Final Paper Guidelines
Spring 2017
ART 101 History of Art (Hybrid)
Date Due: May 4, 2017
Tips on Writing a Successful Paper
NOTE: The paper must be a minimum of three (3) double spaced pages in length.
For ART101 the work(s) discussed must be from the Western world - created
before or during the Gothic period (roughly before 1300 CE.) If you are considering
working on an architectural project it must have been influenced by a building
from the past (prior to 1300CE).
Writing a Museum Research Paper
Regardless of whether you choose to visit a museum or gallery and write about what
you see or write an architectural research paper based on visiting a monument, these
tips will be very helpful. Since many beginning students are uncertain about what to
write about a work of art, provided here is a brief outline of some points you should
consider.
Works of art have been analyzed according to many different schemes. The following
presents one such scheme and it is not intended to be followed literally, but merely to
help you make a systematic analysis of the work of art you choose. Many of the
categories will overlap, and some are obviously more important for certain works than
for others. Each work of art is a unique experience, and must be treated as such, the
following outline will help you experience more deeply the art work you have selected.
Introduction:
Give the title of the works, the names of the artists who created them, if known, the
country and time period when it was created, and the museum where it now exists.
Make a note of the date of your visit to the museum.
Is the work a painting, a graphic, a sculpture or a piece of architecture? What materials
were used: tempera, acrylic, oil, stone, wood, metal, ceramic, etc.? What technique was
used: engraving, lithography, etching, low or bas relief, high relief, casting, carving,
etc.?
Why did you select a given work or works? What interested you?
Context and Subject Matter:
What was the cultural context of the work? What meaning did it have for the people that
created it?
What is represented? Is it a portrait, a genre scene, a mythological or biblical scene?
Are there symbols in the work? What does it mean? If you know the source of the story,
for example the illustration of an ancient myth or a biblical story, give the appropriate
citation. How is the subject portrayed? What is its emotional context?
Formal Elements:
Artists use the formal elements of line, color, value, texture, shape, and rhythm to
describe form, space, plane, and mass. Space can be three dimensional, as in
sculpture or architecture, or two dimensional as in a painting. Artists may use devices
like linear perspective to give the illusion of three dimensional space on a two
dimensional surface, or they may use the properties of color and line to create spatial
movement on the surface plane. Plane refers to flat two-dimensional space and
generally refers to the surface of a painting or graphic. Mass, which is also known as
"volume" refers to three dimensional space.
Answering the questions will help you to analyze how the artist used the formal
elements of art to create the work of art you are considering. If you are writing about a
piece of sculpture, just use the questions that apply. Try to use as many as you can.
Do the lines go primarily in horizontal and vertical directions, echoing the frame of the
work, or are they primarily diagonal? Are the lines flowing or jagged? Can you follow
the edges of the forms? Are the edges of the forms sharply delineated or are the brush
strokes obvious, tending to obscure sharp edges and lines?
Are the forms arranged in orderly patterns or do they seem chaotic? Do they seem to be
static, or do they create a sense of movement? Do the forms create an illusion of three
dimensional space or do they seem to lie flat on the surface? Is there a strong sense of
three dimensional mass or is the emphasis on surface texture? Is the texture smooth or
rough?
How does the artist use light? Does the light come from a consistent source? Does it
seem to mold objects into three dimensions or does it flatten them? Are there strong
contrasts of light and dark or only subtle modulations? What sort of emotional effect is
produced by the light and dark?
What colors does the artist use? To what degree are the colors saturated (intense hues)
or grayed? Are the colors complementary or analogous? Is the color used realistically,
symbolically or expressively?
Conclusion:
Use the conclusion to sum up your reaction to the work. Here are some questions you
may wish to answer. In what way do the formal elements support or contradict the ideas
implicit in the subject matter? How was the work displayed and what effect did that have
on your appreciation of it?
Finally:
The title page should contain your name, the title of your essay, the class for which you
are writing the paper, and the date. You may wish to prepare a cover sheet with an
image of the work that you are discussing, perhaps from a post card you purchased at
the museum or from an image you downloaded from the web. If you use footnotes, be
sure to use the correct format.
