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What's the difference between a primary and secondary source? Here's a reference guide for you.

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This quick overview will help you get started. The theme will guide your research process, and help you identify a topic!

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Frontiers in History - Theme Narrative 2023

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Primary and Secondary Sources - Video Explanation 

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Primary and Secondary Sources - Video Explanation 

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What is a primary source? How is it different from a secondary source? This short video will explain the difference for you and give you examples!

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Often students come to the Gale Family Library to research primary source materials, but find they’re not quite sure what a primary source is. Learn the difference between primary and secondary sources with examples from the Minnesota Historical Society's collections. For more information, visit: http://sites.mnhs.org/library/

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Need more help finding and understanding your primary sources? Maryland Humanities created a lesson to guide you through it using videos and interactive guides.

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> Text version for video
Let's start by reviewing what a primary source is. A primary source is an original document or object created by someone who was living during the same historical period that you are studying. The purpose of primary sources is to capture the words, the thoughts, and feelings from the past. Primary sources help you understand what happened and why it happened.

Primary sources aren't only books. They can be any written document or object created during the historical period. Primary source examples include:

Letters

Speeches

Diary entries

Creative works

Photographs

Maps

Songs

Official records, such as birth certificates or marriage licenses

Personal items, such as clothes, tools, or coins

Lesson Objectives
By the end of this lesson, you will be able to:

Analyze a variety of primary sources.

Explain how a source provides evidence to support a claim.

Identify claims that are supported by primary source evidence.

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Text version for video Let's start by reviewing what a primary source is. A primary source is an original document or object created by someone who was living during the same historical period that you are studying. The purpose of primary sources is to capture the words, the thoughts, and feelings from the past.

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For more visual learners - this mind map will help you navigate the tricky research questions that stump students when they first start researching. After completing this, you will know why your topic matters and how it relates to this year's theme!

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Need help linking your topic to the theme? This worksheet will help you clearly articulate how your topic fits this year's theme.

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If you like traditional worksheets, use this instead of the research map. It will help you find answers to the same questions. You will be able to explain why your topic matters and how it relates to the theme!

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Worksheet Research Questions 2023 - save your own copy

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Do you want to talk to an expert? Use this checklist!

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Get ready to talk to researchers and experts using this worksheet. HINT: after you complete it, share it with your researcher to help them understand what you already know.

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This is a FANTASTIC site to help you write the perfect thesis statement to impress our judges. Our friends at the Maryland History Day program created this resource to share with us.

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This module is for Grades: 8-12 Welcome

Writing Your Thesis Statement Video
> Text version for video
In the following activities, you will learn how to develop an argument, or thesis statement. The thesis statement is the basis of your research project and explains why a historical person or event is important. You will also learn how to write your thesis statement so that it answers the questions, "Who? What? Where? When? Why does it matter?"

Lesson Objectives
By the end of this lesson, you will be able to:

Define thesis statement.

Identify key components of a thesis statement.

Compose a thesis statement based on the 5W questions.

Evaluate the quality of several thesis statements.

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Writing Your Thesis Statement Video > Text version for video In the following activities, you will learn how to develop an argument, or thesis statement. The thesis statement is the basis of your research project and explains why a historical person or event is important.

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What is a thesis statement and why is it so difficult to write?! Use this worksheet and example to make it easier to understand.

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Research Workbook: Write Your History Day Thesis 2023

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Here's another great thesis worksheet with an example to help you.

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If you are interested in completing an oral history, you'll want to get permission with a written release form.

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NHD has resources for conducting oral histories. Click this to read their advice.

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An oral history interview is a conversation, conducted either virtually or in person, between a researcher and a person they have selected for their knowledge of a topic. The interviewee might have first-hand knowledge of a topic because they lived through, witnessed, or reported on an event. For example, a researcher interested in food rationing that occurred in World War II might interview someone whose family purchased food with rationing coupons at that time. This is a primary source interview, often called an "oral history" or "first-person narrative."

