what is dissertation in art

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Dissertation,   the dissertation.

After the successful completion of the general examination, a topic and adviser for the dissertation should be chosen. Students should discuss potential topics with several faculty members before beginning. The final prospectus should be approved not later than 3 months (within the academic calendar -- September through May) of passing the general examinations in order to be considered to be making satisfactory progress toward the degree. This is the time when the Thesis Reader and Dissertation Proposal form should be completed and submitted to the department office or DGS. Three signatures are now required on the thesis acceptance certificate. Two of the three signatories must be GSAS faculty. The primary adviser must be in the department of History of Art and Architecture; the secondary adviser need not be. In addition to the primary and secondary advisers the student may have one or more other readers. Two readers must be in the department.

Thesis Defense

The Department of History of Art and Architecture requires that all Ph.D. dissertations (of students entering in September 1997 and beyond) be defended. At the defense, the student has the opportunity to present and formally discuss the dissertation with respect to its sources, findings, interpretations, and conclusions, before a Defense Committee knowledgeable in the student's field of research. The Director of the thesis is a member of the Defense committee. A committee is permitted to convene in the absence of the thesis Director only in cases of emergency or other extreme circumstances. The Defense Committee may consist of up to five members, but no fewer than three. The suggested make-up of the members of the committee should be brought to the Director of Graduate Studies for approval. Two members of this committee should be from the Department of History of Art and Architecture. One member can be outside the Department (either from another Harvard department or outside the University). The Defense will be open to department members only (faculty and graduate students), but others may be invited at the discretion of the candidate. Travel for an outside committee member is not possible at this time; exceptions are made rarely.  We encourage the use of Skype or conference calling for those committee members outside of Cambridge and have accommodation for either.  A modest honorarium will be given for the reading of the thesis for one member of the jury outside the University. A minimum of one month prior to scheduling the defense, a final draft of the dissertation should be submitted to two readers (normally the primary and secondary advisors). Once the two readers have informed the director of graduate studies that the dissertation is “approved for defense,” the candidate may schedule the date, room, and time for the defense in consultation with the department and the appointed committee. This date should be no less than six weeks after the time the director of graduate studies has been informed that the dissertation was approved for defense. It should be noted that preliminary approval of the thesis for defense does not guarantee that the thesis will be passed. The defense normally lasts two hours. The candidate is asked to begin by summarizing the pertinent background and findings. The summary should be kept within 20 minutes. The Chair of the Defense Committee cannot be the main thesis advisor. The Chair is responsible for allotting time, normally allowing each member of the committee 20 to 30 minutes in which to make remarks on the thesis and elicit responses from the candidate. When each committee member has finished the questioning, the committee will convene in camera for the decision. The possible decisions are: Approved; Approved with Minor Changes; Approved Subject to Major Revision (within six months); Rejected. The majority vote determines the outcome. --Approved with minor changes: The dissertation is deemed acceptable subject to minor revisions. The dissertation is corrected by the candidate, taking into account the comments made by the committee. The revisions will be supervised by the primary adviser. Upon completion of the required revision, the candidate is recommended for the degree. --Approved subject to major revision within six months: The dissertation is deemed acceptable subject to major revisions. All revisions must be completed within six months from the date of the dissertation defense. Upon completion of the required revisions, the defense is considered to be successful. The revisions will be supervised by the primary adviser. --Rejected: The dissertation is deemed unacceptable and the candidate is not recommended for the degree. A candidate may be re-examined only once upon recommendation of two readers. Rejection is expected to be very exceptional. A written assessment of the thesis defense will be given to the candidate and filed in the Department by the Chair of the Defense Committee. Candidates should keep in mind the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences deadlines for submission of the thesis and degree application when scheduling the defense.

Submitting the Dissertation

Students ordinarily devote three years to research and writing the dissertation, and complete it prior to seeking full-time employment. The dissertation will be judged according to the highest standards of scholarship, and should be an original contribution to knowledge and understanding of art. The final manuscript must conform to University requirements described in the Supplement The Form of the Doctoral Thesis distributed by the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.

