history project

<p>Recently, i've been considering entering the 2006 NHD competition. Although my state competition is in the spring (5-6 months away), I wanted to figure my chances of placing. </p>

<p>As of now, I want to do a history paper on an international issue that occured several decades ago, and the subject adhere's to the year's theme.
But I did have several questions:</p>

<p>First, the word limit on a paper is, I believe, 2500 words. But several weeks ago, someone posted a winning paper, senior devision, that had something around 12,000 words. What's the deal?</p>

<p>Second, how intense is the competition in the history paper category?</p>

<p>Third, when's a smart time to begin my project?</p>

<p>Fourth, how many primary and secondary sources are recommended to perform solidly in the competition?</p>

<p>Hi, thanks for considering NHD. I'll try to answer your questions, but more info could always be found on the website: <a href="http://www.nhd.org%5B/url%5D"&gt;www.nhd.org&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>1) NHD is very strict on the word limit. Any paper that goes over 2,500 words is automatically out of the running for finals.</p>

<p>2) The intensity of competition depends on where you're coming from. The most competitive states tend to be California, Minnesota, Colorado, Texas, Iowa, Florida, New York. Massachusetts and Kansas have become increasingly competitive</p>

<p>3) In the summertime.</p>

<p>4) The quality and quantity of your sources depend on how recent your topic is and how much has been published about it. Some students go overboard and use over 100 sources (50 primary/50 secondary), but there really is no key number. Judges also mark down points for padding (if they are able to sense it), which means you have to cite specifically how you used each source and how credible it is. </p>

<p>Best of luck. I also encourage you to post on the NHD Forum: <a href="http://www.nhd.org/forum%5B/url%5D"&gt;www.nhd.org/forum&lt;/a> , but it's down at the moment.</p>

<p>Is there a place where I can find the winning papers from past years?</p>

<p>what is more 'prestigous'? Concord Review or NHD?</p>

<p>Winning Papers:</p>

<p>Jr. Paper
Aldo Leopold: An American Prophet
Stephen Frese
Jr. Paper
1st Place, National History Day 2003
<a href="http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/ht/37.1/frese.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/ht/37.1/frese.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Fifty Years After Brown: Tarnished Gold, Broken Promises
Julie Gantz
Jr. Paper
1st Place, National History Day 2004
<a href="http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/ht/38.1/gantz.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/ht/38.1/gantz.html&lt;/a>
Rosalind Franklin: Unsung Hero of the DNA Revolution
Sarah Rapoport
Jr. Paper
1st Place, National History Day 2002
<a href="http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/ht/36.1/rapoport.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/ht/36.1/rapoport.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>A Lasting Impression:
French Painters Revolutionize the Art World
Lindsay Snider
Jr. Paper
1st Place, National History Day 2001
<a href="http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/ht/35.1/snider.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/ht/35.1/snider.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>The Haitian Revolution and the Forging of America
Jim Thomson
Jr. Paper
1st Place, National History Day 2000
<a href="http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/ht/34.1/thomson.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/ht/34.1/thomson.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Sr. Paper
Comrade Khrushchev and Farmer Garst:
East-West Encounters Foster Agricultural Exchange
Stephen Frese
Sr. Paper
1st Place, National History Day 2004
<a href="http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/ht/38.1/frese.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/ht/38.1/frese.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Presidents, Congress, and the Use of Force: A Critique of Presidential Powers
Jeremiah Kittredge
Sr. Paper
1st Place, National History Day 2003
<a href="http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/ht/37.1/kittredge.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/ht/37.1/kittredge.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>General Christopher C. Andrews: Leading the Minnesota Forestry Revolution
Anna Rice
Sr. Paper
1st Place, National History Day 2002
<a href="http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/ht/36.1/rice.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/ht/36.1/rice.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Incubator Baby Shows: A Medical and Social Frontier
Hannah Lieberman
Sr. Paper
1st Place, National History Day 2001
<a href="http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/ht/35.1/lieberman.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/ht/35.1/lieberman.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>The Battle of Okinawa, 1945: Final Turning Point in the Pacific
Megan Tzeng
Sr. Paper
1st Place, National History Day 2000
<a href="http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/ht/34.1/tzeng.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/ht/34.1/tzeng.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Hi!
Glad to see your interest in NHD:) I've been competing for four years now (this coming year will be my 5th), and I can tell you, it's an awesome program and competition. If you're into history, you'll really enjoy it.</p>

