thesis history day

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Research Rendezvous

Missed the live Mastering your Thesis event?  Watch the recording here, as Kayla Gabehart shows you how to form and revise your thesis. FAQs at the end answer students' questions about NHD in Colorado.

More information from  National History Day in Colorado

Thesis Statement

From NHD website:

Develop a Thesis Statement NHD projects should do more than just tell a story. Every exhibit, performance, documentary, paper and website should make a point about its topic. To do this, you must develop your own argument of the historical impact of the person, event, pattern or idea you are studying. The point you make is called a thesis statement. A thesis statement is not the same as a topic. Your thesis statement explains what you believe to be the impact and significance of your topic in history. Example:

Topic: Battle of Gettysburg Thesis Statement: The battle of Gettysburg was a major turning point of the Civil War. It turned the tide of the war from the South to the North, pushing back Lee’s army that would never fight again on Northern soil and bringing confidence to the Union army.

• Tackling the Thesis [PDF]
• Handout from Minnesota Historical Society [PDF]
• Thesis Creator Helpful template to guide you through your working thesis
• Thesis Organizer & Checklist [PDF]

Videos from NHD Affiliates

Process Paper

Form NHD website Rule 15 | Process Pape r

All categories, except historical paper, must include a process paper with the entry. It must describe in 500 or fewer words how you conducted your research and created your entry. The process paper must include four sections that explain: 1. how you chose your topic; 2. how you conducted your research; 3. how you selected your presentation category and created your project; and 4. how your project relates to the NHD theme.

You can view sample process papers at http://www.nhd.org/CreatingEntry.htm .

• Process paper rules [PDF]
• What is a Process Paper? [PDF]

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National History Day / Research: The Process

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Before you begin

To better understand what you, as a researcher, should focus on, it would be wise to read these pages from the National History Day rulebook. Even if you are not creating a project with the aim to compete, you will have a clearer understanding of what makes a successful historical research project.

IF YOUR TOPIC DOES NOT MEET ANY ONE OF THE REQUIREMENTS, YOU MIGHT NEED TO REFINE YOUR TOPIC!

• Preparing your entry Read this section from the NHD rule book to understand more about the essential elements of your project and the research process. These expectations form the basis for how judges will evaluate your entry.

NHD Research Guide

NHD Research Guide for Students

National History Day, in collaboration with the Library of Congress Teaching with Primary Sources Consortium, created this open-access student guide filled with hints, tips, and activities to encourage student inquiry and historical research.  Finding, Analyzing, and Constructing History: A Research Guide for Students  was developed through a Teaching with Primary Sources grant from the Library of Congress.

Step 1.Topic Selection

Begin your exploration by reading the  

ANNUAL THEME BOOK: TURNING POINTS IN HISTORY  As you read,  think about something that topics that appeal to your personal interests and also relate to the theme. Then begin exploring a variety of secondary sources to determine whether there are enough sources to create a strong, in-depth project.  

COMPASS: Graphic Organizer: Identifying a Topic

Use this editable graphic organizer to analyze and confirm that your topic is viable for in-depth historical research

• Turning Points in History: Theme Narrative

1A Developing Questions

Questions determine the direction your research may take. You are not just looking for a list of facts, but rather, reading to understand ideas and motivations, to understand the CONTEXT of why things happened. In order to do that, you want to think of your search in terms of answering questions. Use the worksheet below to develop your own questions, both simple and complex, as you select your sources. Questions and sources dovetail together to create the foundation for strong research. Think about the questions you have, then ask yourself where or who is the most likely place to investigate the answer?

Organization

When you are searching for sources, it is helpful to identify what you are looking for. Repeatedly searching for the same information is fruitless. By organizing your inquiry, you will be able to develop searches that yield answers to the many pieces of the research puzzle. Use this graphic organizer to help you organize and identify what it is you are looking for. Adapted from Minnesota History Day.

• History Day Graphic Organizer Use this organizer to identify the elements of your research. Start with the main ideas, then research the historical context, both immediate and previous. Then identify the short term impacts, then the long term impacts.

Your research is only as good as your sources. Begin with secondary sources to give you a solid understanding of the scope of your subject. While you are learning and reading, make note of important dates, ideas, people and places as these will become part of the keywords you will use when looking for primary sources. Books and databases should be foundational to your research . You will want to access information that is accurate ( has been fact-checked), has breadth and depth, and is organized; books and databases lend themselves as the best bet to sink your teeth into a subject.  Web sources require the reader to fact check as well as draw together multiple websites to create a deep understanding of the topic. Use the Sources checklist to make sure you are using a variety of sources.

