< Back to Resources for History Graduate Students
Graduate School from Start to Finish
- Admissions & Acceptance
- Course Work
- Master's Degree
- Preparing for Comprehensive Exams: Oral and Written
- Funding/Grant Writing
- Conceptualizing a Dissertation
- Conducting Research
- Organizing & Writing a Dissertation
- Networking
- Teaching
- Publishing
- Leave Policies at Major Universities
Admissions & Acceptance
Course Work
- Coursework (PDF) - Prepared by the Committee for Graduate Students
Master's Degree
- Retrieving the Master’s Degree from the Dustbin of History - Prepared by Philip M. Katz for the AHA's Committee on Committee on the Master’s Degree in History.
- Issues in Graduate Education: Forum on the Master's Degree
- What Is the Meaning of the Master’s Degree?: An Introduction to the Roundtable - by Aaron W. Marrs
- Function of the Master’s Degree in Teaching History - by Helen Grady
- The MA and a Career in Historic Preservation - by Daniel Vivian
- Public History Master’s at the University of South Carolina - by Thomas Brown
- Another View of the Master's Degree: Switching Institutions on the Way to a PhD by Philip M. Katz
Preparing for Comprehensive Exams: Oral and Written
- Preparation tips for Comprehensive Exams (PDF) - Prepared by the Committee for Graduate Students (June, 2007)
Funding/Grant Writing
- Grants, Fellowships, and Prizes of Interest to Historians (members only)
- Calendar - Opportunities for Research Grants and Fellowships
- AHA Research Grants
- The Albert J. Beveridge Grant for Research in the Western Hemisphere
- The Michael Kraus Research Grant in colonial American history
- The Littleton-Griswold Grant in U.S. legal history and the field of law and society
- The Bernadotte Schmitt Grants support research in the history of Europe, Asia, and Africa
Conceptualizing a Dissertation
- Searchable database of Doctoral History Dissertations at Canadian and U.S. History Programs
- PDF on dissertation proposal stages - Prepared by the Committee for Graduate Students (June, 2007)
Conducting Research
- Survival Guide to Archival Research, by Barbara Heck, Elizabeth Preston, and Bill Svec (Perspectives, Dec. 2004)
- Taking a Byte Out of the Archives: Making Technology Work for You, by Kirklin Bateman, Sheila Brennan, Douglas Mudd, and Paula Petrik (Perspectives, Jan. 2005)
- Some Tips and Suggestions for your Research Trip, by The Committee for Graduate Students
- ArchivesWiki - A clearinghouse of information about archival resources throughout the world.
- Oral History and Review Boards: Little Gain and More Pain, by Robert B. Townsend with Carl Ashley, Mériam Belli, Richard E. Bond, and Elizabeth Fairhead
- Zotero: Social and Semantic Computing for Historical Scholarship by Daniel J. Cohen
Organizing and Writing a Dissertation
- From Concept to Completion: A Dissertation-Writing Guide for History Students, by the AHA Graduate and Early Career Committee
- Practical Advice for Writing Your Dissertation, Book, or Article, by Liena Vayzman (Perspectives, Dec. 2006)
- Dissertation writing blog: "Ask the Dissertation Diva"
- From Notes to Narrative: The Art of Crafting a Dissertation or Monograph
- Introduction
by Elise Lipkowitz
- Managing the Terror
by Brad S. Gregory
- Finding the Story
by Deborah E. Harkness
- On Taking Notes
by Judith Walkowitz
- Introduction
Networking
- AHA Annual Meeting
- H-Grad
- Planning a Graduate Student Conference, by Andrew L. Johns and Kenneth A Osgood (Perspectives, March 1999)
- Guide to Getting the Most Out of Conferences and Professional Meetings (PDF)
- Conference Rules by Linda Kerber
- Conference Rules: Everything You Need to Know about Presenting a Scholarly Paper in Public
- Conference Rules, 2: Everything you need to know about introducing speakers and running a panel discussion
- Conference Rules, 3: Everything you need to know about your role as a commentator or member of the audience
Teaching
- Syllabus Finder from George Mason University's Center for History and New Media
- "We Shall Gladly Teach": Preparing History Graduate Students for the Classroom, by Terry Seip
- Teaching History at a Community College, by Emily Sohmer Tai (Perspectives, Feb. 2004)
- Graduate Students' Forum: Into the Classroom! Tips and Tricks to Succeed as a Teacher (Perspectives, Oct. 2004)
- Getting Started by Terry Seip
- A Recipe for a Successful Lecture by Peter Filene
- Teaching in High-Intensity Mode by Rudolph M. Bell
Publishing
- Publishing History (Perspectives, May 2002)
- Getting Published by a University Press by Elaine Maisne
- Your Name in This Space: The Mysteries of Scholarly Publishing by Christopher Tomlins
- All of Tomorrow's Yesterdays: History Scholarship on the Web by Robert B. Townsend
- Directory of History Journals - links to English-language journals that publish in various fields of history
Mentoring
- Forum on Mentoring
- Introduction by Aaron Marrs
- Learning the Craft: The Role of Graduate Mentors by John D. French
- Graduate Student Mentoring by Ronald Walters
- Mentoring: Teaching Assistants and Other Issues by Terry L. Seip
