## TIPS FOR WRITING ART HISTORY PAPERS E. Smith (updated 08/17)

- 1) Thesis

Your paper should have a clearly stated and narrowly focused thesis statement or question. In other words, what question are you going to ask about this work or issue or theory, or what point are you going to make about it? In this way, by constructing an argument based on your reading of the image(s) and your research, your own voice as the writer should remain clear and dominant, and you'll avoid ending up with a summary or report.

- 2) Supporting Evidence

Without supporting evidence your assertions will seem to the reader like unconvincing generalizations. Evidence can come from various sources: a) internal evidence, internal evidence, related directly to the image itself and coming from a close reading of the visual text. This would consist of a close technical, stylistic and/or iconographic (i.e., subject matter) analysis; b) external evidence, external evidence, related to contextual issues, which could include biographical information pertinent to your thesis as well as a consideration of the larger context in which the work was made (historical, political, literary, religious, or social, including issues of gender, race, and/or class). There is a difference between primary source material (including quotes by the artist or contemporaries of the artist), and secondary sources (including the work of recent scholars). To be as convincing as possible, your evidence should come from a variety of sources. Be especially careful not to rely exclusively on a single secondary source. Read as many different viewpoints as you can, sifting through the various ideas, thinking about what makes sense and what doesn't. Also make sure that your own voice as the writer remains the dominant voice: you should be in control of the various sources that you use, rather than being controlled by them. One way to do that is to start by personally confronting the primary material (look closely and seriously at the image, or read and reread the poem or play, etc.). Then formulate your own opinions and ideas before turning to the secondary sources. Also get in the habit of being an argumentative and critical reader rather than a passive, accepting one: evaluate your sources' assertions, question their biases, look for opposing theories.

- 3) Use of sources

Find scholarly books and journal articles for your sources, rather than popular or general references. The major periodical index for scholarly articles about art is The Art Index, now available on-line, and JSTOR is another excellent database with access to a large array of art history journals. Look for sources that are as specifically related to your topic as possible. It is sometimes helpful to start the process by reading the relevant entry in one of the art encyclopedias in our library's reference section, and then to find the relevant section in an art history survey book (e.g., Janson's History of Art or Gardner's Art Through the Ages), and then to read about the artist or issue or period in a more specialized book on that particular period (e.g., Hartt's History of Italian Renaissance Art or Snyder's Northern Renaissance Art or Arnason's History of Modern Art). But these should be treated as background, and you should not have to rely on the encyclopedias or general survey books for your information (and by extension, an encyclopedia or a survey like Janson or Gardner should probably not appear in your bibliography unless that's really the only place you've been able to find the particular idea or information). Our library's interlibrary loan service is invaluable, but remember that you should allow at least two weeks lead time. Interlibrary loan forms are available at the main desk of the library, or can also be easily accessed at the bottom of the library's home page. Build your bibliography by using our library's on-line search engines, looking at the on-line collections of some of the major research libraries (e.g., Harvard and Yale), and checking the footnotes and bibliographies of the books and articles you've already found in order to see what sources those scholars used. Also check to see where a specific work of art is located, and if it's in a public museum find out whether there's a print catalogue or website of that collection that would have information on the work (I have a number of museum catalogues, as does the library). Don't hesitate to ask the librarians for help. Also remember that I have a personal collection of books that might include something relevant to your project, and I'll be glad to loan those to you. The Internet has many valuable sources, especially museum sites and artists’ websites, but be careful to use it as a supplement to important published, scholarly books and articles. It can be an excellent resource for images and also for specialized archival material and other information. But there's also a lot out there that is either bad or biased information, and thus essentially worthless, or that is so general that it's no better than an encyclopedia as a source. You should get in the habit of carefully and critically evaluating all your sources, but especially those that appear on the Internet. Is there an author, are the author's credentials evident, are there footnotes and a bibliography

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