Graduate students should negotiate with their readers the timing of submission of drafts prior to final revisions. However, the complete manuscript of the dissertation must be submitted to the thesis readers not later than August 1 for a November degree, November 1 for a March degree, and April 1 for a May degree (this in order to provide both the committee with time to read and the candidate to revise, if necessary). The thesis readers may have other expectations regarding dates for submission which should be discussed and handled on an individual basis. The student is still responsible for distribution of the thesis to the committee for reading. In cases where a thesis defense is scheduled, the thesis must be submitted to the primary adviser at least one month prior to the defense. The thesis defense must be scheduled at least two weeks prior to the university deadline for thesis submission.

A written assessment by dissertation readers must be included with the final approval of each thesis including suggestions, as appropriate, on how the dissertation might be adapted for later publication.

The Dissertation is submitted online.   The Dissertation Acceptance Certificate (original) must be on Harvard watermark paper and is submitted directly to the registrar’s office once it is signed.

Degree Application and Deadlines

Commencement

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• Dissertation

What Is a Dissertation? | 5 Essential Questions to Get Started

Published on 26 March 2020 by Jack Caulfield . Revised on 5 May 2022.

A dissertation is a large research project undertaken at the end of a degree. It involves in-depth consideration of a problem or question chosen by the student. It is usually the largest (and final) piece of written work produced during a degree.

The length and structure of a dissertation vary widely depending on the level and field of study. However, there are some key questions that can help you understand the requirements and get started on your dissertation project.

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Table of contents

When and why do you have to write a dissertation, who will supervise your dissertation, what type of research will you do, how should your dissertation be structured, what formatting and referencing rules do you have to follow, frequently asked questions about dissertations.

A dissertation, sometimes called a thesis, comes at the end of an undergraduate or postgraduate degree. It is a larger project than the other essays you’ve written, requiring a higher word count and a greater depth of research.

You’ll generally work on your dissertation during the final year of your degree, over a longer period than you would take for a standard essay . For example, the dissertation might be your main focus for the last six months of your degree.

Why is the dissertation important?

The dissertation is a test of your capacity for independent research. You are given a lot of autonomy in writing your dissertation: you come up with your own ideas, conduct your own research, and write and structure the text by yourself.

This means that it is an important preparation for your future, whether you continue in academia or not: it teaches you to manage your own time, generate original ideas, and work independently.

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During the planning and writing of your dissertation, you’ll work with a supervisor from your department. The supervisor’s job is to give you feedback and advice throughout the process.

The dissertation supervisor is often assigned by the department, but you might be allowed to indicate preferences or approach potential supervisors. If so, try to pick someone who is familiar with your chosen topic, whom you get along with on a personal level, and whose feedback you’ve found useful in the past.

How will your supervisor help you?

Your supervisor is there to guide you through the dissertation project, but you’re still working independently. They can give feedback on your ideas, but not come up with ideas for you.

You may need to take the initiative to request an initial meeting with your supervisor. Then you can plan out your future meetings and set reasonable deadlines for things like completion of data collection, a structure outline, a first chapter, a first draft, and so on.

Make sure to prepare in advance for your meetings. Formulate your ideas as fully as you can, and determine where exactly you’re having difficulties so you can ask your supervisor for specific advice.

Your approach to your dissertation will vary depending on your field of study. The first thing to consider is whether you will do empirical research , which involves collecting original data, or non-empirical research , which involves analysing sources.

Empirical dissertations (sciences)

An empirical dissertation focuses on collecting and analysing original data. You’ll usually write this type of dissertation if you are studying a subject in the sciences or social sciences.

• What are airline workers’ attitudes towards the challenges posed for their industry by climate change?
• How effective is cognitive behavioural therapy in treating depression in young adults?
• What are the short-term health effects of switching from smoking cigarettes to e-cigarettes?

There are many different empirical research methods you can use to answer these questions – for example, experiments , observations, surveys , and interviews.

When doing empirical research, you need to consider things like the variables you will investigate, the reliability and validity of your measurements, and your sampling method . The aim is to produce robust, reproducible scientific knowledge.

