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National History Day 2023: Credits & Captions

Credits - What should I put?

  • On your exhibit board and within your website, you need to provide a brief credit for any image (photos, artwork, letters, newspaper or magazine clippings, charts, graphs and timelines that you borrowed from a source, etc.)
     
  • The credit should be placed directly below the image and can be a smaller font.
     
  • The credit should be the name of the main "container" where you got the image.  Main "containers" are usually website titles, database titles, newspaper or magazine titles or book titles.
     
  • These brief credits do not count towards your word count.  

 

EXHIBIT BOARD - Captioning Rules

  • Quotes from PRINT sources should be cited with the author, the title, and a date (when available.) An example would be:

    “There is danger…they have still far to go. It is for the Woman’s Party to decide whether there is any way in which it can serve in the struggle which lies ahead to remove the remaining forms of woman’s subordination.” (Alice Paul, The Suffragist, 1921)

  • All VISUAL sources (e.g., photographs, paintings, charts, and graphs, etc.) must be credited on the exhibit and fully cited in the annotated bibliography. 
     
  • Brief, factual credits do not count toward the word total. See below for an example of the difference between a credit and a caption. 
     
  • Your credit just needs to add the minimal amount of information that would allow the viewer to find the source in your annotated bibliography (Ex. Website Title, Database Name, Book Title, etc.).
     
  • All sources (PRINT and VISUAL) must be properly cited in the annotated bibliography.

- from NHD Contest Rule Book

DOCUMENTARY - Credit rules

  • At the conclusion of the documentary, you MUST provide a list of acknowledgments and credits for ALL sources.
     
  • These credits should be brief—not full bibliographic citations and not annotated. See example below.
     
  • You are NOT required to credit individual images or video clips while the documentary is playing; that is the purpose of the credits at the end.
     
  • You may add tags to the bottom of the screen to help an image or video clip make sense. For example, you might want to add a name of a speaker, or a relevant historical date during a particular video clip or still image.

- from NHD Contest Rule Book

WEBSITE - Captioning Rules

  • All quotes from PRINT sources must be credited WITHIN the website.
     
  • All VISUAL sources (photographs, videos, paintings, charts, and graphs) must be credited WITHIN the website.
     
  • Your credit just needs to add the minimal amount of information that would allow the viewer to find the source in your annotated bibliography (Ex. Website TitleDatabase NameBook Title, etc.). See below for an example. 
     
  • These brief, factual credits do not count toward the word total. See below for an example.
     
  • All sources (PRINT and VISUAL) must be properly cited in the annotated bibliography.

- from  NHD Contest Rule Book

PAPERS - In-text Citation rules

  • In-text citations are required
  • In-text citations are used to credit the sources of specific ideas as well as direct quotations. 
  • Use MLA 8 for citation style formatting.  

For in-text citations of PRINT materials (must include page numbers):

"...to the problem of global warming" (Gore 10).

...scientific studies of global warming (Gore 160).

For in-text citations of WEB materials (no page numbers):

...atmospheric and economic trends ("Greenhouse").

 

Do I have to cite every sentence of my paper?

No, please don’t. Often you find that a series of sentences (or even an entire paragraph) is based on content from a single source. When that happens, signal to your reader that the following information came from a certain source and then cite it once at the end of the last sentence. Also note that your thesis statement and your arguments should be your original work, and should not be credited to another author.

What if all of the information, quotes and paraphrases, in one paragraph, comes from one source? How do I cite that?

Just cite once, at the end of the paragraph.

 

For additional in-text citation help, please see Mrs. Hajian or Mrs. Trissler for help.

PERFORMANCES - Crediting Sources

  • When you are creating a performance or a documentary, you do not need to actively credit sources during your presentation, because it would disrupt the flow of your performance.
     
  • There are times when you would want to make a reference to a source, especially when you are referencing primary source material. It would be relevant to mention in a performance, “I wrote a letter to King George demanding that my grievances be addressed….” A judge would then expect to find a letter or a series of letters that you found in your research and cited in your bibliography.
     
  • There is no need to stop to verbally cite sources—if the judges have any questions, they can address that in the interview at the end of your performance.