Writing History

Writing Guides

Patrick Rael at Bowdoin College has published a comprehensive series of guides for Reading, Writing, and Researching for History. Our own library also has a useful online tutorial for how to go about designing and executing a research project.

The following are also useful sources of advice for writing history papers:

• Boston University
• Brown University
• College of William and Mary
• Dartmouth College
• University of North Carolina

Grammar and style

Grammar has laws, style has rules. It's worth learning them.

• William Strunk, Jr., The Elements of Style. An authority on how to write clear English.

You can find further suggestions and online handouts for grammar and style through the links to online writing centers below.

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Citing your sources

You must cite your sources. That is, you must let your reader know where all your information or ideas, not only direct quotations, come from.

• Citation style guides. Brief guides based on popular formats, including APA, MLA, and Turabian
• How to cite electronic sources.

Plagiarism can be cause for suspension or dismissal from Wake Forest. It is a growing problem on all college campuses but is also becoming increasingly easier to detect. The English Department gives the following definition of plagiarism, and the library provides a useful list of resources for learning how to avoid it.

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Writing Centers

The following on-line writing labs (OWLs) provide rich resources for writers, including online handouts for various issues concerned with writing (from formulating a thesis to placing a comma).

• Purdue University On-Line Writing Lab. The most referenced OWL on the web. Huge numbers of handouts and research links.
• Trinity College Writing Center. Exceptional with links to sites with full texts of books, newspapers, magazines, et al. Includes a self-created newspaper service.
• University of Kansas Writer's Roost. Includes handouts from OWLs across the country.
• University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Writing Center. Straightforward handouts on reading assignments, creating arguments, writing transitions, and so on, as well as links to handouts from other centers. Good place to look for a handout on a specific topic.
• University of Wisconsin at Madison. Excellent and comprehensive writer's handbook.

Last but not least, our English Department provides a writing guide that addresses the basic expectations for all academic writing at Wake Forest, while the writing center provides trained tutors with whom you can discuss assignments and the writing process. The center is located in 117 Reynolda Hall and is open M-F, 9am-3pm and Th-Su 7-9pm.

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The call of "manifest destiny" not only brought the United States over the Pacific, but also across the north American continent, and thus into conflict with the native peoples of the American west. A series of "Indian Wars" eventually reduced the Sioux and other indigenous nations to life on reservations and, occasionally, on display at world's fairs, here at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, held in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1904.