Gleeson Library: English 360: Intro to Writing Non-Fiction (Zilinskas): Images and Podcasts

Image Databases

Arte Público Hispanic Historical Collection
A digital collection of historical content pertaining to Hispanic history, literature, political commentary, and culture in the United States from colonial times to 1960.
Arte Público Hispanic Historical Collection draws its content from the Recovering the U.S. Hispanic Literary Heritage Project, the largest national project ever to locate, preserve, and disseminate Latino-Hispanic culture of the United States in its written form, from colonial times to 1960. The project functions under the direction of Dr. Nicolás Kanellos, founder and director of Arte Público Press, the oldest and largest publisher of U.S. Latino-Hispanic literature, and includes publications from all regions of the nation.

The Series 1 collection conveys the creative life of U.S. Latinos and Hispanics – shedding new light on the intellectual vigor and traditional values that have characterized them from the earliest moments of this country’s history through contemporary times. The Latino-Hispanic American Experience offers a unique approach, focusing exclusively on the Latino-Hispanic history in the U.S.

Content Includes:
Approximately 60,000 historical articles
Hundreds of political and religious pamphlets and broadsides
Complete texts of over 1,100 historical books of Hispanic literature and culture
Content written in Spanish (80%) and English (20%)
Content indexed and searchable in Spanish and English

Content Types Include:
Advertisements
Books/Monographs
Broadsides
Editorials
Essays
Newspapers
Pamphlets
Periodicals
Poems
Reviews
Short stories

Series 2 presents thematic content focusing on the evolution of Hispanic civil rights, religious thought, and the growing presence of women writers from the late 19th and 20th centuries. Rare and relevant books and newspapers – including rare anarchist newspapers – are presented in their original form. Extensive manuscript collections of both organizations and individuals are included for viewing, and are indexed for ease of search and maximum discovery. This collection offers a unique approach by focusing exclusively on the Latino-Hispanic history of the United States.

Content Includes:
Hundreds of rare books by Latino-Hispanic Americans
Over 3,000 issues of rare historical newspapers and periodicals, including over 75,000 pages of content
Over 250,000 pages of personal and organizational manuscript content
Content written in Spanish (80%) and English (20%)
Content indexed and searchable in Spanish and English

Content Types Include:
Letters and telegrams
Speeches and transcripts
Periodicals
Newspapers
Photographs
Literary manuscripts
Books/Monographs
Yearbooks
Personal records
Meeting minutes
Political papers
Cultural programs and notices

On-Campus Link
Images of America: A History of American Life in Images and Text
The online collection is growing to include 5,000 individual volumes, with 650,000 pages and more than a million images. Each book tells a small piece of American history. But when researched together with Alexander Street's Semantic Indexing, the collection becomes a massive and powerful primary-source research tool, a tapestry of the places and people that have made America.
For Scholarship, Study, and Personal Research

For academic scholarship, the collection will have broad departmental relevance, showing the personal stories and photos of immigrants, laborers, and newsmakers; documenting the local architecture of homes and businesses; showing images of racism and tolerance; delivering history as observed in real time. The photos are from historical societies, archives, and private collections. The texts are written by local historians—people with deep and personal knowledge of their communities. In many instances, the authors are protagonists in the historical events they describe, with family photographs, primary documents, and other materials that are inaccessible outside of these publications.

Examples of academic disciplines served include:

Sports history, recreation—Major leagues, local teams, and their influences on communities: Metro Detroit Boxing; Gold in the Ozarks; Central Park Zoo; New York City Vaudeville; New York Giants; Hockey in Providence
Architecture and urban studies—How spaces were used in the past: Lost Ann Arbor; Cemeteries Around Lake Winnipesaukee; Railroad Depots of West Central Ohio
Race and gender—Italians in Detroit; Jewish Community of North Minneapolis; The Chinese Community of Stockton; An Oral History of Tahlequah and The Cherokee Nation
Labor and organizational history—Army, Coast Guard, canal workers, nurses, police departments, fire departments, unions, factory conditions: Firefighting in Frederick; Fairchild Aircraft; The Long Island Railroad; Straub Brewery; WNAX 570 Radio
War—New Hampshire in the Civil War; Cincinnati: The World War II years
Religion—The Roman Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh

New Tools for Search and Discovery

Alexander Street has indexed the books using a new thesaurus created specifically for this collection. Places, people, dates, events, architectural features, and ethnicities are some of the index terms, making searches such as these easy:

Find African American schools in DeKalb County, Georgia.
Find pictures of coal miners in Kentucky and Virginia from 1900 to 1950.
Find examples of neocolonial architecture in the Northeast and Southwest.
Find pictures and descriptions of college football games in Nebraska in the 1950s.
Find depictions of the Irish American community in Youngstown, Ohio. In all of the Midwest. Compared to the Italian-American communities in these areas.
Find Jewish butchers in Chicago in the 1920s.

