For this semester, you will prepare a sort of preliminary research report on one of the artists or works or topics on the list.  Select the one you want  and e-mail me to claim your choice.  The basis for the list, as well as for the project, is the ways in which these exemplify some peculiar aspect of the art or architecture of the era.  I have proposed ones I know to be of significance, although you may use other ideas, subject to my approval. Before you claim a topic, formulate the theme/idea that you will pursue in your research, and make sure that you have found the required research materials to support that line of investigation -- to amount to an adequate treatment of the  theme, according to the project requirements.  Do not just select an item off the list without determining the supporting material that you will use and then stating the specific theme of your study in your proposal.

Your Final Report (Phase 3) will be posted on the class CourseDen site and everyone will read the reports of the other students in the class.  You will submit it through the dropbox and I will publish it (before I make comments or grade them).  Your work will include the following:

·         A basic research statement  2200-2500 words (4-6 pages of text) about your topic, in which you discuss 4 or 5 specific works that exemplify the issues.

·         4-5 images to support your inquiry and statements.  These should be very small (less than 150K, so they will not overload the CourseDen system.  Supplementally or alternatively, you may use references to specific websites (by inclusion of their addresses) or to your text book.  They should be properly captioned as per this sample:

• Phase 1: choice of topic, with specifics of the directions of your research:.  By e-mail, through CourseDen, send me an idea of who or what you have begun to explore and a statement of the theme or direction of your investigation.  This should be a sort of preliminary thesis statement -- well-thought-out, after you have determined the viability of a line of exploration by having accomplished some of the preliminary search for source material.  If it look viable and specific enough to sustain through the research, I will give approval and post it on the list.  I may also inform you that you will need to think it through a bit more specifically and re-submit a refined preliminary proposal.  As you begin this phase, you should follow the guidelines in Maimon, under the "Researching" tab (more on this below)

• Phase 2: Thesis Statement and Annotated Bibliography:
  Annotated Bibliography: Follow the guidelines in Maimon for creating a working bibliography and then writing
  annotations for your sources.  By the time you have have gathered most of your source material and assessed it
  according to the principles set out in Maimon "Researching" tab and "Working with Sources" topic in that tab),
  you should have developed a well-formulated thesis.  Of course this will continue to evolve and to be refined as you
  proceed with the research and writing process.  For the Thesis Statement itself, there is some guidance in Maimon
  under tab 2 "Writing and Designing Texts."   You should also peruse and follow these instructions:

  Bibliography

  Total number of entries will be a minimum of 5, of which you must have at least 3 scholarly journal articles of at least 15-20 pages each.  You may also include scholarly books in the 5 minimum.  If you use other sources, they should be included in your bibliography and annotated, but they must be in addition to the first five. You may not substitute any number of shorter articles for the required longer ones although, of course, you may use them in addition if they contribute to your project.   Among the other sources might be : books or articles from which you use the images (only); web-materials; non-scholarly publications -- newspaper articles, popular magazines, coffee-table books, encyclopedia articles, etc. For many of these, you should be very judgmental and skeptical (see Maimon on Evaluating Sources, under Researching tab).   If you are uncertain as to the "scholarly" nature of your source, ask me. You should include materials from interlibrary loan, and formulate an intellectually sound study, which will be well-written and professionally-presented.  Whatever you consult, you should pay attention to the source material that the author is using, as this is often a good source of "leads" for you to follow. 

  Textbooks are NEVER main sources, and usually not very good supplemental sources -- their purposes are different from those of the sort of scholarly investigations to which you should give the most weight.

  Do not aim at the minimum in any aspect of the project -- seek excellence and to create a solid contribution.

  Annotated Bibliography

   All of your sources must be annotated, describing their  nature and assessing their validity and stating their value to your study.  Of these, at least 5 must fit the high standards above.  To help you evaluate sources, both printed and on the internet, you should consult the Maimon book.  In the Researching tab, there is a great deal of valuable advice for conducting a research project like the one you are doing for this class, including ways to take notes, keep track of citation material, and organize the project, and revise your thinking as you move along.

