Research Paper (due Sunday, May 11, 2:00pm).

Your paper for this course will give you an opportunity to take some of the ideas that we will be talking about in class and explore them in greater depth. My only requirements are that you consider connections between narrative and art in Asia. You might choose to focus on a specific work of art, a specific narrative theme, or the similarities/differences of narrative treatments in China/Japan, Asia/Europe, etc. I encourage you to come talk to me about possible project topics. Note that you should turn in a proposal for your paper topic on Monday, Feb. 18; this should be no longer than one paragraph, and the point of turning it in is so that I can make sure that you are choosing a manageable topic.

For the research stage of the project, I suggest that you consult the Art Index, the Bibliography of Asian Studies Online, and JSTOR (online databases on the Library's web page under "Find Articles"). Note: for all of these online resources, you must be connected to the HWS campus network. Don't overlook the books on reserve for our course at the Library (not only their contents but also their bibliographies), as well as resources that I suggest in footnotes on your daily handouts (typically beginning "Want to know more…?").

On Monday, Mar. 31, you should turn in an annotated bibliography of your sources, with printouts of online search results for material in the library catalog or databases. The annotated bibliography should be a list of the sources found by this date that you plan to use in your paper, with a sentence or two explaining why it is useful in your research. (Of course, it is fine to continue to look for sources after the annotated bibliography is due.) It is particularly important that you pay attention to your sources. Although looking for information on the internet is very convenient, internet sources are not always subject to peer review in the same way as books and journal articles. For this reason, I expect the majority of your bibliography to consist of peer-reviewed books and journal articles. Although I cannot stipulate how many sources I expect to see, certainly the more you have and the more academic they are the better: part of the point of doing a research paper is to demonstrate the amount and quality of research you did, and this is done through your bibliography. You will be learning how to find the resources on Asian art available through our library at the Library Orientation session.

The paper itself should be about 3000-4500 words (roughly 10-15 pages).

Develop a thesis or an argument around which to organize your writing, and put it in the first paragraph. (Note: this should not be a vague, inflated claim such as "This painting exemplifies the religious nature of Buddhist art.") Pay attention to your language: please avoid judgmental words like "good" or "bad," as well as overused adjectives like "nice" and "interesting."

Be sure, in addition to including a bibliography at the end of your paper, to also cite your sources throughout your paper using either footnotes (preferred in humanities courses) or parenthetical references: see A Pocket Style Manual for details on how to do this. Note that bibliographic and note forms are different.

Please refer to the notes in your syllabus about appropriate formats for written work and about plagiarism. If you need more information about how to write an art history research paper, I recommend looking at Sylvan Barnet’s A Short Guide to Writing about Art, a recommended book for this course. (The 1985 edition is in the reference section of the Library.) If you have further questions about writing research papers, you might visit the HWS Writes website.