Each new source you find should be entered into Noodletools. Leaving citations to the end of the project will be overwhelming. In addition, students often cannot remember where that one terrific bit of information came from, but if the sources you use are cited, you will never have to wonder where it is!

• Source Checklist

Note Making

After you have gathered a solid base of sources it is time to begin taking notes. First, read through your material to understand the most important elements of the source. Then, read it again, highlighting what you want to extract for later use in your research. Finally, transcribe those highlighted sections onto your notecards in Noodletools. If you are using a book as your source, make sure to note the page #, as you will need it for later citation.

• When copying down a quote, make sure it is exact, and make note of the speaker
• Transcribe the information into your own words. This will reinforce your understanding of the material
• Write down any questions you still might want or need to explore

An outline helps you to organize your notes and identify and gaps in your research. If you create your outline in Noodletools, ( which is highly suggested) you can drag your notecards into the outline, directly to the section to which they pertain. The outline attached here is an EXTENDED OUTLINE- you may be looking at your topic through only one or two lenses, so the outline would be modified.

• Extended Outline Modify this outline to reflect the lenses that you are viewing your topic. You may be researching using only one lens or up to three, that is entirely up to you.

A thesis is an argument that you are making, which you will support with evidence. It should be 2 to 3 sentences.

• Wesleyan University: Writing a Thesis This brief article will help you define and identify a strong thesis statement
• Minnesota History Day:Thesis Statement worksheet Use this worksheet to organize and develop a thesis for your project

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Thesis Statements

What is a thesis statement.

Your thesis statement is one of the most important parts of your paper.  It expresses your main argument succinctly and explains why your argument is historically significant.  Think of your thesis as a promise you make to your reader about what your paper will argue.  Then, spend the rest of your paper–each body paragraph–fulfilling that promise.

Your thesis should be between one and three sentences long and is placed at the end of your introduction.  Just because the thesis comes towards the beginning of your paper does not mean you can write it first and then forget about it.  View your thesis as a work in progress while you write your paper.  Once you are satisfied with the overall argument your paper makes, go back to your thesis and see if it captures what you have argued.  If it does not, then revise it.  Crafting a good thesis is one of the most challenging parts of the writing process, so do not expect to perfect it on the first few tries.  Successful writers revise their thesis statements again and again.

A successful thesis statement:

• makes an historical argument
• takes a position that requires defending
• is historically specific
• is focused and precise
• answers the question, “so what?”

How to write a thesis statement:

Suppose you are taking an early American history class and your professor has distributed the following essay prompt:

“Historians have debated the American Revolution’s effect on women.  Some argue that the Revolution had a positive effect because it increased women’s authority in the family.  Others argue that it had a negative effect because it excluded women from politics.  Still others argue that the Revolution changed very little for women, as they remained ensconced in the home.  Write a paper in which you pose your own answer to the question of whether the American Revolution had a positive, negative, or limited effect on women.”

Using this prompt, we will look at both weak and strong thesis statements to see how successful thesis statements work.

While this thesis does take a position, it is problematic because it simply restates the prompt.  It needs to be more specific about how  the Revolution had a limited effect on women and  why it mattered that women remained in the home.

Revised Thesis:  The Revolution wrought little political change in the lives of women because they did not gain the right to vote or run for office.  Instead, women remained firmly in the home, just as they had before the war, making their day-to-day lives look much the same.

This revision is an improvement over the first attempt because it states what standards the writer is using to measure change (the right to vote and run for office) and it shows why women remaining in the home serves as evidence of limited change (because their day-to-day lives looked the same before and after the war).  However, it still relies too heavily on the information given in the prompt, simply saying that women remained in the home.  It needs to make an argument about some element of the war’s limited effect on women.  This thesis requires further revision.

Strong Thesis: While the Revolution presented women unprecedented opportunities to participate in protest movements and manage their family’s farms and businesses, it ultimately did not offer lasting political change, excluding women from the right to vote and serve in office.

Few would argue with the idea that war brings upheaval.  Your thesis needs to be debatable:  it needs to make a claim against which someone could argue.  Your job throughout the paper is to provide evidence in support of your own case.  Here is a revised version:

Strong Thesis: The Revolution caused particular upheaval in the lives of women.  With men away at war, women took on full responsibility for running households, farms, and businesses.  As a result of their increased involvement during the war, many women were reluctant to give up their new-found responsibilities after the fighting ended.

Sexism is a vague word that can mean different things in different times and places.  In order to answer the question and make a compelling argument, this thesis needs to explain exactly what  attitudes toward women were in early America, and  how those attitudes negatively affected women in the Revolutionary period.

