Rising college junior who's just declared as a history major? Congratulations! Interested in getting a jump on next year + beyond? Following several conversations I've had on this IRL, here are a couple pieces of advice. #twitterstorians 1/

These are largely things I would cover in a junior methods seminar. Hopefully your dept. has one; maybe it comes as a senior capstone. Whatever the case, it's never too early or late to start thinking about working more efficiently or improving your writing 2/

Tip #1: Sign up for @zotero. If that's as far as you get, you're already ahead. To unlock next level, check out a quick tutorial ( https://libguides.princeton.edu/zotero ), see how you might add sources. Formatting notes/bibliography can wait until the fall 3/

If you really want to make the most of @zotero, add Zotfile. I demo it here: https://twitter.com/RAKarl/status/1083061043356672001 4/

Tip #2: Start thinking about how you might design or improve a workflow that's right for you. Take a look at my video on organizing secondary sources, general best practices for research/writing: 5/

If you'll be working with primary sources to write a research paper/senior thesis, I also have a video on digitizing + organizing archival sources: 6/

Tip #3: @RoyPeterClark's book Writing Tools is a wonderful manual on how to craft more engaging sentences/paragraphs. Has really helped me! Bonus: it's meant to be read in chunks, so perfect for summer perusing. https://www.amazon.com/Writing-Tools-Essential-Strategies-Writer/dp/0316014990/ 7/

Tip #4: If you're intimidated by thought of starting research paper/thesis, check out Anne Lamott's classic Bird by Bird. The whole thing is worth reading, but if you want to prioritize, I assign my junior methods seminar pp. 6-10, 16-20, 21-27, 110-115, 116-121 8/

Tip #5: No book captures the wonder of working with archival/primary sources better than Arlette Farge's The Allure of the Archives. Take a look to get inspired; come back to it once you've started research in order to put words to what you're doing 9/

Bonus: you can download Allure of the Archives on @JSTOR. Take it as an opportunity to test out @zotero/Zotfile! But be sure to accept terms of agreement on one PDF before batch importing: https://twitter.com/RAKarl/status/1108902323840004096 10/

Hopefully these tips work for you! #twitterstorians, please share what else new history majors might consider thinking about or doing this summer. 11/*