Non-empirical dissertations (arts and humanities)

A non-empirical dissertation works with existing research or other texts, presenting original analysis, critique and argumentation, but no original data. This approach is typical of arts and humanities subjects.

• What attitudes did commentators in the British press take towards the French Revolution in 1789–1792?
• How do the themes of gender and inheritance intersect in Shakespeare’s Macbeth ?
• How did Plato’s Republic and Thomas More’s Utopia influence nineteenth century utopian socialist thought?

The first steps in this type of dissertation are to decide on your topic and begin collecting your primary and secondary sources .

Primary sources are the direct objects of your research. They give you first-hand evidence about your subject. Examples of primary sources include novels, artworks and historical documents.

Secondary sources provide information that informs your analysis. They describe, interpret, or evaluate information from primary sources. For example, you might consider previous analyses of the novel or author you are working on, or theoretical texts that you plan to apply to your primary sources.

Dissertations are divided into chapters and sections. Empirical dissertations usually follow a standard structure, while non-empirical dissertations are more flexible.

Structure of an empirical dissertation

Empirical dissertations generally include these chapters:

• Introduction : An explanation of your topic and the research question(s) you want to answer.
• Literature review : A survey and evaluation of previous research on your topic.
• Methodology : An explanation of how you collected and analysed your data.
• Results : A brief description of what you found.
• Discussion : Interpretation of what these results reveal.
• Conclusion : Answers to your research question(s) and summary of what your findings contribute to knowledge in your field.

Sometimes the order or naming of chapters might be slightly different, but all of the above information must be included in order to produce thorough, valid scientific research.

Other dissertation structures

If your dissertation doesn’t involve data collection, your structure is more flexible. You can think of it like an extended essay – the text should be logically organised in a way that serves your argument:

• Introduction: An explanation of your topic and the question(s) you want to answer.
• Main body: The development of your analysis, usually divided into 2–4 chapters.
• Conclusion: Answers to your research question(s) and summary of what your analysis contributes to knowledge in your field.

The chapters of the main body can be organised around different themes, time periods, or texts. Below you can see some example structures for dissertations in different subjects.

• Political philosophy

This example, on the topic of the British press’s coverage of the French Revolution, shows how you might structure each chapter around a specific theme.

This example, on the topic of Plato’s and More’s influences on utopian socialist thought, shows a different approach to dividing the chapters by theme.

This example, a master’s dissertation on the topic of how writers respond to persecution, shows how you can also use section headings within each chapter. Each of the three chapters deals with a specific text, while the sections are organised thematically.

Like other academic texts, it’s important that your dissertation follows the formatting guidelines set out by your university. You can lose marks unnecessarily over mistakes, so it’s worth taking the time to get all these elements right.

Formatting guidelines concern things like:

• line spacing
• page numbers
• punctuation
• title pages
• presentation of tables and figures

If you’re unsure about the formatting requirements, check with your supervisor or department. You can lose marks unnecessarily over mistakes, so it’s worth taking the time to get all these elements right.

How will you reference your sources?

Referencing means properly listing the sources you cite and refer to in your dissertation, so that the reader can find them. This avoids plagiarism by acknowledging where you’ve used the work of others.

Keep track of everything you read as you prepare your dissertation. The key information to note down for a reference is:

• The publication date
• Page numbers for the parts you refer to (especially when using direct quotes)

Different referencing styles each have their own specific rules for how to reference. The most commonly used styles in UK universities are listed below.

You can use the free APA Reference Generator to automatically create and store your references.

APA Reference Generator

The words ‘ dissertation ’ and ‘thesis’ both refer to a large written research project undertaken to complete a degree, but they are used differently depending on the country:

• In the UK, you write a dissertation at the end of a bachelor’s or master’s degree, and you write a thesis to complete a PhD.
• In the US, it’s the other way around: you may write a thesis at the end of a bachelor’s or master’s degree, and you write a dissertation to complete a PhD.

The main difference is in terms of scale – a dissertation is usually much longer than the other essays you complete during your degree.