Sometimes the interviewee is someone with significant knowledge about a topic but who did not experience it first-hand, such as a historian of World War II with expertise about food rationing. This would be a secondary source interview.

Historians do NOT conduct secondary source interviews. When researching for and creating your NHD project, you are a historian. Therefore, you should conduct any secondary interviews.

The central piece of a National History Day® project is your analysis. While scholars (or other secondary source authors) provide essential information, what they would tell you in an interview would almost certainly be available in their written work-both factual and interpretative. Further, your goal is not to analyze scholars' perspectives. Your goal is to analyze the experiences and perspectives of those who experienced the event first-hand. It is those perspectives and stories that interviews are intended to provide.

We've already established that you should conduct secondary source interviews. Interviews are required for an NHD project nor will they necessarily strengthen it! In fact, including interviews (especially secondary source ones) that provide information that you could access elsewhere can a project's quality by making it look like you did not read widely enough to find the information in existing scholarship.
For more information on primary versus secondary source interviews, watch this video:
When carefully chosen and well incorporated, primary source interviews can improve a project's analysis, and thus, its quality. To decide whether or not to conduct a primary source interview, please take the following steps:

1. Complete your background research using secondary books, articles, and reputable online sources so that you have a comprehensive understanding of the historical context and the details of the actual event. For more information on each of these, go to the NHD Tips page.

2. Determine what primary sources are accessible to you. A few examples are newspaper articles, video clips, and diary entries. Another are interviews/first-person narratives/oral histories. Until recently, these were extremely difficult to find online. However, thousands have been digitized over the last few years. A few examples are linked at the bottom of this page.

Tip: Search using the terms "oral history" and "first-person narrative" in addition to "interview" to yield more results.

3. After you have completed steps 1 and 2, ask yourself what information or viewpoints are still missing from your research. If you couldn't find primary source interviews online and you believe that one could provide a unique perspective or fill in a gap that couldn't be filled in another way, you can now begin identifying potential interviewees.

If you decide that a primary source interview would strengthen your project in a meaningful way (in other words, it would provide information that you cannot get anywhere else), the next step is identifying potential interviewees.

Sometimes, it is clear whom you should contact. For instance, if you're researching how someone in your city participated in a major court case in the 1990s and that person is reachable, they may be someone you want to talk to. However, the answer is often less evident. For example, if you are researching a mass movement involving many unstudied individuals. In this type of situation, you could consider contacting an organization (such as a museum or community center) that has connections to participants.

Most often, your initial outreach will be via email. After locating the correct contact information, you can begin to carefully craft your initial note.

Tip: Sometimes, even if you are contacting the interviewee themselves, the email address or phone number will be for a representative of that person-often, a secretary or another administrator.
The following are important practices to adhere to when reaching out to either an organization or an individual (regardless of the context):
1. Begin with a formal address and proper title. For example, "Dear Ms. Jones."

2. Make sure to use proper grammar, punctuation, and spelling.

3. Remember to explain what NHD is, the yearly theme (if necessary), and the nature of your project.

4. Demonstrate that you have a thorough knowledge of your topic. You can do this by describing why you want to interview them. What perspective/unique insights can they provide? How will these contributions strengthen your project as a whole?

5. If you are reaching out to an interviewee directly, ask for dates that are at least one week in the future and provide an estimated length for the interview (suggestion: 20-30 minutes). Determine in advance whether a difference in time zone exists between you and your interviewee and provide a time zone.

Example: "I live in Seattle, and I see that you're in St. Louis. Are you available between 3:30 and 5:30 pm Central time on Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday of next week (February 8 th, 9 th, or 10 th)?"

6. Proofread your email. Ask your teacher or another adult to check it as well.

7. Stay safe. Copy your teacher or parent/guardian and let the interviewee know that an adult will accompany you to the interview (if in-person) or sit in online.

8. If you receive a response, write back right away. If the answer is "no," thank the person for their time and consideration of your question. If it's "yes," then confirm a time, date, and location.

