This document outlines the requirements for a research paper assignment, including: - The paper should be 6-8 pages, double-spaced, with approximately 1500 words and use MLA format. - Several draft components are due at different times, including a short proposal, bibliography, and peer reviews. - The paper involves researching an object in depth related to topics like art history, race, identity, or the American experience. Students must analyze the object's meaning and significance within its historical and social context.

1. Research Project: Research Paper or Final Project
6-8 pages, regular font, double-spaced, ~1500 words, MLA
format for Works Cited section.
Schedule
– Hardcopy of short proposal due in class
– Attend the Research Workshop today with Jill Luedke—meet
at Tuttleman Learning Center Room 08 (Lower Level)
- Hardcopy of Bibliography due in class
– Check your progress - do you need an extension? What other
obligations do you have right now? Have you been or are you
getting sick? Are you in some kind of wretched, suffering state
of being? Don’t wait! Talk to Dr. Ho your very reasonable
professor and deal with it TODAY!
- Research Paper or Final Project due in class
- You will select an object to research and investigate in depth.
In your paper you will describe the object, situate the object in
terms art history and in terms of issues of race, identity, and/or
the American experience; and you will assesses significance of
the object in terms of meaning and/or function within its socio-
political and historical context. You will compile a bibliography
of at least 10 sources. You will each be completing two peer-
reviews and also have a draft of your paper reviewed by two
other students before the due date. You may not turn in your
paper until a draft has been reviewed by two of your peers and
you have made the necessary edits and changes.
1. Proposal
a. Brainstorm and make a list of what has interested you this
semester.
i. Go over your notes and readings.
ii. Think about your visits to art museums or galleries.（answer:
Philadelphia art museum）

2. iii. What works of art did you look at for your group
presentation?(answer: Africa American history)
iv. Which artists and filmmakers meant the most to you in this
class?
b. Narrow down your list to a few works of art that address the
issues that interest you the most. For some of you the ideas or
issues will guide you, and for others, the work of art will take
priority.
c. Ask yourself a question about the one work of art that
interests you the most.
d. Submit a proposal for your research paper or art project that
addresses a question about a specific work of art. You only need
to write a few sentences, but you must state your question and
identify a specific work of art according to artist, title, and
date.
2. Bibliography - Submit a bibliography with at least 10 sources
in Chicago or MLA format. This is perhaps twice as many of the
sources you actually end up citing in your paper. You may use
the articles from the course readings. Here are examples of
sources I will accept:
a. The work of art
b. A book that talks about the object or artist at length
c. Articles and books on theory or analysis that have already
been written.
d. Many essays are published as chapters in anthologies.
Anthologies are frequently very good sources since you get a
nice group of essays by different scholars all on the same topic.
e. Monographs, catalogues raisonnées, and art history reference
books. The first two types of books focus on an artist’s entire
body of work and/or biography and give details that might not
show up in a more theoretical text (like the measurements of the
objects, their provenance, details about their condition, etc.).
f. Films – Think about the ones we have seen in this class.
Sometimes they are documentaries, so you can use the info from
them in your research. Other times they are a work of art in

3. themselves. Perhaps you will be making connections between a
film and another work of art.
g. You will be able to access many sources online. Here are
databases I recommend:
i. Oxford Art Online
ii. The Yale Dictionary of Art and Artists
iii. Art Index - Offers abstracts of journals, museum bulletins
and yearbooks in the fields of art, architecture, decorative arts
and photography. Covers abstracts from 1929-present, full-text
articles 1997-present.
iv. International Bibliography of Art - Provides coverage of
scholarship on American art from the colonial era to the
present, and global art since 1945
v. Bibliography of the History of Art - Offers abstracts of
journal articles, books, conference proceedings, dissertations
and exhibition and dealers' catalogs. Includes European and
American art from late antiquity to the present. Covers 1975-
2007.
vi. ARTbibliographies Modern - Provides abstracts of journal
articles, books, essays, exhibition catalogs, dissertations, and
exhibition reviews on all areas of modern and contemporary art
including photography, sculpture and art history and theory.
Covers late 1960's-present.
vii. ProQuest Research Library - Citations & full-text articles in
a variety of disciplines.
viii. JSTOR - Articles from the top journals in most disciplines.
Coverage is through 3 to 5 years ago.
ix. WorldCat - A catalog of the materials held by libraries
worldwide.
x. Film Literature Index - Citations to articles, film reviews and
book reviews from film and television journals from 30
countries. The journals range from scholarly to popular. Covers
the years between 1976-2001. (The print version of this index
covers 1973-2004.
xi. Film Indexes Online - The BFI's Film Index
International and The AFI's Catalog. An authoritative

