Research Help: SPCH 3000: Speech Writing (Syfert): Get Started

Use FalconSearch on the library's homepage to find articles, books, ebooks, and additional materials all at once. FalconSearch is an excellent starting place when you aren't sure which database to choose.

Background Research

Credo Reference
An easy-to-use database providing dictionary and encyclopedia entries on subjects in all academic disciplines; a scholarly alternative to Wikipedia. Provides access to over 1,000 reference books.
CQ Researcher
In-depth, unbiased coverage of health, social trends, criminal justice, international affairs, education, the environment, technology, and the economy.
Encyclopaedia Britannica
The online edition of the oldest English-language general encyclopaedia.

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America: History & Life
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JSTOR Arts & Sciences, JSTOR Life Sciences, and JSTOR eBooks
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Google Scholar
A search engine for scholarly literature. Searches across many disciplines and sources: peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, abstracts and articles, from academic publishers, professional societies, preprint repositories, universities and other scholarly organizations. For info on how to use Google Scholar to find articles available at Fitchburg State see https://fitchburgstate.libguides.com/c.php?g=556392&p=3825507

News

NewspaperArchive
A digital image archive which contains an extensive number of newspaper issues from both large and small newspapers around the world, spanning more than 400 years. Pages are browsable and searchable.
American Antiquarian Society (AAS) Historical Periodicals: Series 1, 1691-1820
More than 500 Colonial America and American magazines and journals from 1691 through 1820 covering a broad base of topics and geographical areas. Pulled from the American Antiquarian Society collection, almost every 17th and 18th-century American title is represented in addition to the majority of works published before 1821.
American Antiquarian Society (AAS) Historical Periodicals: Series 2, 1821-1837
Colonial America and American magazines and journals from 1821 through 1837.
American Antiquarian Society (AAS) Historical Periodicals: Series 3, 1838-1852
Series 3 presents over 1,700 titles dating from 1838 through 1852. The themes presented in Series 3 reveal a rapidly growing young nation, where industrialization, the railroads, regional political differences, and life on the western frontier were daily realities. Subjects covered in the collection reach into every facet of American life, including science, literature, medicine, agriculture, women’s fashion, family life, and religion.
American Antiquarian Society (AAS) Historical Periodicals: Series 4, 1853-1865
Series 4 presents over 1,100 titles dating from 1853 through 1865. While the Civil War is a focal point of the collection, we also find a diverse record of the continuance of daily life for many Americans—both leading up to and during the war. News from the battlefront can be found, in addition to the usual breadth of subject matter found in previous collections that include science, literature, medicine, agriculture, women’s fashion, family life, and religion.
American Antiquarian Society (AAS) Historical Periodicals: Series 5, 1866-1912
Series 5 presents over 2,500 titles dating from 1866 through 1877. The themes presented in Series 5 reflect a nation that persevered through a most difficult set of circumstances: a bloody civil war that claimed hundreds of thousands of lives; the incorporation of the recently-freed African Americans into American life; a population that rapidly expanded into the Western territories. Broad subject areas covered in the collection reach into every facet of American life, including science, literature, medicine, agriculture, women’s fashion, family life, and religion.

Process Recommendations

Step 1: Pick a speech to explore. What do you know about the time in which it was given? What is the reason for the speech? What social/political/cultural events is the speech connected to?

Step 2: Use FalconSearch to search in for the speech in quotes. e.g. "I have a dream" AND speech. Scan for results that include terms like analysis or interpretation. Too many results? Add the word analysis to your search. Save any results that look promising.

Step 3: Use Background Resources like Credo Reference to fill in the gaps of your knowledge about the historical context of the speech. e.g. search for the Civil Rights Movement to contextualize Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I have a dream" speech.

Step 4: Use archival newspaper resources to find contemporary responses to the speech. e.g. find reactions to the speech in news dated August 28, 1963 and after.

Step 5: Synthesize and cite your sources!