Strong Thesis: The Revolution had a negative impact on women because of the belief that women lacked the rational faculties of men. In a nation that was to be guided by reasonable republican citizens, women were imagined to have no place in politics and were thus firmly relegated to the home.

This thesis addresses too large of a topic for an undergraduate paper.  The terms “social,” “political,” and “economic” are too broad and vague for the writer to analyze them thoroughly in a limited number of pages.  The thesis might focus on one of those concepts, or it might narrow the emphasis to some specific features of social, political, and economic change.

Strong Thesis: The Revolution paved the way for important political changes for women.  As “Republican Mothers,” women contributed to the polity by raising future citizens and nurturing virtuous husbands.  Consequently, women played a far more important role in the new nation’s politics than they had under British rule.

This thesis is off to a strong start, but it needs to go one step further by telling the reader why changes in these three areas mattered.  How did the lives of women improve because of developments in education, law, and economics?  What were women able to do with these advantages?  Obviously the rest of the paper will answer these questions, but the thesis statement needs to give some indication of why these particular changes mattered.

Strong Thesis: The Revolution had a positive impact on women because it ushered in improvements in female education, legal standing, and economic opportunity.  Progress in these three areas gave women the tools they needed to carve out lives beyond the home, laying the foundation for the cohesive feminist movement that would emerge in the mid-nineteenth century.

Thesis Checklist

When revising your thesis, check it against the following guidelines:

• Does my thesis make an historical argument?
• Does my thesis take a position that requires defending?
• Is my thesis historically specific?
• Is my thesis focused and precise?
• Does my thesis answer the question, “so what?”

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Thesis Statement Definition

Thesis Statement -  a short  statement , usually one sentence, that summarizes the main point or claim of an essay, research paper, etc., and is developed, supported, and explained in the text by  means  of examples and evidence.

Thesis Helpful Hints

The following links will help you with writing a strong thesis statement.

How to Tell a Strong Thesis Statement from a Weak One

• Thesis Generator    Use this on-line tool to practice writing a thesis statement.

      Before developing your thesis statement, conduct some research and ask the following questions:

      Why  did my topic happen at this particular time and in this particular place?

     What  were the events or the influences that came before my topic?

      How  was my topic influenced by and how did it influence the economic, social, political, and cultural climate of the time period?

Thesis Examples

Thesis Statement Example One:

• State your claim and summarize the impact and/or significance of your topic

The International Olympic Games offer athletes an opportunity to be exposed to new cultures, ideas and people.

Thesis Statement Example Two:

• State your claim about your topic, followed by example(s) of exploration, encounter and exchange.

The Olympic Games offer the participants the ability to  encounter  new cultures,  explore  new countries, and  exchange  ideas.

Thesis Statement Example Three:

• Introduce a brief counter claim, followed by your claim and the impact or significance of your topic ​

Although hosting the Olympics leaves many countries in debt, the Olympic games offer host citizens exposure to new cultures, ideas and people.

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• Stanford University
• Tuesday, May 13, 2025

2025 MFA Thesis Exhibition

• Department of Art & Art History

Tuesday, May 13, 2025 11am to 5pm PT

• Wednesday, May 14, 2025 11am to 5pm PT
• Thursday, May 15, 2025 11am to 5pm PT
• Friday, May 16, 2025 11am to 5pm PT
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• Friday, May 23, 2025 11am to 5pm PT
• Tuesday, May 27, 2025 11am to 5pm PT
• Wednesday, May 28, 2025 11am to 5pm PT

Stanford Art Gallery 419 Lasuen Mall, Stanford, CA 94305 View map

This event is open to: Affiliates General Public Everyone

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Event Details:

The Department of Art & Art History presents the 2025 MFA Thesis Exhibition featuring the thesis artwork of four graduating Art Practice MFA students: Damon Casarez, Elina Frumerman, Emily Harter, and Cooper Salmon.

On View: May 13–June 6, 2025

Opening Reception: Thursday, May 15, 5–7pm

Gallery Hours: Monday–Friday, 11am–5pm

Final Viewing: Sunday, June 15 (limited hours)

Curated by: Camille Utterback, Xiaoze Xie

VISITOR INFORMATION :  Stanford Art Gallery  is located at 419 Lasuen Mall, off Palm Drive. The gallery is open Monday–Friday, 11:00am–5:00pm*.  Visitor parking  is available in designated areas and payment is managed through ParkMobile (free after 4pm, except by the Oval). Alternatively, take the Caltrain to Palo Alto Transit Center and hop on the free  Stanford Marguerite Shuttle . This exhibition is open to Stanford affiliates and the general public. Admission is free. 

* Stanford Art Gallery will be closed on Memorial Day (Monday, May 26).

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