VPSC56H3: Studio Practice

To:

• Gain a general understanding of the topic.
• Find keywords related to your topic/concept.
• Find terminology related to the types of information you need:
  • Figure out what you need to address in the assignement and find keywords for these themes
  • Use ALL the keywords you gather to search for peer-reviewed articles and scholarly books!
    

What you can use for background research:

• Websites (check your course outline - do not include websites that have not been approved by your Professor in your bibliography)
  
• Encyclopedias, scholarly journal articles, and books 
• Wikipedia (REMEMBER: YOU CANNOT CITE WIKIPEDIA!)

• Looking for context.

Use encyclopedias for background knowledge: 

For online library encyclopedias, click on Subjects A-Z and pick a broad subject.

Use books or articles for a broad overview of a topic. Your specific topic may be one chapter in the broader topic. Use their references. 

• Pearl growing background research strategy:

Find 1 or 2 good articles or books (e.g. from a professor, from a database search, through networking) and build on them.

Find the references they use (looking back)

Find articles that use your starting article as a reference (looking forward).

Before you can start your background research search, think about your research topic or research question. A good way to come up with the initial keywords for your topic/concept is to look at the nouns in your research question, such as:

• artists' names
• artistic disciplines
• concepts
• places
• specific art works

Wikipedia is not an academic resource, but it is a good place to do background research on your topic. You can also use dictionaries and encyclopedias in order to get background information.

Here is a list of dictionaries and encyclopedias that are specific to the study of Art and Art History:

The issue with all searching is to turn the ideas in your head about your topic into something the computer can use to find you resources. Doing some preliminary thinking about your topic often brings better results.

Your topic may be very straightforward as a library search, and a keyword search may easily find you all the resources you need.

At other times, you may find yourself dissatisfied with your search results, even stumped. In this case, try mapping your topic into its different concepts. Then look for alternative terms to search. These may be synonyms, narrower or broader terms, or other related words. This will also give you a more thorough search. As an added advantage, it's an opportunity to really think through your topic.

Examples:

• synomyms: social media or Web 2.0 or online social networking; teenagers or adolescents or youth or young adults
  
• narrower terms: social media or Facebook or Twitter etc.
• broader terms: social media or internet; novels or fiction