Instructions for Essays
1. The essay must be no longer than 800 words, including footnotes and bibliography if you use Chicago-style cites, or including in-text, parenthetical citations and the “works cited” section if you use MLA-style cites. Also,
each essay must include its total word count at the very end of—as the last line in—your email containing that essay. Essays that exceed this word count will be downgraded: the point is to gain practice and experience not just
with writing but with editing what you write, so that your essay is brief, clear, organized, pithy, and without unnecessary—circular, digressive, repetitive, etc.—filler.
a) In a Word DOC, under the drop-down menu “Tools,” select “Word Count,” which shows the number of “Words.” (If you use a different word-processing program, such as Apple’s Pages, Google’s G-Docs, etc., you will be
solely responsible for figuring out how to calculate and include the word count.)
2. Each essay can only be begun after you have finished the required online multimedia presentations for that Module: that’s how and where you will get all the information you need to write that
essay. The goal of each essay is to compare and contrast the required pair of artworks for that Module, focusing on how they are importantly similar and/or different. Specifically, try to decide why I am having you compare
and contrast this particular pair of artworks. Based on the optional textbook readings and required online multimedia presentations for that Module, your personal observations supported by these sources, and your careful—
concrete, detailed, and specific—visual analysis of the artworks themselves, are there important ideas, influences or themes they share, or that differentiate them? Is their artistic style or historical background, their political or
sociological context, or otherwise, importantly similar and/or different? Etc. The point is for you to identify and examine meaningful issues (similarities and/or differences) as well as substantial points of comparison and/or
contrast between the required pair of artworks. For each issue or point you discuss with respect to one artwork, therefore, you must immediately discuss the same issue or point with respect to the other artwork: think of the
essay as creating a dialogue between the two artworks.
a) A good way to structure your essay is to begin with a thesis statement (a summary of your argument), then proceed to a detailed discussion of your argument, which supports your thesis statement with a variety of
subsidiary issues and points, and end with a conclusion.
b) Your essay must support your argument with specific references to optional textbook readings and required online multimedia presentations for that Module, and you must cite your sources. Your essay must not just reflect
and incorporate but actually cite a meaningful and well-chosen variety of relevant material for that Module—or it will be significantly downgraded.
i) In researching and writing each essay, you may only use or in any way rely on the optional textbook readings and required online multimedia presentations for that Module, your personal observations supported by
these sources, and your careful—concrete, detailed, and specific—visual analysis of the artworks themselves. Only means only—essays that use or in any way rely on sources other than optional textbook readings and
required online multimedia presentations for that Module will be significantly downgraded.
ii) Your essay must properly cite its sources—or it will be significantly downgraded. You may use either Chicago-style cites, which require footnotes and a bibliography, or MLA-style cites, which require in-text,
parenthetical citations and a “works cited” section
(1) If you are unfamiliar with either system, you may cite your sources as brief, parenthetical texts that immediately follow the ideas or words to which they refer. In this case, each cite must include three pieces of
information, in parentheses, in the following order: the last name of the author(s); the abbreviated, short-form title of the work; and its page number(s) if printed text, its short-form URL address if online text, or
its short-form URL address indicating the specific time if time-based media. For example: for a webpage with text-based media, something like Tronchin, “Rediscovery of Pompeii,” khanacademy.org; for a
webpage with time-based media, to mark the specific time in the file to which you are referring, something like MoMA, “Women Artists and Postwar Abstraction,” youtu.be/NrNQvA9K96M, 00:01:15; for a
textbook, something like Hopkins, After Modern Art, 250.
Page 3 of 17: ARTH 256 syllabus (24 Aug. 21)
iii) You must carefully proofread and edit your essay for accuracy and factuality; for grammar, style, and usage; as well as for flow, structure, and substance. Essays with counterfactual statements or unsupported
assertions will be significantly downgraded, as will essays with awkward phraseology, careless grammar or spelling errors; pastiche essays that replace actual analysis with copying and pasting strings of quotes (or
paraphrases); disorganized essays that do not logically flow from one issue or point to another.
