So you think you can write a thesis?

Having just finished my own master's thesis, I'd like to share some of my tips for having a smooth and successful graduate thesis-writing experience. The word "thesis" strikes fear and apprehension into the hearts of even the most confident graduate students. The prospect of such a long and important research paper is daunting, but should be approached as you would any research paper. Take the process one step at a time, leave yourself plenty of time to complete the work, and don't stress yourself out!



Artifice's Thesis-Writing Tips:

1. Pick a topic. One way to go about this is to use a research paper you've already written for another class as a jump-off point. Otherwise, it's OK to start with a broad topic. Don't be afraid to work on something that you really want to, even if you haven't done any previous research. The more interesting you find your topic to begin with, the less of a chore your thesis will be several months into it. As you begin to read and research, you will get ideas for how you might be able to specify the topic, where the material is lacking, and how you might be able to approach the topic differently.

2. Start researching early. Even if you don't end up using the material in the final copy, it never hurts to have a background in related material. That way you can be extra-confident about making your point. Getting an early start also helps you to pace yourself and really learn about whatever it is you're researching.

3. Use the resources available to you wisely. Your university or college's library has a treasure trove of online research options you probably didn't know even existed. Take advantage of any research workshops your librarian might offer, chances are that even if you think you're an internet-search pro, you'll discover something you never even thought to look for. Ditto for any public libraries. Don't be afraid to ask the librarians for help, most of them are happy to point you in the right direction or give you an idea for a different research direction.

4. Read footnotes and bibliography religiously. Any book you pick up that has anything remotely related to your topic will also have an extensive bibliography that will help broaden or specify your search. Some of the best and most interesting nuggets are buried in footnotes (I actually discovered the manuscript that ended up being my thesis topic at the end of a half-page footnote!).

Don't ignore these effortless research opportunities, there's a whole list of interesting books just waiting for you to look at! This also helps you to build a comprehensive idea of "previous scholarship" on your topic, which will be a central portion of your thesis.

5. Get citation software. Get it, use it, love it. I use EndNote, and I've heard that RefWorks is also a great option. These were both available as free downloads from my college's library website, so make sure to see if your school has a similar offer before spending the dough. As you're researching, enter every book/article/website you look at, no exceptions. Not only will you build an impressive library of citations, but your library is then searchable by author, title, keyword, etc.

EndNote has a cite-while-you-write feature that makes moving the data into a word document really easy, and has a multitude of formatting options based on your citation preferences.

6. Cite early, cite often. My trick for taking notes is to put page numbers down right then and there. I've never had to go searching for a citation 4 months after the fact, and having page numbers available without the book handy (common for closed-stack libraries) made citations much easier.

When you start writing, start citing (just a little rhyming thesis-writing maxim). Even if you over-cite or end up cutting out or moving things around, if the citation is already there, cleaning them up is a breeze.

7. Start writing. Everyone works in a different order, but in a thesis-situation, an all-nighter, a pot of coffee, and frantic last-minute research won't cut it. I found that beginning to write as soon as I had an idea of what I wanted to say made the overall task much less daunting.

I first created a long outline of what I wanted to cover, and a rough idea of how I wanted to break up the information. Then I just started writing. From there, the more I wrote, the more the information sort of divided itself and logical breaks for chapters/sections were revealed. Don't worry about length, specific organization, or perfectly polished grammar to begin with, you will edit (over and over and over again) for these types of issues.

8. Communicate with your adviser. You should have a clear idea of what your adviser expects of you over the course of the thesis. Do they want to see your draft in pieces, or all at once? Will you set specific dates for when certain chapters should be finished? These are some issues that should be worked out with your adviser in the early stages of thesis-writing, so that both of you know exactly what to expect along the way.

9. Edit. edit. edit. Once you have a draft that you're happy with, it helps to enlist the help of your fellow grad students for editing. Not only will you get feedback from them regarding clarity and flow, but the more new sets of eyes as you can get on your grammar and sentence structure (we all have weird little writing quirks that we can't pick out and fix for ourselves!), the better.

I'd also recommend your college or university's writing center. Normally staffed by extremely helpful English grad students, even if you're convinced you're the greatest and most compelling writer to ever write a thesis, they can help you polish and clarify.

10. Be prepared for and open to criticism. Take your adviser's and editors' comments and suggestions seriously. Be prepared to go back to the library and re-research some areas of your thesis, or do some new research to supplement and clarify your main points.

If someone says they don't understand something you wrote, don't take it personally, it may just need to be reworded. No first draft (or even second, third or fourth) is perfect! Outside criticism and editing is what will make your thesis the best it can be in the end.

11. Don't forget the little things. Pay attention to instructions from your department or adviser regarding formatting, any images, type of paper, number of copies to be submitted, etc. It sounds mundane and obvious, but making sure that these little details are correct will eliminate possible headaches and make the process of submitting your final copy much smoother.

12. Be informed and submit confidently. Be aware of official deadlines and any final paperwork that should accompany the thesis. This might include an official approval form signed by your adviser or the department, a binding fee, or anything else your department requests. Make sure that you understand these requirements and have them prepared in advance.

Congratulations, you've just written a thesis!

how do we "look" at art today?

I just had to blog this article when I saw it this morning in the Times. Mainly because I spend a lot of time in museums, and one of my favorite things to do is watch other people look at art. Since the completion of the new Greek and Roman galleries at the Met, one of my favorite spots is the marble courtyard arranged around a fountain with a spectacular arrangement of Greek sculpture. Reactions range from shock regarding the statues' state of general undress to some people who took a picture of each other in front of literally every piece in the room.

I've often been struck by the urge to "collect" pictures of pictures. As if taking a picture of the Mona Lisa or Starry Night means that you earn some amount of invisible art points for having been to the museum it resides in, pushed your way to the front of the crowd, and snapped a badly-lit, off-center digital photograph of it.

