Coursework Skills A summer of reading

This an independent research task

Feeding information: Books Types of books Things to do Textbooks Basic introductions Popular history Academic History Use contents and index pages Read the book’s conclusion and chapter conclusions first (you are looking for arguments) Find out a bit about who the author is (are they an expert/ historian)

Task For each book identify what type of book it is Identify a view point/ argument Use the index to look something up and discover a piece of factual information What can you learn from the book’s ‘blurb’ about the author/ authors

Internet resources: Choose one of the possible coursework topics and try searching for materials on the broad topic: Using normal Google Now try http://scholar.google.co.uk/ Now try https://books.google.co.uk/ What differences do you find? Try narrowing your search to something specific: an event, theme, development, or person. Again use all three search types. Narrow your search further e.g. King’s role in the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Try searching for material on: The American Civil War (battles, why the Union won, key turning points, ending of slavery, importance of Lincoln) The Tudors (Edward, Mary, Elizabeth, The Mid-Tudor Crisis)