Another key difference is that you are given much more independence when working on a dissertation. You choose your own dissertation topic , and you have to conduct the research and write the dissertation yourself (with some assistance from your supervisor).

Dissertation word counts vary widely across different fields, institutions, and levels of education:

• An undergraduate dissertation is typically 8,000–15,000 words
• A master’s dissertation is typically 12,000–50,000 words
• A PhD thesis is typically book-length: 70,000–100,000 words

However, none of these are strict guidelines – your word count may be lower or higher than the numbers stated here. Always check the guidelines provided by your university to determine how long your own dissertation should be.

At the bachelor’s and master’s levels, the dissertation is usually the main focus of your final year. You might work on it (alongside other classes) for the entirety of the final year, or for the last six months. This includes formulating an idea, doing the research, and writing up.

A PhD thesis takes a longer time, as the thesis is the main focus of the degree. A PhD thesis might be being formulated and worked on for the whole four years of the degree program. The writing process alone can take around 18 months.

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How to Write Your MFA Thesis in Fine Art (And Beyond)

Ryan Seslow

Public Paper Draft

I enjoy writing and I find the process to be fun. Do you? I know that writing takes regular practice and it’s an essential part of my learning process. Writing helps me “see” and organize my thoughts. This allows me to edit and become clear about what it is I am expressing. Practicing my writing helps me identify mistakes (the endless typos..) as well as further emphasize what I really want to explore and write about. When a topic of interest strikes me the process is effortless. I notice how I feel about the topic and this is a key factor as to how quickly I will get working on as essay, blog post or tutorial. This is something I have identified in myself over time and through repetition. Writing induces and activates new awareness. In my experiences as a college art and design professor, I have taken notice of a few consistent patterns when it comes to more formal writing, especially a final thesis deadline. For some, the thought of generating a final graduate thesis can be a daunting thought in and of itself. Associated with that thought may be an outdated feeling that your body still remembers. This outdated association can be especially frustrating to the point of extreme procrastination. If you are unaware that you are the cause of this feeling then you will continue to perpetuate it. Sound familiar? If you choose to enroll into an MFA program you will be required to write a final thesis. This will be an in depth description of your concepts, process, references, discoveries, reflections and final analysis. The best part of writing a final thesis is that the writer gets to create, format, define and structure the entirety of it. Throw away any pre-conceived and or outdated perceptions of what you think you should do. You must take responsibility for your writing the same way that you discipline yourself in the creation and production of your art work.

Where do you begin?

Your final thesis is an official archival record of what you have completed, explored and accomplished throughout the duration of your MFA program. Not only will your thesis be written for yourself, it will prove and back up your convictions, theories, assessments and statements for other people. It should be known that the content in this tutorial could also be applied to other writing needs that may be similar to the MFA thesis structure. An MA thesis or undergraduate BFA thesis can also easily follow this format. By all means, you can share it and remix it.

A regular writing practice must be established. This means, you will need to create a plan for how and when practice will take place. The calendar on your mobile device or the computer that you use will work just fine to remind you of these appointments. Thirty minutes of practice twice a week can work wonders in the installation of a new habit. Are you up for that? Perhaps there is a way to make this decision seem effortless, keep reading.

You can get started right away. Technology in this area is very accessible and helpful. With the use of a blogging platform such as WordPress one can privately or publicly begin their writing practice and archiving process. Even setting up a basic default blog will do just fine. You can always customize and personalize it later. If a blog does not interest you (but I do hope it does) a word processing document will also do just fine. Either way, choosing to wait until your final semester to get started is a really bad idea and poor planning. Are there exceptions to this statement? Of course, and perhaps you will redefine my outlook, and prove me wrong, but until I experience this from someone, let’s make some longer-term plans.

