Rules & Project Examples

2025 NHD Cover

Rules & Guidelines

Contest Rule Book

Students are responsible for reading the rules form the National History Day Rule Book. Below are page numbers for each category.

Process Paper - pg 19

Annotated Bibliography - pg 19-20

Counting Words - pg 21

Paper - pg 22-24

Performance - pg 25-26

Documentary - pg 27-29

Exhibit - pg 30-32

Website - pg 33-35

New Rule Book Spanish Rule Book

Disqualification

A project may be disqualified on three grounds:

  1. Plagiarizing all or part of an NHD project. Please note that failing to give proper credit is plagiarism.
  2. Reusing, individually or as a group, a project (or research from a project) from a previous year, or entering a project in multiple contests or entry categories within a contest year.
  3. Tampering with any part of the project of another student.
  4. Use of AI in any capacity is strictly forbidden and any project using AI will be immediately disqualified. See NHD-AI page here.
  5. Word Count rules and captioning could result in disqualification if done incorrectly. See NHD page here. 

Note about NHDC contest attendance: 

ALL NHDC Regional Contests are IN PERSON contests, therefore students are required to be in person for their interviews.

We do not offer a Zoom option at Regional Contests outside of the VIRTUAL contest.