4. alternative to the IMDB. Search by keyword; character name;
genre; release year and more. Extensive plot summaries are
included in AFI, which covers American film from 1893—1974,
with additional records covering selected major films from 1975
onwards. For articles and film review citations, search for a
film and see the references at the bottom.
xii. FIAF Index to Film Periodicals Plus - Index offering access
to academic and popular film journals from 1972 to the present,
including the following databases: Index to Film Periodicals;
Treasures from Film Archives; Documentation Collections; and
FIAF affiliates' publications
3. Paper Components
a. Formal Analysis – “Data Collection (observation and
collection of visual facts)”
i. Take photos of the work and of what’s around it. Include
some detail photos and different views (different distances,
angles, lighting, etc.). Include these with your paper.
ii. What is my first response to the work? Trust yourself.
iii. Sketch the work.
iv. What do the physical properties and the form contribute?
Take into account
1. The material – is the paint thick or thin? Is the marble
polished and reflective? Texture?
2. The size – how do you feel standing before this object?
Scale?
3. The color – realistic? Symbolic?
4. The composition (arrangement of forms) – balanced?
Symmetrical? Densely patterned?
5. Location and context of site (especially in public art)
6. Where is the best place to stand and look at the work? Do you
need to move when you look at this work?
7. Light: Role of light in the work? Role of light on the work?
8. What is the title? Does it say something about the work?
9. Who or what can we identify in the work? How does this
figure or form relate to other elements in the work? Why is this

5. figure or form place here and not there? What would happen if
you moved or took out a form?
10. What is the chief interest in the work?
v. Focus on creating a logical order so that your reader doesn’t
get lost. Think about your description in terms of a spatial map
of the artwork.
1. Summarize what is going on overall in the work before
moving on to describe the details of the object
2. Describe the composition - Describe components in an order
that makes sense. Maybe the components lead to a focal point.
Maybe the components tell a story or forward an argument.
Maybe there is no visual/formal focus.
3. Break down the artwork into its major sections, EX:
foreground, middle-ground, and background. Or discuss one
side of the work and then move across the object and discuss
the other side.
4. Use spatially-orienting prepositional phrases like “on the left
side one sees,” “to the lower right the artist has depicted,” “in
the foreground there are,” “within the top third,” “at the
center,” “between the,” “towards the,” “above this section,” etc.
5. Check your work: If you were to give your written formal
analysis to a friend who had never seen the object, s/he would
be able to describe or draw the object for you, or at least pick it
out of a lineup.
b. Theory/criticism - Situate the object in a theoretical,
historical, or social context of the object, artist, or time period.
How does the object relate to ideas about race, identity, and
experience (culture, politics, religion, gender, or class)?
i. The theory or criticism should arise out of the art, rather than
be superimposed on it, which means that the formal facts you
present in the formal analysis should “prove” or testify to your
argument.
ii. Keep an image of the object in view as you write.
iii. How do the formal or stylistic qualities of the object reflect
or affect the time in which they were made?
iv. How does the art connect with the ideas or theories of a

6. particular person, e.g. Derrida, Du Bois, Trinh, Zukin, Hayden,
Fraser, Wu, London, Ongiri, Mulvey…?
v. Compare the object with another in order to illustrate a
necessary point. You will need to talk about other works by the
same artist who made your object. Do not just list their similar
and different qualities. Instead, suggest what those differences
or similarities mean and analyze them on some level.
c. What did you learn? Did the research/writing process answer
your proposal question? Often the best part of a student’s paper
comes in the conclusion and the rest is relatively unfocused. If
this is the case, then go back and rewrite the necessary parts of
the paper.
d. Trim down and edit the formal analysis, so it only contains
points relevant to the theory/criticism section. EX: If it turns
out that lighting has nothing to do with the focus of your
argument, then leave it out.
e. Check that you don’t use the verb “is” too often. Use active
verbs.
f. Keep it simple.
4. Peer Review - Have your paper edited by at least two of your
peers. If you liked working with some of the people in your
group, then you should definitely ask them to be peer editors.
You may have as many peer reviewers as you wish, but as least
two are mandatory. We will be discussing the details of peer
review in a few weeks.
5. Checklist - What You Will Turn In
a. Essay
b. Numbered and labeled images: at least five photos, sketches,
detail views, close-ups, images of other works of art that you
mention or discuss in comparison, etc.
c. Works Cited
d. Hardcopies of your earlier drafts with comments, marks, and
editing from peer reviews (at least two reviews by different
classmates).

7. Outline and Thesis Statement Guide
COM/156 Version 7
1
University of Phoenix Material
Outline and Thesis Statement Guide
Create an outline that includes details that support your thesis.
Identify at least three main points and at least two supporting
details per main point.
· Write all supporting details and subdetails in complete
sentences.
· Include both in-text citations in the outline and a references
page following the outline. Many of your supporting details and
subdetails will need in-text citations.
· Outline only the body of your paper (not your introduction or
conclusion).
· Avoid bias and present a balanced case for your thesis—this
will strengthen your writing.
Your thesis statement:
Outline:
I. Introduction
II. First main point
A.
Supporting details

8. 1.
Subdetails
2.
Subdetails
B.
Supporting details
1.
Subdetails
2.
Subdetails
III.
Second main point
A.
Supporting details
1.
Subdetails
2.
Subdetails
B.
Supporting details
1.
Subdetails
2.
Subdetails

9. IV.
Third main point
A.
Supporting details
1.
Subdetails
2.
Subdetails
B.
Supporting details
1.
Subdetails
2.
Subdetails
V.
Conclusion
Explain in a short paragraph (at least 150 words) why you
decided to sequence your paragraphs as you did.
References
[Include your references here]
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