I taught an MFA and MA thesis course between 2012 – 2019 at LIU Post  in NY (but this format transcends into my CUNY courses as well) that put an emphasis on content and exposure to help students generate their final thesis. The course revolved around several exercises that contributed to the process as a whole. They were broken down into individual isolated parts for deeper focus. Much like your thesis itself, this process is modular, meaning, many parts will come and work together to make up the whole. One of the first exercises that we do with the class is identify a thesis template format. This is the basic structure that I have students brainstorm via a series of questions that I ask them. Keep in mind; you most likely already have a default version of this template. This could be the writing format that you learned in high school and had redefined by a professor in college. You may have been forced to use it or suffer the consequences of a poor grade solely on that formatting restriction. This feeling and program may still be running inside you. So how do we deal with this? Together as a class we discuss and record the answers directly onto a dry erase board (or word document will also do just fine) I ask one of the students to act as the scribe to record the list manually while notes are also individually taken. I later put the information into a re-capped blog post for our class blog. Are you surprised that I use a blog for my class?

The Format-

The format for an MFA thesis in Fine Art (applied arts & digital) will in almost all cases coincide with a final thesis exhibition of completed works.   This formats fits accordingly with the thesis exhibition in mind.   This is a criteria break down of the structure of the paper. It is a simplified guide. Add or remove what you may for your personal needs.

• Description/Abstract:  Introduction. A detailed description of the concept and body of work that you will be discussing. Be clear and objective, you need not tell your whole life story here. Fragments of your current artist statement may fit in nicely.
• Process, Materials and Methods:  Here you will discuss the descriptions of your working processes, techniques learned and applied, and the materials used to generate the art that you create. Why have you selected these specific materials and techniques to communicate your ideas? How do these choices effect how the viewer will receive your work? Have you personalized a technique in a new way? How so? Were their limitations and new discoveries?
• Resources and References:  Historical and cultural referencing, artists, art movements, databases, and any other form of related influence. How has your research influenced your work, ideas, and decision-making process? What contrasts and contradictions have you discovered about your work and ideas? How has regular research and exposure during your program inspired you? Have you made direct and specific connections to an art movement or a series of artists? Explain your discoveries and how you came to those conclusions.
• Exhibition Simulation:  You will be mounting a final thesis exhibition of your work. How will you be mounting your exhibition? Why have you selected this particular composition? How did the space itself dictate your choices for installation? How will your installation effect or alter the physical space itself? Will you generate a floor plan sketch to accompany the proposed composition? If so, please explain, if not, also explain why? What kind of help will you need to realize the installation? What materials will you be using to install? Do you have special requirements for ladders, technologies and additional help? Explain in detail.
• Reflection:  What have you learned over the course of your graduate program? How has the program influenced your work and how you communicate as an artist? What were your greatest successes? What areas do you need to work on? What skills will you apply directly into your continued professional practice? Do you plan to teach after you graduate? If so, what philosophies and theories will you apply into your teaching practice? Where do you see your self professionally as an artist in 3-5 years?

Individual Exercises to Practice-

The following exercises below were created to help practice and expand thinking about the thesis format criteria above. It is my intention to help my students actively contribute to their thesis over the course of the semester. The exercises can be personalized and expanded upon for your individual needs. I feel that weekly exercises performed with a class or one on one with a partner will work well. The weekly meetings in person are effective. Why? Having a classroom or person-to-person(s) platform for discussion allows for the energy of the body to expose itself. You (and most likely your audience) will take notice as to how you feel when you are discussing the ideas, feelings and concepts that you have written. Are you upbeat and positively charged? Or are you just “matter of fact” and lifeless in your verbal assertions? Writing and speaking should be engaging. Especially if it is about your work! The goal is to entice your reader and audience to feel your convictions and transcend those feelings directly. Awareness of this is huge. It will help you make not only edits in your writing but also make changes in your speaking and how you feel about what you have written.