After scheduling and confirming your upcoming interview, it's time to prepare.
Here are key steps to take and principles to adhere to as you prepare for and conduct your interview:
1. Write your questions out in advance. Think about why you wanted to interview this person and consider what questions would provide responses that would be most helpful.

Tip: Usually, these are open-ended questions rather than "yes" or "no" ones. For example, if you're interviewing someone who was a conscientious objector during the Vietnam War, you might ask them to talk about their specific motives for objecting and how those compared with those of their compatriots. This type of question encourages personal and in-depth stories that can substantially strengthen your analysis.

2. Make sure to consider the time allotted for the interview when writing down and organizing your questions-you don't want to run out of time in the interview leaving your most important questions unanswered.

3. If your interviewee requests a copy of your questions in advance of the interview, please supply them.

4. Ask for permission to record in advance-you do not want any surprises at the interview or to ask the interviewer to repeat themselves as you try to write out their quotes. Doing any of these is disrespectful and will make you appear unprepared.

5. Choose a space that is conducive to conducting an interview and that has minimal distractions. If conducting an interview remotely during school hours, try to locate a quiet space so that you can hear your interviewee and they can hear you.

6. Send a polite reminder confirmation a day or two before your scheduled interview.

7. If you are meeting in person, research the directions and allow extra time for traffic, parking, security, etc.. Also plan to bring a trusted adult, such as a parent or teacher, with you, and let your interviewee know that you will be doing so.

8. Practice your questions beforehand so that you are ready to interact with and engage your interviewee with any follow-up questions. It's perfectly acceptable to bring a list of your questions along with you, but try to not simply read off the page as you would read a grocery list. Your interviewee has made this time available for you, so make the most of it!

9. Call or arrive promptly at the scheduled time, and end when you said you would or earlier.

10. At the end of the call or visit, thank your interviewee verbally. Offer to share your finished project after the contest.

11. Write and send a thank-you note within 24 hours.

12. If the interviewee expressed interest in seeing your finished project, send it after the contest. If you are creating an exhibit, offer to send images of it.

13. Finally, Remember: you are representing both your school and NHD. Do your very best!
History Matters Oral Histories and Interviews at the Center for Legislative Archives Oral History Association (Provides links to over 50 digital collections) American West Center Oral Histories Museum of African American History and Culture Oral History Initiative UCLA Center for Oral History Research World War II Museum Oral History Guidelines Library of Congress American Folklife Center Guide to Recorded Interviews

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Guidelines for Conducting Oral History Interviews - National History Day

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Guidance on when to use an interview and how to prepare and conduct an interview for your NHD project

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Documentary Tootsie Roll Graphic Organizer (Updated Summer 2022)

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While you don't have to do this, having a storyboard guide can be helpful to create a polished final project!

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Performance Scenario Brainstorm (Updated Summer 2022)

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Here's an example of what your script might look like. This is from a real student in Minnesota!

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This has sample projects and quick facts for you.

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Our friends at the Minnesota History Day program created a great guide for you on how to use your sources when writing a research paper.

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Believe it or not, there are a variety of ways to provide sources as evidence in a paper. In this video, Sarah explains the importance of properly citing sources through footnotes or endnotes and discusses the pros and cons of an appendix.

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Noodletools is an online platform that helps students organize resources and create their bibliography.

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An exclusive partnership

As a result of an exclusive partnership between National History Day and NoodleTools, enrolled teachers can provide NoodleTools to student applicants working on NHD projects.

Designed by educators, NoodleTools is an online platform that promotes authentic research and original writing. Integrated tools for note-taking and outlining, source evaluation and citation support students' critical and creative thinking. Mentor-teachers can monitor student progress and provide targeted feedback.

How can you and your students use NoodleTools for National History Day?

Teacher feedback: As the primary mentor, you can monitor students' progress in real-time and provide in-context feedback. You may also wish to invite the librarian or other faculty to review and comment on student work.

