sign up for a card and help you figure out what resources to look for at your public library.
Your librarians at Maine East can help you sign up for a card and help you figure out what resources to look for at your public library.
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NIles-maine public library
park ridge public library
morton grove public library
des plaines public library
glenview public library
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Save Resources & Citations |
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NoodleTools provides integrated tools for citations, document archiving, annotation, and collaborative research and writing. Most library databases will create properly formatted citations and export it right to your NoodleTools project folder.
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Google Docs has a built-in Citation Tool to help you format citations, create a bibliography/works cited page, add footnotes, and more. Watch a tutorial here.
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The Online Writing Lab (O.W.L) at Purdue University is an extensive resource for creating works cited and annotated bibliographies, as well as help with research, writing, and formatting styles.
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