On-Campus Link
Library of Congress Digital Collections
Digitized historical documents, photographs, sound recordings, moving pictures, books, pamphlets, maps, and other resources from the Library of Congress’s vast holdings.
National Geographic Magazine Archive, 1888-2015
National Geographic magazine built its reputation delivering the highest-quality photojournalism and cartography in the world. The iconic monthly publication provides in-depth coverage of cultures, nature, science, technology, and more.

Podcasts

Podcasts are emerging as one of the newest sources of information used in academic inquiry. The University of Toronto-Scarborough created an Introduction to Podcasts guide which is very thorough.

Finding Podcasts

Multimedia resources like podcasts are increasingly being accepted as sources for research papers. To help you get started with searching for podcasts, here are some recommendations for where to find and listen to podcasts.

Search for Podcasts

Podcast Websites and Search Engines

Listen Notes
Listen Notes is a search engine for podcasts. You can search by podcast or by episode.
PodcastRE
A searchable, researchable archive of podcasting culture.
PodSearch
PodSearch is an easy way to discover podcasts on your favorite topics. Listen to short show samples, learn more about the show and hosts, and bookmark your favorites.
Discover Pods
A medium to discuss established and popular podcasts, new upcoming podcasts, podcast news, podcast reviews, and more.

Evaluating Podcasts

How do I analyze or evaluate a podcast?

Here are some components to consider when you are analyzing podcasts.

1. What type of podcast is this?

This is important to consider because:

News and documentary podcasts (just like news stories and documentaries) must follow certain codes and conventions so that accuracy and ethics are maintained
This would not necessarily be the case with theatrical or dramatic podcasts – which can be considered fiction. These types of podcasts have more freedom to play around with the truth for dramatic effect
News and documentary podcasts do not function in this way: they should be balanced, insightful, and objective on the subject that they are reporting on

2. Balance

A podcast, like a news story, should balance both sides of an argument in order to minimize bias. You can assess this by considering:

The length of time spent on each side of an issue
How multifaceted is the information that is being presented (various theories about an object being considered, versus just one theory only)

3. Bias

A podcast should be neutral. In order to assess bias:

Listen to the language of the narration as it is often chosen carefully
Can you learn anything about the narrator or the organization that they might be representing?

4. Subjectivity

Good podcasts should let the audience know and comprehend the personal feelings, tastes, and opinions of the podcaster(s) on an issue or subject.

Can you detect the podcaster’s feelings on the issue? How is this expressed? What effect does it have?

5. Opinion

In podcasts, opinions that the podcaster expresses should be balanced with facts. To see if your chosen podcast is doing this, focus on whether:

The podcaster is citing specific reasons that are based on verifiable facts
Use your critical thinking skills to assess whether the rationale behind opinions expressed (as well as opinions expressed by those they might interview)

6. Representation, Ethics, and Credibility

In order for a story to be ethical, the subject must be represented fairly. Ethical podcasts usually rely on interviews, facts, and information that is already available. Additionally, a credible podcast will use information from credible sources.

Is there any trace of this in the podcast you are analyzing? How do you know?
Can you verifying the facts that the podcaster is presenting
What sources of information is the podcaster using?
Remember: the tricky part about credibility with a personal interview is that human sources may not recall exact details or possibly even lie. A good podcast presents these interviews impartially and closely analyzes their content to present an objective story.

Adapted from Lumen's Writing 102 - How to Analyze a Podcast - Authored by Marc Watkins; Provided by DWR: CC BY-SA

Analyzing Podcasts - Additional Components

Additional components to consider when evaluating (or creating) a podcast

Central Idea and content

Are the main ideas defined and clearly understood?
Is it easy to understand the information that the podcaster is trying to convey?
Does the podcaster explore the key ideas promised in the outset?

Audience

Good podcasters know who their audience is, know what they are looking for, and how content can unify their audience.

Is there a clear indication of who the audience of your particularly chosen podcast is?
How do you know this?

Podcast Structure

A well designed podcast is usually very intentional about structure.

Is there an inherent structure to the podcast you are analyzing, and if so, can you describe it?
How does create meaning for the audience?

Authenticity

This is an element that is difficult to quantify but is often a key character in how effective a podcast can be.

Does the podcaster seem engaged with the material in an authentic way? How is this expressed?
What impact does the tone have of the effectiveness of the podcast?

5. Regularity

Good podcasts tend to come out on a regular basis.

Does this podcast adhere to a specific, regular schedule?
How does this contribute to engagement

Adapted from "5 Elements of a Good Podcast," by Peter Thomson for Learn G2

English 360: Intro to Writing Non-Fiction (Zilinskas)

Chanda Briggs