Your task will be critically assess the sources, to select the absolute most plausible interpretations associated with facts, and also to present them in a logical, compelling and systematic manner so as to bolster your thesis.

Answer the Question

The rule that is first writing an art form history essay is always to ensure that you answer comprehensively the question set. Which means that everything you write must be highly relevant to that end. Thinking hard about the question itself, about what it indicates, the difficulties it does increase, plus the ways that are various might be answered, is far more important than most students realise.

Read W >Having understood the parameters associated with the question, the task that is next to get a means of tackling it that does more than merely regurgitate the answers you see in standard textbooks. While encyclopaedias and general textbooks are of help for gaining a short overview of your topic, such reading will not count as citable research. The bulk of your reading should focus on specialised books and scholarly articles.

Art historians, like historians generally speaking, must be sceptical. What this means is examining your sources critically and comparatively. As a skill history student, you should weigh within the evidence used by a range of scholars and get away from over-reliance on particular texts or authors. An debate that is historical first be understood before one stakes out a situation within it, and also this means drawing upon second, third and fourth opinions before coming to a conclusion. Continue reading →

Contextualisation:

At what point in the whole story your evidence originates from (bonus points for act and scene numbers). A lot easier than it sounds. Basically, you’re setting the scene for the quote, or painting a picture within which your quote is said. Attempt to include who it was said by, who it was believed to, and where it had been said (less important if said during a significant event in the writing, that you simply should mention instead). The reason behind contextualisation is the unfortunate tendency for visitors to make up quotes at that moment. Like the scene where you found your evidence invites the marker to check you on the honesty. It also helps enormously in ‘giving a feel’ to the general vibe of one’s quote, so that the marker can easily see you’re deploying it appropriately rather than twisting it to mean the alternative of what the author intended it to be (or at the least, didn’t intend it not to ever be).

Quote: Your hard evidence.

Taken straight through the text. Must be word-for-word, given the marker can look at the quote if you contextualise properly, and excluding or changing one word will give a sentence meaning that is oppositelike ‘not’, ‘no’, or swapping ‘if’ and ‘unless’). The length can range anywhere from one word to two paragraphs. The part that is only of essay (aside from techniques) that absolutely must certanly be memorized.

What gives quotes significance and meaning with the target audience. Similes, metaphors, imagery, personification etc. incredibly important. Having no technique means it’s impractical to justify whatever significance you get out of your quote, which kills your linkage. Continue reading →