  Thesis Statement:   A brief statement, probably a paragraph long.  By the time you have created a good annotated bibliography, you will have likely already developed and refined a sort of thesis, as the thought processes for the two parts go hand-in-hand.   The thesis will result from your careful thinking about the particular significance of your topic and the work, and from collecting and organizing the materials you have found on your selection, as you have searched for bibliography that seems relevant and that has potential for illuminating the possible links between what you think important and what can be supported by scholarly writings.  Be careful to distinguish between what you consider known or apparent facts and what can actually be substantiated through research.  As you progress and accumulate thoughts and research materials, their relative significance will become clearer and your "working thesis" will emerge and become increasingly defined and refined.  You will develop a basic or main idea, an argument that you think you can support with evidence but that may need adjustment along the way.  You must be prepared to change direction as the evidence requires.  Remember the overall requirement that you include consideration of the work as related to the cultural/historical context of the 17th Century. A good thesis will be definitive and arguable. To test the strength of your thesis, consider these issues:  Do I answer the question about the specific significance of the particular works I am examining? Re-reading with a view to whether you have bought together works that are related in their relevance to the thesis after constructing a working thesis can help you repair an argument that misses the focus of the question. For instance, if you had sought to know the significance of Monet's "haystack" paintings, and then stated a thesis that Monet, in a specific group of paintings, had an overarching concern of showing the morning light in different seasons of the year, but had included in your thesis statement that none of Monet's paintings can be seen in Cleveland, it would likely be clear to you that these ideas have nothing to do with one another. If you had selected Monet, he would clearly NOT fit the requirement that his work be considered as related to the 17th Century.  If you did select a 17th-century artist or set of works, state clearly and specifically what is distinctively related to that era about the work, as well as how it relates to the phase of evolution in 1th-century art in which it appears.  Have I taken a position that others might challenge or oppose? If your thesis simply states facts that no one would, or even could, disagree with, it's possible that you are simply providing a summary or your research findings, rather than making an argument and showing your own thought processes. Just the gathering of research materials is not sufficient basis for the thesis statement or for the ultimate writing -- there needs to be clear evidence of your own thought and hypothesis.     Is my thesis statement specific enough? Thesis statements that are too vague often do not have a strong argument. If your thesis contains words like "good" or "successful," see if you could be more specific: why is something "good"; what specifically makes something "successful"? Judgment of the value of art, in itself, rarely has significance.  Rather, focus on the specific relevance in context. For example, if you posit that Monet's haystack  paintings mark a phase of Impressionism in which the focus on light conditions and and atmospheric phenomena were more important than the farmland and the activity of gathering hay into stacks as agrarian activities, you would have a much stronger thesis than if you stated that Monet's most beautiful paintings were of haystacks.  Does my thesis pass the "So what?" test? If a reader's first response is, "So what?" then you need to clarify, to forge a relationship, or to connect to a larger issue.  If you had said the Monet's most beautiful paintings were of haystacks, a reader would be quite justified in saying "So what?" and insisting that you offer them something much more specific.  Does my essay support my thesis specifically and without wandering? If your thesis and the body of your essay do not seem to go together, one of them has to change. It's o.k. to change your working thesis to reflect things you have figured out in the course of writing your paper. Remember, always reassess and revise your writing as necessary.  Does my thesis pass the "how and why?" test? If a reader's first response is "how?" or "why?" your thesis may be too open-ended and lack guidance for the reader. See what you can add to give the reader a better take on your position right from the beginning. This set of suggestions is based on those at: http://www.unc.edu/depts/wcweb/handouts/thesis.html .  For further ideas on how to approach the task of thesis writing, you should visit that site or scour the web for similar ones -- there are many.

  ---

• Phase 3: The Final Report (described above)

   

  GRADING You will be graded on conception, research, and execution.  The project is a requirement of the course and must be turned in on November 24th.  Late projects will not be accepted and failure to turn the project in will result in failure of the course.   It will be evaluated with regard to the following: Intellectual Content/Artistic Relevance = 50% Presentation/Following Directions = 25 % Structure/Grammar/Writing = 25%

Do not aim at the minimum in any aspect of the project

Seek excellence and to create a solid contribution