3. Throughout your essay, avoid the following deep, structural problems—or your essay will be significantly downgraded:
a) Discussing one artwork, full stop; then discussing the other artwork, full stop; then tacking on a paragraph that finally gets around to actually comparing and contrasting them. That’s not a comparison: the point, rather, is
continuously and throughout your essay to compare and/or contrast the pair of artworks issue-by-issue and point-by-point.
b) Including encyclopedia-style discussions that merely repeat generalities about when and where the artist was born and died; where she lived, studied, and worked; general descriptions about the artistic movement, period
or style to which she belonged; etc. That’s too general: the point, rather, is specifically to focus on this actual pair of artworks that you were assigned, concentrating on particular issues and unique qualities they share, or
that differentiate them.
c) Merely describing what you’re obviously looking at, as if you’ve never seen it before, have no deeper idea what is actually going on, and can only guess what all of it means, or why any of it even matters. Describing what
you’re looking at, as if you’re seeing it for the first time, is not evidence of learning: the point, rather, is to show that you have comprehensively completed and, in your essay, are meaningfully engaged with the optional
textbook readings and required online multimedia presentations for that Module by focusing on learned/non-obvious information about the pair of artworks.
d) Inserting into your essay randomly chosen cites to, or passages from, the optional textbook readings and required online multimedia presentations for that Module, to make it appear as if you read and engaged with them,
but without actually doing them. That’s also not evidence of learning: the point, rather, is to show that you did the work for that Module by, continuously and throughout your essay, comprehensively and meaningfully
engaging with the optional textbook readings and required online multimedia presentations for that Module.
e) Including overlong quotes or, by the same token, stringing together one quote (or paraphrase) after another, without any substantial effort to explain what they mean or why they matter or to integrate them into the flow of
your own analysis and argument. Quotes may complement your own analysis and argument; they may anchor and support your own analysis and argument; they may not, however, substitute for your own analysis and
argument. Never include quotes as a means of avoiding making your own argument about, and yourself actually analyzing, the pair of artworks.
4. Throughout your essay, also avoid the following problems—or your essay will be downgraded:
a) Bald opinions, especially ones that merely assume and project emotions and feelings onto people and things: “The colors in this painting are happy”; “The figure at the center of this painting looks sad”; etc.
b) Extraneous personal observations: “I have always loved this artist, and was happy to see a painting by her that I had never seen before”; “I don’t like this painting because the subject matter is depressing”; etc.
c) Randomly capitalized non-proper nouns (art, not Art; art history, not Art History; artist, not Artist; et
c.), non-specific adjectives (artistic, not Artistic; painterly, not Painterly; sculptural, not Sculptural; etc.). If you’re
unsure about the capitalization (or hyphenation or spelling, etc.), look up the word in the Merriam Webster, free and online dictionary: http://www.merriam-webster.com
d) Statements that are obvious or that lack substantial meaning: “Artworks are intended to communicate meaning”; “Despite their many differences, these two artworks share a few similarities”; “These two artists achieved
their similar goals in different ways”; etc.
e) Unhelpful artistic, historical, political, and sociological generalizations: “The 20th Century was a time of great political uncertainty and social upheaval”; etc.
5. If your essay contains ideas or words that are not your own, you must clearly and explicitly cite whose ideas or words they are. Paraphrases of someone else’s ideas or words, as well as quotes of their actual words, must be
clearly and explicitly cited—but only quotes also need to go within quote marks. (Questions about plagiarism, including internet plagiarism, cheating, and other forms of academic dishonesty, which are punishable by a range
of penalties, including a failing grade, a suspension or even an expulsion?
a) Any essay that uses or in any way relies on any source that it does not clearly and explicitly cite will be failed, with a grade of zero; and that grade of zero will not be dropped for any reason, with each of the two (or three)
essays that you submit, including the one with the grade of zero, counting equally
6.) Your essay may, at my discretion, be anonymized (your name and other identifying information removed) and, as such, shared with students in the class. If you object to my sharing your essay, the first line of that essay MUST
read, “I object to your sharing my essay”; otherwise, you will be deemed to have granted your consent to sharing that essay.
Last Completed Projects
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