<p>I've never written a paper. I've done individual documentaries every year I've competed. But I do know my way around the rules and competition pretty well, and I've placed in the top three at nationals twice before, so I'll try to answer your questions as best I can. </p>

<ol>
<li><p>The bibliography and appendixes don't count for the word limit. </p></li>
<li><p>Papers are one of the most difficult categories (in most regions/states) to advance in because more schools require kids to write papers, and more people feel they're qualified to do a paper than say, a performance or documentary. Then again, more entries doesn't necessarily mean more quality projects. So you can look at it like that too. However, once you get to nationals (and in the more competitive states, the statewide competition) the levels of difficulty of winning are about the same in each category. As Gian said, the most difficult states (approximately in this order) are: California, Minnesota, Texas, Iowa, Washington, Florida, Kansas, and Colorado. Others are competitive in certain categories and less so in others. </p></li>
<li><p>ASAP. In depth historical research takes a lot of time. You'll most likely find that once you get going, one source leads to another leads to another. The process of finding and using books, websites, interviews, periodicals, letters, speeches, etc. is multi-faceted, requires looking in a lot of places, and cannot be easily thrown together. This is especially true of international topics, where many of your contacts/resources may not even be in this country. </p></li>
<li><p>As you'll see from the bibliographies of the winning papers I posted, it varies greatly. The most important thing is that you have enough sources to comprehensively analyze your topic from all perspectives and viewpoints. That said, rarely do projects that win at nationals use less than 50 sources. Some may have over 200, although if you have that many I would think it'd be very hard to justify how you used each and every one to advance your project. </p></li>
</ol>

<p>It also varies category to category. I'm not an expert on the paper category, I do documentaries, but I can tell you that this year my bibliography had about 120 sources, about 80 of which were primary, and the year before I had about 100- 70 primary, 30 secondary. For me, these were the right amount of sources because I was doing topics that dealt with american social history in the last 40 years. Thus there were many more sources available than on some topics. The boy who got first in my category at nationals did his project on Jack the Ripper. Being that his topic was so far in the past, I'm sure the judges looked differently at his bibliography than mine and expected him to have fewer primary sources, simply because fewer exist and they're much less readily available. So there really is no "magic number" when it comes to sources. </p>

<p>Good luck with your project!
If you have any other questions, feel free to ask me. You can post here or email me at <a href="mailto:rbrown_nhd11@yahoo.com">rbrown_nhd11@yahoo.com</a>.</p>

<p>I feel like a paper is one of the hardest and most competitive, aside from the insanity in the exhibits category. You better make sure your paper is darn near perfect! I do performances, they're the most fun.</p>

<p>I don't know about doing a topic from the last couple decades. Usually it's better to leave a bit more time between your topic and the present. Some judges are kinda anal over topics too soon, saying they're not really history cause we haven't had enough time to fully analyze their significance and repercussions</p>

<p>What kind of documentary are the people looking for? Just films??</p>

<p>isn't 50 sources over doing it? I can't think of an actual book that uses that many sources.... :-/ </p>

<p>I am also interested in NHD. I am a sophomore this year, and I have so far been thinking about topics for the concord review. So I am not sure which I should do, how much time I should spend, etc. </p>

<p>I am thinking of doing a couple essay's for practice with analyzing and researching then I'll be able to tackle the real projects. </p>

<p>I read this year's theme is standing up to something. Basically Abraham Lincoln, Rosa Parks, etc.</p>

<p>Hey elphaba (cool SN, btw!). Have you ever gone to nationals? I'm so impressed by you performance people. I've seen some absolutely incredible history day plays that were both historical and very moving. It's really cool.</p>

<p>B_B- most entries in the documentary category are films, much like you would see on the history channel. They're usually a combo of still images and footage, with transitions and sometimes text, and interview clips. However, I've seen both powerpoints and slideshows do well in the documentary category. It's harder to be dynamic in your presentation if you do one of those, but it is possible. If you do do a powerpoint, make sure you have accompanying audio. There's nothing worse than reading a documentary for ten minutes!</p>

