National History Day 2024
Turning Points in History |
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 answer with your research.
The theme for National History Day 2024 is "Turning Points in History".
According to the National History Day theme page:
The theme for National History Day 2024 is "Turning Points in History".
According to the National History Day theme page:
"A turning point is an idea, event, or action that directly, or sometimes indirectly, causes change." |
Here are a few questions to ask yourself as you choose your topic:
The world is your oyster in picking a topic and forming your research question. Find one that excites you!
- What are major changes - in a specific region, nationally, or globally - that you find interesting? What ideas, events, people, or actions were causes or results of that change?
- You can also start in the other direction: What ideas, events, or people do you find interesting or compelling? What historical changes and "turning points" did they emerge from and/or impact?
- What does the phrase "turning point" mean to you? Do you have anything to add to the provided definition?
The world is your oyster in picking a topic and forming your research question. Find one that excites you!
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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.
- 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: Who were the key government figures who helped pass women's suffrage into law?)
Research
Library Databases |
These library databases are great places to start researching.
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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Primary sources from U.S. history, each with an overview and critical thinking questions.
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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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