Note-taking and outlining: NoodleTools notecards are specifically designed to make connections, record and develop original ideas, articulate arguments, and avoid accidental plagiarism. The Notecard Tabletop contains organizational features like tagging, labeling and piling that support logical and inspired writing.

Annotated bibliography: Students can create an accurate annotated bibliography in MLA or Chicago/Turabian style, grouped into primary and secondary sources according to National History Day requirements. They can choose from a broad range of source options, including legal citations. Pop-up help and dynamic citation templates are embedded at points of need. The student's polished bibliography can be exported to Google Drive or any word processor.

Source evaluation: Research shows that all students find source identification and evaluation to be especially challenging aspects of the research process. "Show Me" online teaching modules guide students in identifying source types, including primary sources, and in assessing the relevance and credibility of information.

Group collaboration: For an exhibition, performance, documentary or website project, student teams can work simultaneously on the group's notecards and citations and view each other's changes in real time.

Differentiated levels: Students have an option to select either the Junior or Advanced/Senior level of NoodleTools based on their self-assessed proficiency and their National History Day division. Each level includes appropriate help for identifying, evaluating and citing sources. Should Junior-level students find that they are using advanced source types, they can seamlessly move up to the Advanced level.

What does it cost?

As the selected research platform for National History Day, NHD participants within a school can enjoy a complimentary NoodleTools subscription for one NHD project season.

This complimentary subscription can be used by all NHD teacher mentors and student participants within the school, for the specific and sole purpose of creating National History Day projects.

Following the complimentary use, schools can subscribe to NoodleTools for very reasonable rates.

How do I sign up to use NoodleTools with students?

If you are a teacher or librarian working directly with a group of students on a National History Day project, you may request complimentary access for a single NHD season. Only one NoodleTools account can be requested per school. If several teachers at the school are mentoring NHD projects, one request should be made to cover those teachers. Access will typically be granted within 48 hours, and an email will be sent to the requester with instructions on how to access the account and get started.

Your school is eligible for this offer if:

Your school didn't receive complimentary NHD-only access in a previous school year

Your school or district hasn't subscribed to NoodleTools in a previous school year

Homeschools are not eligible at this time.

Already used your single-season complimentary access? Please request a quote today to learn how affordable our full-campus and district licenses are!

Contact info@nhd.org directly for questions about the contest, or ask us if you have questions about NoodleTools!

Contact NoodleTools

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As a result of an exclusive partnership between National History Day and NoodleTools, enrolled teachers can provide NoodleTools to student applicants working on NHD projects. Designed by educators, NoodleTools is an online platform that promotes authentic research and original writing. Integrated tools for note-taking and outlining, source evaluation and citation support students' critical and creative thinking.

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This has sample projects and quick facts for you.

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From our friends at the Minnesota History Day program.

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Visit this webpage for video tutorials and explanations on how to use NHD's web design program.

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This padlet has ALL the resources NHD has created for NHDWebCentral. Please make use of these resources to get familiar with how to build your website.

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Website Map: Blank and Guided (Updated Summer 2022)

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Some common questions related to the contest. Don't see yours answered? Email us at info@nhd.org.

Can I change the title or topic of my entry?

Students can change the title of their entry from one level of the contest to the next level. However, the topic of a project may not change once the project enters a competition (local, regional, or affiliate).

Is the 500 word limit in an exhibit category separate from the 500 word limit for the process paper?

Yes, the title page, process paper, and bibliography are considered as being separate from the exhibit and do not count towards the 500-word limit for the exhibit itself.

Can you have pictures in a paper, like illustrations, graphs, etc.?

Illustrations are acceptable. Captions do count toward the word total. Make sure that illustrations are directly related to the text, and don't overdo them. The people who volunteer as paper judges tend to be quite text-based, and they're probably not going to be impressed by excessive illustrations.

Can I use a fictional 1st person in a paper or performance?

