Requirements for the paper:

• For your research paper you will pick a work of American Art or architecture of your choice made after 1900.

• c. 5 pages (c. 1300 words) for students at the 300-level, and c. 6 pages (1600 words) for students at the 500-level. 

• The body of your paper must include a detailed visual analysis of your chosen work, and this analysis must be completely and smoothly integrated into your paper. Include in your visual analysis discussions of such things shapes, colors, materials, and, most importantly, meaning. You must move in your visual analysis from a description of how things look to an analysis of what the artwork means because of how it looks.

• Build around your chosen work of art a larger paper topic. For this topic you must have a thesis that you introduce at the beginning of the paper, develop in the body, and take one step further in the conclusion.

• Compile a bibliography of books and articles on your topic and use these materials to write your research-based discussion of your topic. Include the bibliography separately at the end of your paper.

• An excellent first source, and one that everyone should use in their papers, is the (you will need to login with your UofL username and password). If you cannot find at least four promising sources for your paper, ask the librarians for help. 

• Type your bibliography using the format at the bottom of the page. You may use your textbook as one of your four sources. Only one art history textbook may be used, howeverthe other sources should be more specialized scholarly books and articles with footnotes or endnotes and an extensive bibliography. You may not use webpages for this paper unless they are associated with an Art Museum. Articles in Library databases are fine.

• Create an original title. Art History Paper is not a titleCreativity is fine!

• All ideas that are not your own should be cited with the name of the author, the date of publication, and the page number. You should have an average of at least two citations per page.

• Be creative and original! 

• Grammar, punctuation, and spelling are a significant part of your grade for your paper. Please go to the University Writing Center for assistance on your paper, and bring this assignment sheet with you.

• Use the Chicago Manual of Style format for citations and bibliography:

• Example: Pollock, Griselda. Mary Cassatt: Painter of Modern Women. London: Thames and Hudson, 1998.

• Citation format: you may use either endnotes/footnotes or parenthetical citations. If you use endnotes, please use the insert footnote or endnote function in Microsoft Word in the top navigation bar. If youre using another program it should be similar. For parenthetical citations, just put the book author and page number in parentheses at the end of a sentence before the period. For example: (Authors last name, p. 75).

• Include a bibliography in the Chicago style at the end of your paper. 

• You must also submit your paper electronically through SAFEASSIGN  by the due date. This will check for possible problems with plagiarism. A plagiarized paper might cause a student to fail the class.