• The Artist Interview – Reach out to a classmate or an artist that you admire. This could also be a professor, faculty member, or fellow classmate. It should be one that you feel also admires or has interest in your work if possible. Make appointments to visit each other in their studios or where ever you are creating current work. This can even be done via video chat if in person visits cannot be made. In advance prepare for each other a series of 15-20 questions that you would like to ask each other. Questions can be about the artist’s concepts, materials, process, resources and references about their works. Questions may be about how they choose to show or sell their work. Personal questions about the artist’s outlook on life, business, and wellbeing may come to mind and may also be considered. Record and exchange each other’s responses in a written format. You will make a copy for yourself to retain. Re-read and study your responses to the questions that the artist asked you. This will be helpful for you to read your spoken words coming from another format of communication. Do you find that you speak the same way that you write? Where do these words fit into the thesis criteria format above?
• The Artist Statement & Manifesto – Of course this will change and evolve over time but it is a necessary document that you will update each year as you evolve and grow. In one single page generate your artist statement or manifesto. Who are you? What is your work about? What are you communicating with your current work, projects and why? Who is your audience? How is your work affecting your audience, community and culture? Manifestos are usually published and placed into the public so that its creator can live up to its statements. Are you living up to yours? Keeping this public is a good reminder to walk your talk. Where do these words fit into the thesis criteria format above?
• Reactive Writing – Create a regular online space, document or journal to generate a chronological folio of reactive writing. Visit museums, galleries, lectures and screenings regularly. If you live outside of a city this may require a bit of research, but if you are in NYC this is all too easy. Bring a sketchbook and take notes! For each experience share your impressions, thoughts, feelings and reactions. Describe what you witness. Be objective down to the smallest details that have stayed with you. Reflect and find similarities and contrasts to what you are working on. Use this exercise as a free writing opportunity. Write with out editing or with out any formatting restrains, just express yourself in the immediacy that you feel about your experiences. At the end of each month (or designate a class for this aspect of the exercise) sit down and re-read your passages. Select the reaction(s) that you resonate with the most. Edit and format this selection into a more formal essay paying proper attention to a formatting style, grammar, punctuation and spelling. Where do these words fit into the thesis criteria format above?
• Tutorials  & How To Guides – Writing tutorials and how-to guides are great ways to practice getting really clear about what you are doing. It helps you cultivate your vocabulary and describe the actions that you are performing with specific detail. It puts you in a position to list your steps, process, materials, and references and explain what the contributing contextual aspects are. Try this with a specific project or with the art that you are currently creating. Are you painter? Explain how you create a painting from start to finish. This includes the very first spark that inspires the idea for the painting, as well as how it will be installed, packaged, transported and exhibited. Details matter. Are you sculptor working in woodcarving? Explain the process from start to finish. Ask a fellow artist if you can sit in on his or her process and record what you experience. This is a really fantastic and fun exercise. It also contributes greatly to creating lesson plans for teaching. (I’m actually obsessed with this exercise a little bit.) Where do these words fit into the thesis criteria format above?
• Reviews & Critiques – Much like the reactive writing exercise above, generating reviews and critiques will foster great ways to find insight into your own work. With regular practice you will find common threads of thought and subject matter. You will discover similar referencing and contrasts. This can easily be done in two ways. You can visit specific museums, galleries, lectures and screenings to write about that excites you. This already puts a positive charge on the act of writing itself. I also suggest that you contrast this with subject matter and content that also does not agree with you. We want to be able to fully express what we do not like as well. Understanding why helps us become clear in our choices. Understanding this helps strengthen our position on what we do want to write about and what we want our audience to understand. It allows us to explore dichotomies. The second way to further exercises in writing reviews and critiques is to speak about them. Speaking about art in person is a great way to further the clarification of your writing. Where do these words fit into the thesis criteria format above?

Further Experimentation-

The spoken word versus the act of writing? I have come across many students and colleagues who find that they write much differently than they speak. I feel that writing needs to have a consistent flow and feel fluid to keep its reader engaged. Speaking well and articulating oneself clearly is also something that takes practice. I have found that sometimes recording my words and thoughts via a voice transcribing application is helpful to get ideas out and into a more accessible form. A lot of transcribing software is free for most mobile devices. Much like voice recording the powerful enhancement is to see your words take form after you have said them. You can simply copy and paste the text and edit what is valuable.

This essay is also a work in progress. It’s an ongoing draft in a published format that I will continue updating with new content and fresh ways to simplify the exercises.

I appreciate your feedback!