<p>A-san- most books use far more than 50 sources. If you were to add up everything in their bibliographies, plus the many many sources cited in the notes (usually about 50 per chapter, although some are repeats of course), it would be a very large number. Also, authors tend to cite large collections of material, such as someone's personal papers held at an archives, as one source in their bibliography, when really they probably used a great deal of separate sources from this collection. In history day, we usually include in our bibliographies individual letters, speeches, newspaper articles, etc. simply because it allows the judges to see the depth of our research and understand how individual sources were important to our project's development.</p>

<p>There are SO many cool topics out there for this theme. While there are many well known people in history who took a stand (MLK, Susan B. Anthony, Frederick Douglass), there are also many lesser known figures you can explore. The judges REALLY like lesser known topics, because it makes it more interesting for them to read/look at your project, since they're probably learning something themselves and not just going back over info they've been taught a thousand times. </p>

<p>Some topics I think would be cool include:
Jeanette Rankin- the first woman elected to congress (so a women's rights pioneer), and also a deeply committed pacifist. She was the only person to vote against US entry into both world wars, and the only congressperson to oppose the US joining WWII. This brave political stand (in the face of two popular wars, the 2nd one overwhelmingly so) cost her her reputation and career.</p>

<p>Bayard Rustin- A very important civil rights figure who was a mentor and advisor to Martin Luther King, and deeply influenced the rise of the civil rights movement from the shadows. He also came with the idea for and organized the 1963 March on Washington, today remembered as one of the civil rights movement's most important demonstrations. However, Rustin was also openly gay at a time when severe social stigma was attached to that, and it prevented him from ever recieving widespread recognition for his influence. I did this topic last year, so if anyone's interested, I have a ton of resources and contacts you can use.</p>

<p>The "Mercury 13"- After the Mercury astronauts were selected to be America's first men in space, the same doctor who had conducted the testing to determine their qualifications (if you've read/seen "The Right Stuff" you know about this) decided to test a group of women to see how they would hold up. What he found was that these female pilots were actually in some ways better candidates than the men for space flight. The women then began a fight to be admitted into the astronaut program. Ultimately, they did not succeed because of the many social barriers in their way, but their stand helped influence Betty Freidan, the formation of the National Organization for Women (NOW), and the development of the women's liberation movement. (I did this topic two years ago, so I also have a lot of info on it)</p>

<p>Pope Pius and the Holocaust: A Stand Not Taken- for a unique twist on the theme, one could look at the catholic church's compliance with Hitler's final solution and its impact on history. How would things have been different if Europe's most influential church had taken a stand?</p>

<p>Upton Sinclair and the Jungle- this one's better known, but still unique, I think. A project on this topic could explore how The Jungle exposed the horrible conditions in meat packing plants and led to wide scale reform. Other similar topics include Jacob Riis' "How the Other Half Lives," and Thomas Nast, the political cartoonist who brought down the political machine in NYC, the Tweed Ring.</p>

<p>I have plenty more ideas, but I'll spare you unless someone asks. lol. Good luck to everyone competing this year!</p>

<p>meh, I dont know, I tend to think that a couple good sources are good. But if you guys really suggest 200 sources for a 2500 word essay... ok.</p>

<p>are you allowed to enter in more than one category?-</p>

<p>I've done the NHD for three years now, just cause my teacher for all three years in jr. high required it. I might do it next year when I enter my sophmore year, even if its not required. The first two years I did the paper and last year I did an exhibit. The furthest I got ever was to state. What I recommend when doing a paper is find a topic thats really original, something that no one else would think of. Cause that's what gets me, none of my topics I did were really that original. </p>

<p>A-san- as for sources most people would have about (10 primary/20 secondary) or around there.</p>

<p>Vegangirl: I've done performances with the same group for 3 years, and we keep getting 3rd at State, dang it! So no nationals yet, but there's still one more year before college, so who knows! </p>

<p>What we're probably going to do this year is Dorothea Dix and her stand against abuse in prisons and mental institutions. You can use it as long as you don't do a performance! lol</p>