 So someone wants to write a nomination for a property. Where do they go? What do they do? You would want to contact your state historic preservation offices first. State historic preservation offices are mandated through the National Historic Preservation Act to identify historic properties within their state and to participate in the nomination of those historic properties. So as a customer of the State Historic Preservation Office you can be assured that you're going to find that that office has information that can be valuable to you if you're going to nominate a property. Every state has a process for helping people identify whether their property meets the National Register criteria and states often provide technical assistance through workshops or webinars and R's or other means of educating the non-professional preparer. States are mandated to survey areas and identify historic properties. In doing these surveys they have to take into account the historic contexts that help evaluate historic properties. They may already have surveyed not only your property itself but the greater area. So by contacting your State Historic Preservation Office a lot of your work may be done for you. This is public information and this is information that you can use in your nomination. We like to say that a National Register nomination is not like going to school. If you want to use someone else's work use their work just cite it in your bibliography. What we want is a good reasoned argument for why your property is important and if someone else has done that footwork for you use it. So the State Historic Preservation Office is going to be your friend in this process.