Visual Art: VIS2315

Research Process

• Plan your search strategy via the Library Tips on the Getting Started page
• Refine your ECU Worldsearch and / or database results as per Finding Books, DVDs & More.
• Once you have filtered your results, assess them via the CRAAP test.

Research Preparation

• Make sure you understand what your assignment is assessing (there's no point in writing a critical essay if it is a simple compare and contrast that is requested).
• Make sure you understand the specifics of your question, and topics. Check out the resources in the Art Terminology and Reference Sources tab above to help tightly define your area. For example, Oxford / Grove Art Online is a great way to discover your terms:

• Note the terms in green, these are specific terms you may wish to include or exclude
• Try Brainstorming and Mind-mapping to better understand the connections between your subjects. If "flowers" are a sub-facet of "still life," searching for "still life" will get you lots of unnecessary results.

Note: ECU provides access to a great mind-mapping program called Mindmeister for you to use.

• Make use of the Search Planner on this page to bring your thoughts together, and select subject-specific databases for your topic.

Once you have your topic, you need to look for research and evidence that helps you argue a point.

The trick to researching, is that we often do not know what we're actually looking for, and so the results can be frustrating.

Below is a sample worksheet on breaking a topic down to help you search for sources (link to blank form is below).

The research query here should help us find Dutch "still life" paintings, but not the "breakfast paintings" of food. Thus, as a simple search, it should return nature / flower still lives from Dutch artists (though not necessarily seventeenth century.)

• Once you have selected your (first) database, perform a scoping search with your keyword terms and synonyms.
• Remember you can filter your results by Peer review, Publishing date, Suggested Subjects, Language, etc.

• Note the Subjects in green.
• Use these precise Subjects are "controlled language" to search for best results:

Based on the CRAAP test was developed by librarians at CSU Chico.