Research project.

Project proposal: 1% of overall course grade for course, due Monday, Sept. 25.

Your research paper for this course will focus on a single Chinese painting, print, or photograph, from the period between 1368 and the present. Try to choose something that you like and want to know more about. I encourage you to talk to me about possible paper topics. Your proposal should be no longer than one paragraph and indicate which work of art you intend to research.

Research worksheets and annotated bibliography: 4% of overall course grade, due Friday, Oct. 13.

As soon as your topic is approved, you should start working on your research. Keep track of your research using research worksheets, available on Canvas; please fill one out for each library database you consult for this paper, indicating your search terms and your results (including any search terms that lead to no results at all). You will need to turn in these worksheets.

In addition to looking for written discussions of the work of art you have chosen, you may wish to read about similar works, the artist or designer, artistic trends in the historical period and geographical region, and related materials (literature, philosophical texts, religious texts, etc.) to help with your analysis. I suggest that you consult the resources listed in the handout Selected Library Resources. For images, you should explore ARTstor (http://artstor.org/) and some of the links available online (in Canvas, see the page titled Links and the module titled Asian Art Online).

Here are some elements that you may want to research (remembering that the absence of certain characteristics is sometimes important too):

• the formal elements, subject matter, and/or function of a work of art;
• the identity, status, and circumstances of the artist and/or patron;
• where and when the work of art was created;
• the medium used to create a work of art;
• what other works of art of the same time and place have in common with those you are focusing on;
• subjects, ideas, or themes referred to in the work of art.

Once you have completed your preliminary research, consider which sources you intend to use in your project, and use them to create an annotated bibliography. For the annotated bibliography, you will need to give citation information for each source in the bibliographic format of the Chicago Manual of Style (see this page: http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_citationguide.html), followed by a sentence or two explaining why the source is useful in understanding your topic.

As you decide which sources to include in your bibliography, it is important to consider their quality. Personal or institutional web pages are not always subject to peer review in the same way as books and journal articles. I expect the majority of your bibliography to consist of peer-reviewed books and journal articles (which can sometimes be found in online databases such as JSTOR). Your completed project should consult five (5) sources at a minimum, primarily art historical sources supplemented with appropriate readings on religion, philosophy, history, literature, anthropology, etc. (depending on what your topic is); ideally, you would have found most of your sources by the time the bibliography is due (though of course it is fine to continue to conduct research after that). The more academic sources you have the better: part of the point of doing a research paper is to demonstrate the amount and quality of research you did.

Paper draft: 5% of overall course grade, due Monday, Nov. 6.

As you read your sources, take notes, and start incorporating what you are learning into a draft of the research paper. The draft will be submitted for a grade, and you will receive comments from me that should help you to improve your final paper. I cannot guarantee that I will have time to give feedback on any drafts submitted after the deadline above. As you work on your draft, keep in mind that the final version of the paper should be about 1500–2100 words (roughly five to seven pages of text, not including images or bibliography) and should cite at least five sources.

In addition to your research, it would be appropriate to incorporate your own observation of formal characteristics of the works of art or architectural sites you are writing about (e.g., form or composition; qualities of line or color; texture; representation of space, mass or volume; the viewer’s vantage point; qualities of proportion or scale) as a way of explaining the artistic choices of makers, the status of owners, or the possible reactions of viewers.

Your research and/or observations might suggest the following questions, some or all of which you should attempt to answer in your paper, and might serve as the basis for a thesis:

• how does the work of art fit in its historical context?
• what does the subject matter (if applicable) suggest about the object’s significance?
• what is the intended function of the work of art?
• what do the medium and formal characteristics tell you about the artistic choices of the maker, the status of the owner (if applicable), or the possible reactions of viewers?
• does an inscription (if applicable) reveal anything about the circumstances of the work of art’s creation, or the attitudes of the maker or viewers?

Develop a thesis and argument around which to organize your writing. You should explain your thesis in your introductory paragraph; present evidence that supports your thesis (such as your own observations or information that you find in your research) in the body paragraphs, with each paragraph focusing on one idea; and reiterate your argument briefly in a concluding paragraph.

Research paper: 20% of overall course grade, due Monday, Nov. 20.

For the final version of the paper, I expect you to revise the draft as appropriate, incorporating any comments or feedback that you received on it.

For more information about how to write an art history research paper, or how to do formal analysis of art or architecture, I recommend visiting the Art History Teaching Fellows and looking at Sylvan Barnet’s A Short Guide to Writing about Art, a recommended book for this course. (The 2011 edition is on reserve for our class in the Library.) Be sure to list the sources you cite at the end of your paper and to cite your sources throughout your paper using either footnotes (preferred in humanities courses) or parenthetical references, according to the Chicago Manual of Style. Remember that bibliographic and note forms are different. If you have further questions about writing research papers, you might visit the HWS Writes website (http://www.hws.edu/academics/ctl/hws_writes.aspx).

Please consult the syllabus for instructions on formatting your work, avoiding plagiarism, submitting papers online, and grading.