A blog from Gale International
Hear from our team of Gale Student Ambassadors as they explore issues of relevance to students – from undergraduate to PhD level.
Many of these posts provide Study Tips and Tricks, revealing how to make the most out of digital primary source archives, as well as the many other digital library resources available from Gale.
Adding primary sources or contextual content to your work might just push up your grade!
│By Olivia McDermott, Gale Ambassador at the University of Liverpool│
For a subject such as drama, primary sources are continuously overlooked. Much academic study preceding degree level tends to focus on the practical realm of theatre. Though it is an important aspect, this sometimes leads to contextual ideas being ignored.
│By Madeleine Pedley, Gale Ambassador at Liverpool John Moores University│
Within this blog, I will be using Gale Primary Sources’ Archives of Sexuality and Gender to find case studies and investigate Queer Theory. The importance of using Gale Primary Sources within explorations into methodology is that they enable students to build upon initial research and produce supported interpretations through their extensive archives. This blog aims to investigate the Queer Theory methodology and provide examples of application through selected sources. Furthermore, it highlights the importance of such examples and how History of Art and Museum Studies students can use Gale Primary Sources.
The Queer Theory methodology is used to explore works of art or text from a new perspective, with the outcome providing a different narrative to interpret the piece and redefine it within an LGBTQ+ setting.1 It is not there to make an artwork suddenly homosexual but to allow for alternative and contemporary discussions to take place.
│By Philip Virta, Senior Acquisitions Editor
Disability studies is a growing field in academia that examines disability as a social, cultural, and political phenomenon. Seeing how far we have come as a society in terms of equal rights for people with disabilities is heartening, yet how has disability been viewed both historically and contemporarily?
│By Jessica Crawley, Gale Ambassador at Lancaster University│
One of the most interesting and – to some – most perplexing aspects of philosophical writings is that newer does not equal better. For example, some of the greatest advancements in metaphysics were made by Aristotle, who was writing in Ancient Greece well over two-thousand years ago. Not only this, but our gendered and Western-mandated criteria of what ‘deserves’ the title of ‘philosophical writing’ is (finally) beginning to evolve.
│By Jess Briony Hodgson, Gale Ambassador at the University of Sheffield│
Britain has always had a complex identity historically speaking – from Alfred the Great and the nature of medieval kingdoms, through to the fallout from Brexit, the way in which Britons conceptualise their nation and nationality has always been changing – and this makes primary source work all the more interesting.
When using primary sources such as those found in Gale’s digital archives, one main challenge is removing our own understandings of ‘the nation’ from the equation, so we can properly analyse the information and make accurate interpretations and comparisons. One space in which we can see a microcosm of all these changes is print media, particularly newspapers, which will have (for the most part) aimed to capture readers’ opinions and concerns, highlighting the changes in concepts such as the nation.
│By Lydia Clarke, Gale Ambassador at the University of Leeds│
Moving to a completely new place is incredibly challenging. After A-Levels, I know the last thing you want to think about is university assignments, but I promise they are not that scary. Whilst there is sadly not a magical wand to whisk away university stress, this blog post will hopefully help you manage your coursework without burning out. Gale Primary Sources digital archives were massively helpful for me to find relevant primary source material and get to grips with practising my critical thinking skills. I will demonstrate how in my first year at university I used a book I found in Eighteenth Century Collections Online to apply and evaluate my analysis of the debate about gender studies in history for my coursework.
│By Yasmin Metto, Gale Ambassador at Queen Mary, University of London│
The Titanic is one of the most famous and prolific ships in the world, inspiring adventures to the depths of where it sunk as well as creating a legacy that has lasted generations. Unfortunately, this can shroud the aftermath of the sinking of the Titanic, which was almost as devastating as the event itself. The sinking of the Titanic marked a multitude of impacts, especially culturally and economically. By using Gale Primary Sources to explore the cultural and economic effects of the Titanic sinking, it becomes evident that all of society was affected by the event.
│By Isabelle Partridge, Gale Ambassador at the University of Exeter│
Emotion, nature and individualism are some of the key themes of Romanticism. This cultural movement became popular in Western Europe during the late eighteenth century and was expressed primarily through art and literature. However, the major intellectual movement which preceded Romanticism was the Enlightenment, during which philosophers emphasised rationalism in the pursuit of knowledge. Thus, Romanticism has often been posed as an opposite reaction to the Enlightenment.
Through using Gale Primary Sources, I have gained access to a number of notable works from the Romantic period, from paintings to poems, as well as the opportunity to explore how these works have been perceived since their initial creation. Primary sources highlight how Romanticism was a dynamic and varied movement. Romanticism responded not only to the Enlightenment, but the many political and social developments, such as revolution and industrialization, which had created a backdrop for the turn of the nineteenth century.
│By Tom Taborn, Gale Ambassador at the University of Oxford│
Primary sources can be, let’s face it, intimidating. In the first few weeks of university the idea that we should use them was constantly drummed into me. I, like most other students I know, immediately ignored this advice, and ploughed into the swelling lists of secondary sources. Primary sources seemed like a distraction from the stress of churning out an essay, and the few students who did use them seemed like god-like beings who’d mastered pomodoro timers and bullet journaling in the pram.
Over the course of my first year, however, I realised that they were exactly the opposite. Primary sources are the stressed student’s best friend. Reading what real people thought, how they talked, and what they felt, can make the trickiest topics easier. And more than that, they can be fun. The archives in Gale Primary Sources made using primary sources so much less terrifying as a student for me. This is the story of how my worst essay was saved by a primary source, and how yours can be too.
│By Sarah L. Ketchley, Senior Digital Humanities Specialist│
One of six embedded tools in Gale Digital Scholar Lab, Named Entity Recognition (NER) processes Optical Character Recognition (OCR) text data and captures information about a range of words defined as ‘entities’, detailed below. The tool is ideally suited for text-based analysis, including text encoding and mapping. This blog post will discuss some of the highlights of the Lab’s NER tool, and things to bear in mind when creating an analysis configuration. We’ll finish with a couple of sample use cases to inspire your own NER analysis.