Thursday 1 May 2014

EXTENDED WRITTEN PIECE: LIBRARY RESEARCH

library: chris.graham@leeds-art.ac.uk 
twitter: @LibraryArtLeeds

Key Words

  • Focus:: A well defined title for your work, will make you research easier.
  • Relevance
Past Dissertation Titles
  • The role of costume within the film "A taste of honey" A good straightforward title
  • Did western society ever need cars; are they a necessity and how have they contributed to the formation of the environment. Quite open and waffly.
It's important to create diagrams and brainstorms to establish what you need to do and potential outcomes. Comparing and contrasting.
  • An analysis of the relationship between national based branding, national identity and stereotyping.
  • Documentary photography:does it ever truthfully represent reality?
  • An investigation into 'expressionistic' and realistic' lighting in film.
  • What does ...
Primary & Secondary Research
  • Primary research - gathering your own original data
  • Secondary research (scholarship)- reading up on the subject, making use of the research and findings of others for corroboration, disagreement, triangulation, theoretical underpinning ectt..
  • Any texts that disagree with your research is beneficial for you to start a debate in your essay.
  • It's all about contextualisation
Primary research methods
  • Visual practice, experiment, interest and enquiry (research and critical diaries)
  • Questionares (qualitative: opinions and idea's / quantitive: statistics) Make a draft questionnaire just incase you want to find out more questions. Or mix up the questions. Give people a deadline to finish it.
  • Interviews.
  • Case Study, a particular instance to draw wider conclusions.
  • Site Visits

Literature Research
  • Books
  • Academic scholar books
  • Websites / Blogs / On-line forums
  • Google Scholar
  • Video / DVD's
  • Cd's / Tape Cassettes / Vinyl Recordings
  • TV / Radio
  • Newspapers / Maps / Reports
  • Printed Ephemera : poster, flyer, music design ect..
Literature Search 2
  • Knowing where to look most effectively
  • Effective use of catalogues
  • Narrowing and broadening search terms
  • Using related terms
  • Browsing using dewey decimal classification
  • Use of contents page and index- don't be affriad to dismiss books by looking into the contents or reading the introduction
  • Using a books own bibliography to further your research
Book Search
Jornal Search
  • INFORTRAC
  • -a store of online magazine articles
  • http://infotrac.galegroup.com/itweb/leedscad
  • if at college, click "proceed" button
  • JSTOR
  • a store of online magazine article
  • www.jstore.org
  • Unfortunately, only available on college computers.
  • ART FULL TEXT
  • Journal index + some full text articles available
  • http://portal.leeds-art.ac.uk < click on library , online resources
Internet Search
  • Athens
  • A store of password protected sites.
  • Each student who wishes to access this will need to speak to a member of staff
  • WGSN: A database of fashion information and trends
  • Google Scholar!

Don't bite off more than you can chew (keep the topic focused and managable)

Create a sense of momentum (note taking, writing a draft section when you can keeping your bibliography up to date)

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