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• Pamm [missing word] 1. Artist Interview- Do you find that (you) speak the same way that you write? July 15, 2018 at 1:38 pm Reply
• Ryan Seslow Hi Marilyn! I see you! So weird, this is the first comment that has appeared on the paper. I have gotten several e-mails about past comments but still cant see where those are, lol! :)) September 18, 2018 at 1:05 pm Reply

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Bartunkova, Barbora , “Sites of Resistance: Antifascism and the Czechoslovak Avant-garde” (C. Armstrong)

Betik, Blair Katherine , “Alternate Experiences: Evaluating Lived Religious Life in the Roman Provinces in the 1st Through 4th Centuries CE” (M. Gaifman)

Boyd, Nicole , “Science, Craft, Art, Theater: Four ‘Perspectives’ on the Painted Architecture of Angelo Michele Colonna and Agostino Mitelli” (N. Suthor). 

Brown, Justin , “Afro-Surinamese Calabash Art in the Era of Slavery and Emancipation” (C. Fromont)

Burke, Harry , “The Islands Between: Art, Animism, and Anticolonial Worldmaking in Archipelagic Southeast Asia” (P. Lee)

Chakravorty, Swagato , “Displaced Cinema: Moving Images and the Politics of Location in Contemporary Art” (C. Buckley, F. Casetti)

Chau, Tung , “Strange New Worlds: Interfaces in the Work of Cao Fei” (P. Lee)

Cox, Emily , “Perverse Modernism, 1884-1990” (C. Armstrong, T. Barringer)

Coyle, Alexander , “Frame and Format between Byzantium and Central Italy, 1200-1300” (R. Nelson)

Datta, Yagnaseni , “Materialising Illusions: Visual Translation in the Mughal Jug Basisht, c. 1602.” (K. Rizvi)

de Luca, Theo , “Nicolas Poussin’s Chronotopes” (N. Suthor)

Dechant, D. Lyle . ” ‘daz wir ein ander vinden fro’: Readers and Performers of the Codex Manesse” (J. Jung)

Del Bonis-O’Donnell, Asia, “Trees and the Visualization of kosmos in Archaic and Classical Athenian Art” (M. Gaifman)

Demby, Nicole, “The Diplomatic Image: Framing Art and Internationalism, 1945-1960” (K. Mercer)

Donnelly, Michelle , “Spatialized Impressions: American Printmaking Outside the Workshop, 1935–1975” (J. Raab)

Epifano, Angie , “Building the Samorian State: Material Culture, Architecture, and Cities across West Africa” (C. Fromont)

Fialho, Alex , “Apertures onto AIDS: African American Photography and the Art History of the Storage Unit” (P. Lee, T Nyong’o)

Foo, Adela , “Crafting the Aq Qoyuniu Court (1475-1490) (E. Cooke, Jr.)

Franciosi, Caterina , “Latent Light: Energy and Nineteenth-Century British Art” (T. Barringer)

Frier, Sara , “Unbearable Witness: The Disfigured Body in the Northern European Brief (1500-1620)” (N. Suthor)

Gambert-Jouan, Anabelle , “Sculpture in Place: Medieval Wood Depositions and Their Environments” (J. Jung)

Gass, Izabel, “Painted Thanatologies: Théodore Géricault Against the Aesthetics of Life” (C. Armstrong)

Gaudet, Manon , “Property and the Contested Ground of North American Visual Culture, 1900-1945” (E. Cooke, Jr.)  

Haffner, Michaela , “Nature Cure: ”White Wellness” and the Visual Culture of Natural Health, 1870-1930” (J. Raab)

Hepburn, Victoria , “William Bell Scott’s Progress” (T. Barringer)

Herrmann, Mitchell, “The Art of the Living: Biological Life and Aesthetic Experience in the 21st Century” (P. Lee)

Higgins, Lily , “Reading into Things: Articulate Objects in Colonial North America, 1650-1783” (E. Cooke, Jr.)