Yes. At the beginning of the Category Rules for papers in the National History Day Rule Book, there's a description of papers: "A paper is the traditional form of presenting historical research. Various types of creative writing (for example, fictional diaries, poems, etc.) are permitted, but must conform to all general and category rules. Your paper should be grammatically correct and well written." The rules state, "A performance is a dramatic portrayal of your topic's significance in history and must be original in production." A performance is not simply an oral report or a recitation of facts. You can make up characters to make a broader historical point, but don't make up history. While performances must have dramatic appeal, that appeal should not be at the expense of historical accuracy.

Therefore, it is possible to have fictional characters, for example, writing a fictional diary. However, you need to make sure that you cite sources just as you would for a traditional paper or in a performance. Most importantly, it still has to be historically accurate. You can make up the character, but the circumstances and events of the character's life and which that character witnesses or participates in should be based on historical facts.

What is a primary source?

Primary sources are materials directly related to a topic by time or participation. These materials include letters, speeches, diaries, newspaper articles from the time, oral history interviews, documents, photographs, artifacts, or anything else that provides contemporary accounts about a person or event.

Some materials might be considered primary sources for one topic but not for another. For example, a newspaper article about D-Day (which was June 6, 1944) written in June 1944 would be a primary source; an article about D-Day written in June 2001 probably was not written by an eyewitness or participant and would not be a primary source. Similarly, Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, delivered soon after the 1863 battle, is a primary source for the Civil War, but a speech given on the 100th anniversary of the battle of Gettysburg in 1963 is not a primary source for the Civil War. If there's any doubt about whether a source should be listed as primary or secondary, you should explain in the annotation why you chose to categorize it as you did.

Are interviews with experts primary sources?

No, an interview with an expert (a professor of Civil War history, for example) is not a primary source, UNLESS that expert actually lived through and has first-hand knowledge of the events being described.

If I find a quote from a historical figure in my textbook or another secondary source and I use the quote in my project, should I list it as a primary source?

No, quotes from historical figures which are found in secondary sources are not considered primary sources. The author of the book has processed the quotation, selecting it from the original source. Without seeing the original source for yourself, you don't know if the quotation is taken out of context, what else was in the source, what the context was, etc.

Should I list each photograph or document individually?

You should handle this differently in notes than in the bibliography. When you are citing sources for specific pieces of information or interpretations, such as in footnotes or endnotes, you should cite the individual document or photograph. In the bibliography, however, you would cite only the collection as a whole, not all the individual items. You should include the full title of the collection (e.g., Digges-Sewall Papers or the Hutzler Collection), the institution and city or city/state where the collection is located (e.g., Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore). You can use the annotation to explain that this collection provided 7 photographs which you used in your exhibit or that collection provided14 letters which were important in helping you trace what happened. The same treatment applies to newspaper articles. In the footnotes or endnotes, you should cite the individual articles and issues of a newspaper. In the bibliography, you would list only the newspaper itself, not the individual issues or articles; you can use the annotation to explain that you used X number of days of the newspaper for your research.

How many sources should I have for my annotated bibliography?

We can't tell you a specific number of sources, as that will vary by the topic and by the resources to which you have reasonable access. For some topics, such as the Civil War or many 20th-century US topics, there are many sources available. For other topics, such as those in ancient history or non-US history, there likely are far fewer sources available. The more good sources you have, the better, but don't pad your bibliography. Only list items which you actually use; if you looked at a source but it didn't help you at all, don't list it in your bibliography.

You do need to find both primary and secondary sources. Secondary sources help you to put your topic in context, that is, to see how your topic relates to the big picture and to understand its long-term causes and consequences. Primary sources help you develop your own interpretation and make your project lively and personal.

As much as possible, your research should be balanced, considering the viewpoints of all relevant groups. That means different perspectives, different genders, different nations, different socioeconomic/ethnic/religious groups, etc. What balanced means will vary depending on your topic.

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Some common questions related to the contest. Don't see yours answered? Email us at info@nhd.org. Can I change the title or topic of my entry? Students can change the title of their entry from one level of the contest to the next level.

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Shoot us an email at NYSHD@nhd.org.