Review:
There are a number of online services which will review essay drafts. Students are
given suggestions to improve their essays addressing: their thesis, support, use of
evidence, use of source material, arrangement, as well as grammar and mechanics.
Tips:
Don’t wait until a few days before the paper is due to write it. Start your writing early and
let your draft sit for a few days before doing the final editing. Read for logical structure,
make sure that your paragraphs each develop a single idea. Above all, be sure that you
have checked your spelling, grammar, and punctuation. Word processing has made
these tasks much easier, but there are still errors that computers cannot catch. Be sure
that you have numbered the pages and that your paper is neat and clean. You might
ask a friend to check your paper for errors before you turn it in. Above all, do not turn in
the first draft! (You will find that learning to write and rewrite in order to create clear and
logical papers is one of the most important things you can learn in college, no matter
what you do after you graduate.)
Some Additional Notes on Writing Museum Papers:
While a museum paper is based primarily upon your direct relation to works of art, you
must include some aspects of a research paper in your final product. This involves
looking up information about a work of art or a series of works. The process involved in
writing a research paper is intended to introduce you to the various tools and sources
that you will need to be able to find information to develop ideas of your own while at the
same time giving credit to the sources of your information.
A major task will be locating appropriate source material. Books, articles, and web
sources can all be consulted. You will be able to find a good number of books cited in
the bibliographic section of our text, Gardner's Art through the Ages. These have been
reviewed for their scholarship and so can be important in getting you started. You will
find that both the bibliographies of these books as well as their footnotes will lead you to
other sources. Be sure to check the books and periodicals in our library, and don’t be
afraid to consult the librarian, if you have a difficult topic. Librarians enjoy helping
students locate materials. You will probably find that our library does not have all the
books you want, but we have interlibrary loan programs which can be extremely helpful.
The tools have expanded incredibly in recent years as the internet has provided us with
access to libraries and texts from throughout the world. Although some full text sources
exist on the web, a thorough search, however, teaches us that most of what we need is
often still in books. However, searching libraries over the web can let us know about the
existence of many relevant books or articles that we would never have found in our local
library.
Research Tools:
An excellent source for art historical information is the multi-volume Grove Dictionary of
Art. Ask a librarian to show you where this can be found in the library. They can also
help you find other reference materials and show you how to access journals and
publications on-line and free of charge.
Using and Citing Sources:
Be sure to keep careful references to the works that you consult and give appropriate
recognition to them in your own writing. While academic research is an ongoing process
in which scholars build upon what went before, quoting material without giving credit to
the original author is known as plagiarism, and it is one of the greatest academic "nono's". It is a problem for many students who are unsure about just what they should
quote and what they should not. The internet with its plethora of information has
exacerbated the problem, for some students now think that cutting and pasting can
create a research paper. Do not just string together a series of quotations, but rather
use material from many sources to develop your own ideas, and use your own words.
One way to take notes is to read something, then close the book or look away from the
computer screen and write down the pertinent ideas or facts in your own words.
You don’t need to footnote commonly known ideas, but when you are just beginning,
you don’t necessary know what is commonly known and what isn’t. Sometimes an
author will cite another author as the source of a quotation. You can deal with this by
giving the original citation and adding "as cited by so-and-so." Sometimes an author will
use a particularly apt descriptive word. In that case you might put just that word in
quotation marks with a reference to the author in your text. These things can be
confusing, but as you read, watch how other writers handle them, and you will gradually
become comfortable. Remember that quotations should always be footnoted, that
people should be given credit for their ideas or images, and that you should include the
works that you consulted in our bibliography.
Research papers utilize a number of different formats to cite their sources. References
are called "footnotes" when placed at the bottom of the page and "endnotes" when they
appear at the end of the book or chapter. Sometimes references that contain an
abbreviation for the source are included in parentheses in the text itself. You may use
either, but whichever one you use, be consistent.
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