What do you think? How do you look at art?

Medieval Friday

Medieval Fridays are the best kind of Fridays, right?

-The NYT review of Pen and Parchment: Drawing in the Middle Ages makes me want to go back and see it again.

-The must-see exhibit at the Morgan Library, Pages of Gold, consists entirely of "orphan" leaves--pages removed from their original manuscripts. The show looks at the market for and the individuals who collected such single leaves and (delightfully) ends with a few forgeries. The show covers not only medieval issues of illumination, but a glimpse of the unique medieval art market as well.

-St. Anthony Tormented by Demons, the so-called "first painting" of Michelangelo is now on display at the Met. The small exhibit is made up of the actual painting accompanied by the evidence for its authenticity. An interesting exercise in art historical analysis--now in exhibition form!

-Meanwhile, the Walters Art Museum has a show called Prayers in Code, which presents a selection of unusual Books of Hours and explores artistic patronage at the court of King Francis I (1494-1547). The exhibit centers around the unexpected relationship between images and text in Books of Hours at this time.

Art Links

Some art on this beautiful Friday, shall we?

-A review of the new shows up at the Whitney using parts of the permanent collection: Claes Oldenburg: Early Sculpture, Drawings, and Happenings Films and Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen: The Music Room, both of which are up all summer.

-A really fantastic project to digitize ancient manuscripts. I'm such a huge fan of manuscript digitization, and this is the wave of the future, though maybe nothing can compare to seeing a several-hundred year old manuscript in person.

-Christie's has won this battle, but who will win the war? (Did anyone else love that Giacometti cat sculpture at Sotheby's as much as I do? I'm sad it didn't sell.)

-Also, Dolly Parton just got her Ph.D. from the University of Tennessee. Honorary degrees are the way to do it, I'm thinking.

I'm headed to Philadelphia to see the Cezanne and Beyond show at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. I'll be back on Monday with some pictures and my official review!

The Lure of Van Gogh's Severed Ear

Today in breaking art history news, two German historians who've spent a lot of time reviewing the police reports, say that the infamous story of Van Gogh severing his own ear after a fight with fellow artist Paul Gauguin is in fact, false.

The actual culprit? Gauguin himself. (GASP.)

The two historians, Hans Kaufmann and Rita Wildegans, have published their theory in a book Van Gogh's Ear: Paul Gauguin and the Pact of Silence, basing their conclusion on "inconsistencies" in the evidence--Gauguin's personal accounts, Van Gogh's letters, and police reports.

Curators at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam are sticking to the original self-mutilation story, but I'm interested in why this debate has such a following in the first place. Does it really matter who cut off Van Gogh's ear and why? The myth of the artist as a slightly-mad creative genius still has currency in today's concepts of what makes great art so great. Why does "brilliant" so often go hand-in-hand with "troubled"?

What do you think? Would Van Gogh still be the post-Impressionist hero he is today if he hadn't had a reputation for being such a loose canon?

Are university art museums taken for granted?

In light of the controversy stirred up over at Brandeis University, Holland Cotter writes a fantastic piece in today's New York Times that analyzes the integral role that small university art museums play in the larger world of "fabulous" art exhibitions at public institutions.

Cotter points out that though the exhibitions featured at university museums are not as glamorous as the big-budget shows at public museums, they often cover topics that would not be palatable to a general public audience. In doing so, they actually provide an important service to both the academic and artistic worlds.

I agree with Cotter on most of the article, but in my experience, university art museums are not often taken seriously as legitimate venues for important exhibitions, small as they might be. I was always impressed by the shows put on by my alma mater, NYU's Grey Art Gallery, which (true to form) always featured shows on obscure artists and topics. However, I was hard-pressed to find another art history major, let alone a student of another discipline who had been to the Grey. I'm curious to know what your experience has been with university museums? Do they matter? Are they given the credit that is due?

Art Links (and a Castle!)

- Questionable art history at the Prado surrounding the recent attribution of The Colossus, previously attributed to Goya, to an assistant of his named Asencio Julia. A report explaining the reasons for the demotion of the Colossus has recently been released by the curator of 18th century paintings at the Prado, Manuela Mena.
Principal among these reasons are an x-ray scan of the painting reveals the initials "A.J." in the corner and evidence of pentimenti in the underpainting. These reasons being not all that convincing, we are left with the question of "stylistic evidence," that oh-so-slippery, and ultimately 100% subjective, method of attribution. Any Goya specialists out there willing to hazard an opinion on this?

-Not news, exactly, but a great little article about Pieter Bruegel the Elder's masterpiece, "The Triumph of Death." The painting, "not for the squeamish," is one of my favorite pieces of art in the whole world and a masterful rendering of the idea that death is inevitable, following a long medieval tradition of such themes.
I do disagree with the author of the article here, Mr. Woodward, when he says that his secular reading of the painting as a "nightmarish icon" that seems to anticipate the horrors of wars that came after it isn't "responsible art history." There is something to be said about a painting that speaks to audiences through time and isn't only applicable to its specific historical moment.

-For your reading pleasure, a short piece about a medieval Crusader castle, the Crac des Chevaliers, in Syria. A rather grand piece of architecture that brilliantly encapsulates the give and take between Western Crusaders and their Eastern foes (which, interestingly enough, this article doesn't mention that Muslim armies eventually captured the Crac and drove the Hospitallers out in a spectacular defeat, simply that the Mamelukes "took" the fortress). The Crac really highlights a lot of the issues surrounding the idea of a specifically "Crusader" art while also being just an incredible piece of architecture.
Some parting words from one of the Crac's lintel inscriptions: "Grace, wisdom and beauty you may enjoy, but beware pride, which alone can tarnish all the rest."