The Methods and Skills of History: A Practical Guide

Like its best-selling predecessor, the second edition of The Methods and Skills of History: A Practical Guide combines theory with "hands on" practice, providing engaging exercises that make history more accessible to majors and nonmajors alike, helping students learn to think historically while at the same time strengthening their critical-thinking and communication skills.

This dynamic workbook has been thoughtfully redesigned, employing a new organization that progresses from a discussion of the nature of history to confronting historical accounts to actually "doing" history. A final section discusses historiography and history's relationship to other academic disciplines. With more systematic attention to writing skills throughout, this new edition also offers a series of "Writing Capsules" focused on techniques of organization and forming coherent paragraphs.

The second edition of The Methods and Skills of History also features two entirely new chapters, "History on Film" and "Oral History and Statistics." In addition, chapter-opening vignettes add a note of human drama to the otherwise abstract elements of the discipline.

Finally, advice on using libraries and source selection has been updated with the latest in computer cataloging and retrieval techniques in mind, a discussion of performing research on the Internet is tempered by considerations of the authenticity of sources as well as a listing of relevant Web site addresses.