A Potpourri of Project Tips

With students getting ready to turn their ideas and notes into a polished project, I offer a couple of tips to help guide your work.

Keep the Theme in Mind Always

I can’t tell you the number of times we’ve heard the comment “doesn’t relate strongly to the theme” or “could be better at talking about ___ about the theme”. National History Day does allow students to choose their own topic and give their own take on that topic, but it’s still important to place the theme connection all throughout the website. In many cases, including the theme actually gives ideas on how to analyze a topic further, although that isn’t always the case.

So What?

Grace Leatherman from the Maryland Humanities always gives a talk to middle school and high school competitors about the importance of one question: “So What?” All topics, whether or not they’re local or regional or global, have long-lasting repercussions aside from simply ending a conflict or being a leader (although sometimes, this may be the most important result of an event). This is what distinguishes the “book reports” from the real National History Day projects, and can sometimes give you that edge to get into cutoffs or even to the next level of the competition.

“Cheat Creatively”

Every single National History Day category has some sort of limit on time or word length. If anything, sometimes the hardest part of creating a project is trying to fit all of the content in your project while also being concise. In some cases, brevity is the issue; in other cases, individuals are being as brief and as analytical as possible but still don’t have space. This is where individuals can “cheat creatively”, otherwise known as finding loopholes in the rules of your category in order to maximize the presentation and content. For example, websites have a 1,200 word limit. Therefore, a lot of times, our group tries to include as many quotes as possible while limiting our “student-created words” to actual analysis. This is also helps to identify, once more, the individuals making “book reports” versus those creating projects. A lot of times, two teams or individuals can have the same topic and can even cover the same type of content and analysis. In that case, what are you going to do to set your project apart?

Presentation: Both Important and Insignificant

I’m referring primarily to visual aids, such as fancy contraptions on exhibits, fancy Adobe After Effects animations, or Javascript widgets. In all of the teams I’ve been a part of, I’ve always focused on the technology and visual aspects. If anything, I’ve learned about creating some cool things during the research process, things that I’ve carried on to future NHD projects and even outside of National History Day. Many judges love these features, but it’s always to remember one phrase: content is king. It is, in fact, a history competition. You could create an amazing web page with interactive this and interactive that but never have a shot because of your lack of research. Again - technological and other types of presentation enhancers will surely add points and create a good feeling of usability and style. However, it is also important to include widgets that can actually contribute to the points in the content.

Quantity vs. Quality?

As the old saying goes, “quality is better than quantity”. However, from my experiences, quantity, especially regarding sources, is equally as important as quality. This is because quantity can typically show that you have a done a large amount of research and have looked at different types of sources, everything ranging from tertiary to primary. Not all of these sources will be good, though - and that’s fine! National History Day encourages individuals to use the research process in order to create products, and realizing that a source may not be valid or may lack in a certain area of your topic is perfectly. Just make sure that you are honest when you cite your source - maybe an article gave great historical context but described the events of a war poorly or maybe an article gives a great retelling but doesn’t cite any of their sources. Remember - creating a project doesn’t mean looking at just one source, but a lot - and a lot of good and reliable sources at that.

Cooperation = Success

When my old National History Day group decided to come together, our enrichment specialist at the time was kind of anxious - she didn’t see how we could possibly work together without butting heads too often. Assuredly, we did have some struggles in trying to resolve our conflicts, but in the end, we always came to compromises, whether or not the result was actually in the project’s favor or not. Now, of course dealing with one teammate is different than dealing with four, but cooperation is still key no matter how many kids are in your group. If two individuals really have the same passion about this competition, conflict is inevitable. Thus, it’s important to always keep the main idea and goals of your claim and project in mind - what point is our group trying to make? What are we trying to imply or explain? Individuals can often times get so caught up in their research that they take stances or completely misinterpret a certain part of the topic. If that’s you, then you should listen to your groupmates comments and find a way to resolve the issue. If that is one of your teammates, do not bash them about it. At the end of the day, it’s just a project - don’t let a single quote ruin your day.

Written on October 21st , 2019 by Chris Pondoc