The Final Essay will require you to research, read, and critically evaluate academic materials on a photographer.
The Final Essay will require you to research, read, and critically evaluate academic materials on a photographer. Choose a photographer whose work you find interesting and important. You can select any photographer I presented in lecture or select your own photographer.
Following the guide below—write and argument about the work of this photographer based on the answer to your research question. This assignment requires you to produce an argumentative piece of writing where you develop your own claim (i.e. a thesis statement). Like any argument, this needs to be supported with reasons and evidence. As such, you will need to make sure that your chosen photographer has had a considerable amount of secondary scholarship published on their work.
Specifications
Include both detailed formal and contextual analysis.
Cite a minimum of five scholarly sources.
Include analysis/evaluation of at least three specific works of the photographer.
Include the images of works that you specifically reference at the end of your essay before the Works Cited/Bibliography page.
Integrity Pledge
Please include the following pledge with your name and date on the last page of your final paper.
“I wrote this paper with personal integrity by being honest, respectful, responsible, fair, and trustworthy in my research and my writing.”
Submission Details:
Submit a single Microsoft Word document titled “Final_Essay_YourSurname” on the Canvas site via the “Research Paper” page in the “Assignments” tab.
Use 12pt. Times New Roman font, double spaced, with 1-inch page margins.
Always double-check for spelling, grammar and syntax errors.
Follow conventions for one citation style—Use either MLA, APA or Chicago.
Include a separate Works Cited/Bibliography page as the last page of your essay.
What constitutes a Source?
Either a—library book, book chapter from an edited volume, peer-reviewed article that is indexed in a library databases, a Masters thesis, or PhD dissertation AND NOTHING ELSE. If you don’t have a minimum of 5 scholarly sources the maximum you will score is a C grade. While you are welcome to conduct research using generalist/tertiary sources (such as webpages from museums or galleries or a website dedicated to the photographer) these will not count as one of your 5 sources. Newspaper articles can be used as a source, but do not count as one of the 5 required scholarly sources.
Step-by-Step Guide for Your Research Project
Choose a photographer (your primary source).
Conduct preliminary research using tertiary sources.
Conduct in depth research using secondary sources. What kinds of sources will you use to explore the work of your chosen photographer? Anticipate the different roles that different sources will play in your argument. What challenges, if any, do you anticipate locating sufficient sources? Make sure you assess the credibility and limitations of your sources.
Make summaries and/or annotated bibliographies of what you read. In this process you enter into a conversation with what other scholars have said about the work of your photographer. Pay close attention to the different ways these scholars have analyzed the work of your photographer—do they agree or disagree with each other? What is the nature of the scholarly conversation surrounding your photographer? What have you learned about the debate or the specific research conversation you will enter? How do you see yourself participating/contributing in this scholarly conversation? As you take notes, make sure you are not just summarizing what others say, but respond to their arguments with your own reactions and insights. Do this by analyzing their arguments, assessing how each source fits into the academic discussion on your photographer, and reflecting on how the sources might fit into your project.
To get you started—as you research, here are some questions you can ask:
What are the material properties of the work?
What and techniques and methods does the photographer use?
Is there work part of a movement and/or genre?
What is the significance of this artist’s contribution to the history of photography and/or how does their work relate to the history of photography?
What is the photographer saying, representing, or responding to?
What is the scholarly conversation surrounding the photographer?
What is the social, cultural and political context of the work?
Choose a topic. The most common challenge for a research paper is to narrow the topic down. Now, this has been made a little easier because you must choose just one photographer, but remember that entire books have been written on a single photographer. So, you will need to narrow the scope of what specifically you will address about their work and what methods you will use to analyze their work.
Once you have a solid sense of the variety of different ways other scholars have analyzed the work of your photographer, formulate a working research question of your own, that you want the research paper to answer—ultimately this will be answered by your argument, that eventually becomes distilled in your thesis statement. Make sure to consider the significance of this question—why does this question need to be asked? What do you hope to learn from the project?”
With your research question as a guide, now start to free write and brainstorm a response. Don’t worry about the order and structure at this point, but use your notes, summaries, and knowledge to help guide your answer. Taking into account all of your different ideas, begin to connect the dots and develop a working thesis statement that your insights will be able to support.
The process from this point on is different for each writer. For example, some writers like to move to a detailed outline, that they methodically add more detail to piece-by-piece until they have a very detailed outline, that they then execute. However, other writers find it more productive to write in a more unstructured manner and let the ideas flow organically and then much later (with more words under their belt) decide what ideas to develop for their essay and how these can be arranged into a structured and logical argument. Either way, as you continue writing, your ideas will develop complexity as you refine your reasons and use of evidence. In turn, this will require you to revise your thesis statement, which in turn will require you to locate additional sources, that then furnishes you with new ideas for reasons and evidence… and so on and so forth.
While there is no golden rule for how to write an essay—at the foundation of all good writing is a regular writing habit. Write down a goal each time you sit down to write; set a timer and don’t leave the chair until you are done. Also, get comfortable with “swimming in the dark”—it might not be clear where you are headed, but trust that your efforts will eventually propel you to your final destination. Keep in mind that good essays emerge from several drafts—if you expect to write a great paragraph the first time you sit down, this is an unreasonable goal—they key is revision, revision and more revision—remember the saying “Rome was not built in a day!”
Length Requirement:1500 to 2000 words
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