Basic Methods
- Handout –Plagiarism
- How to READ Like a Historian
- How to Frame a Question
- How to Write a Thesis Statement
- How to Use Quotations
- How to Use Footnotes with long-form Chicago-style guide (and see also Hacker & Sommers, pp. 246-275)
- How to Proofreed
Tips from Hacker & Sommers (2025)
- SECTION 1: CLARITY
- How to avoid wordiness: pp. 6-7
- Shifts in POV, tenses, and constructions: pp. 12-16
- SECTION 2: GRAMMAR
- Subjects & Verbs, pp. 23-28
- Tenses (but note difference with Prof. Pinsker), pp. 30-32
- Fragments and run-ons, pp. 43-48
- SECTION 3: PUNCTUATION
- Commas, parentheses, colons, semi-colons, pp. 58-68
- Apostrophes, pp. 69-72
- Quotation marks (and punctuation), pp. 72-75, 127-131
- Other punctuation (for poetry especially), pp. 76-79
- SECTION 4: MECHANICS
- Capitalization, pp. 81-83
- Numbers, Italics, Hyphens, pp. 84-89
Advanced Methods
- Seven Stages of Historical Thinking
- Chat GPT as Fake Intelligence
- Note-Taking
- Historians For and Against Wikipedia
- Search vs. Research (see also Hacker & Sommers, pp. 95-98)
- Close Reading
- Evaluating Sources (see also Hacker & Sommers, pp. 100-104)
- Even the US Constitution Has “Typos”
- The Politics of Narrative Framing
- Online Learning
- Mapping & Historical Uses of GIS
- Creativity in Historical Presentation
- Big Data and Big History
- Historiography with Do’s and Don’ts
- Plagiarism 2.0 (see also Hacker & Sommers, pp. 107-111, 122-28)
- Writing a Narrative Paper
Student Role Models –Critical Essays
- MODEL POETRY ESSAY (Olivia Whittaker)
- The Fight for Freedom (Jordyn Ney)
- The Roads to Freedom & Equality (Charlotte Goodman)
- The Path to Justice (Nick Rickert)
Student Role Models –Dickinson College
Check out the Student Hall of Fame for over 150 outstanding assignments and projects, but here are a short list of model assignments that explore historical thinking and methods:
- Fiona Clarke, Using Ancestry with Class of 1868 (Fall 2016)
- Fiona Clarke, College Archives and Class of 1868 (Fall 2016)
- Amanda Donoghue, Researching Indian School at CCHS (Fall 2016)
- Tom Forte, Researching Fifteenth Amendment at CCHS (Fall 2017)
- Sarah Goldberg, Researching Temperance Reform in Black Atlanta (2017-18)
- Colin Macfarlane, Researching Henry W. Spradley (Spring 2011)
- Leah Miller, A New Lincoln Letter (Spring 2012)
- Rachel Morgan, Johnson Family & Genealogical Research (Summer 2017)
- Samantha Reiersen, Class of 1862 and Ancestry (Fall 2016)
- Becca Solnit, Researching India Lobby During WWII (2011-12)
- Becca Stout, Dickinson’s janitors (Spring 2018)
- James van Kuilenburg, Researching Henry W. Spradley (Fall 2019)
- Cooper Wingert, Dickinson’s founders and slavery (Spring 2018)
- Cooper Wingert, Researching Fugitive Slave Law (2019-20)
Additional Resources
For additional resources on historical methods, go to the Osborne Center for Historical Methods from the Dickinson College History Department and always try to take advantage of the vast resources from the Dickinson College Library:
- Chicago Style Citation Format (long form) (see also Hacker & Sommers, CHICAGO STYLE, pp. 246-275)
- History Research Guide
- Information Literacy Tutorials
- Database Finder
- Online Library Catalog