Carved Bowl with Fire Serpent
Assignments
Where to start?
The saying goes "you don't know what you don't know," so how do you start your research and develop a thesis when you don't know what it is you're supposed to be covering in your paper?
One way to accomplish this is breaking down your topic with a concept map, pictured below. Think about and start looking into the WHO, WHAT, WHERE, and WHEN surrounding your artwork. Breaking your object down in this way can start to reveal relationships between aspects of your artwork that may not have revealed themselves otherwise.
Some of the information will be based on what you already know about your object, but some will need to be filled in through further exploration- using reference sources like encyclopedias, books, textbooks, and other resources-- which brings us to the next tab in this guide, "Background Research & Keywords."
Concept Mapping
Gather Background Information
Always gather background information on a topic before diving into doing research. It supplies context information and gives you a better understanding of a topic. It is a great way to start developing keywords for better search results.
Background information on a topic can be gathered from a variety of sources, including textbooks, books, reference materials like encyclopedias, and reputable websites.
Create a Mindmap
You may have several topic ideas, and a mind map is a great way to organize your early ideas ranging from your big broad topic to more specific sub-topics or sub-categories stemming from the original.
From Gendron, H. & Sclippa, E. (2014). Where visual and information literacies meet: Redesigning research skills teaching and assessment for large art history courses. Art Documentation: Bulletin of the Art Libraries Society of North America, 33(2), 327-344.
How to make a concept map
- Write down the major terms/concepts
- Identify core, intermediate, & specific concepts
- Draw it! Circle the core concepts and put those at top or center of your map
- Put your more specific terms further out
- Draw lines between related concepts
- Label the lines
- Revise