Hodson, Josie , “Something in Common: Black Art under Austerity in New York City, 1975-1990” (Yale University, P. Lee)

Hong, Kevin , “Plasticity, Fungibility, Toxicity: Photography’s Ecological Entanglements in the Mid-Twentieth-Century United States” (C. Armstrong, J Raab)

Kang, Mia , “Art, Race, Representation: The Rise of Multiculturalism in the Visual Arts” (K. Mercer)

Keto, Elizabeth , “Remaking the World: United States Art in the Reconstruction Era, 1861-1900.” (J. Raab)

Kim, Adela , “Beyond Institutional Critique: Tearing Up in the Work of Andrea Fraser” (P. Lee)

Koposova, Ekaterina , “Triumph and Terror in the Arts of the Franco-Dutch War” (M. Bass)

Lee, Key Jo , “Melancholic Materiality: History and the Unhealable Wound in African American Photographic Portraits, 1850-1877” (K. Mercer)

Levy Haskell, Gavriella , “The Imaginative Painter”: Visual Narrative and the Interactive Painting in Britain, 1851-1914” (T. Barringer, E. Cooke Jr)

Marquardt, Savannah, “Becoming a Body: Lucanian Painted Vases and Grave Assemblages in Southern Italy” (M. Gaifman)

Miraval, Nathalie , “The Art of Magic: Afro-Catholic Visual Culture in the Early Modern Spanish Empire” (C. Fromont)

Mizbani, Sharon , Water and Memory: Fountains, Heritage, and Infrastructure in Istanbul and Tehran (1839-1950) (K. Rizvi)

Molarsky-Beck, Marina, “Seeing the Unseen: Queer Artistic Subjectivity in Interwar Photography” (C. Armstrong)

Nagy, Renata , “Bookish Art: Natural Historical Learning Across Media in Seventeenth-century Northern Europe” (Bass, M)

Olson, Christine , “Owen Jones and the Epistemologies of Nineteenth-Century Design” (T. Barringer)

Petrilli-Jones, Sara , “Drafting the Canon: Legal Histories of Art in Florence and Rome, 1600-1800” (N. Suthor)

Phillips, Kate , “American Ephemera” (J. Raab)

Potuckova, Kristina , “The Arts of Women’s Monastic Liturgy, Holy Roman Empire, 1000-1200” (J. Jung)

Quack, Gregor , “The Social Fabric: Franz Erhard Walther’s Art in Postwar Germany” (P. Lee)

Rahimi-Golkhandan, Shabnam , “The Photograph’s Shabih-Kashi (Verisimilitude) – The Liminal Visualities of Late Qajar Art (1853-1911)” (K. Rizvi)

Rapoport, Sarah , “James Jacques Joseph Tissot in the Interstices of Modernity” (T. Barringer, C. Armstrong)

Riordan, Lindsay , “Beuys, Terror, Value: 1967-1979” (S. Zeidler)

Robbins, Isabella , “Relationality and Being: Indigeneity, Space and Transit in Global Contemporary Art” (P. Lee, N. Blackhawk)

Sen, Pooja , “The World Builders ” (J. Peters)

Sellati, Lillian , “When is Herakles Not Himself? Mediating Cultural Plurality in Greater Central Asia, 330 BCE – 365 CE” (M. Gaifman)

Tang, Jenny , “Genealogies of Confinement: Carceral Logics of Visuality in Atlantic Modernism 1930 – 1945” (K. Mercer)

Thomas, Alexandra , “Afrekete’s Touch: Black Queer Feminist Errantry and Global African Art”  (P. Lee)

Valladares, Carlos , “Jacques Demy” (P. Lee)

Verrot, Trevor , “Sculpted Lamentation Groups in the Late Medieval Veneto” (J. Jung)

Von-Ow, Pierre , Visual Tactics: Histories of Perspective in Britain and its Empire, 1670-1768.”  (T. Barringer)

Wang, Xueli , “Performing Disappearance: Maggie Cheung and the Off-Screen” (Q. Ngan)

Webley, John , “Ink, Paint, and Blood: India and the Great Game in Russian Culture” (T. Barringer, M. Brunson)

Werwie, Katherine , “Visions Across the Gates: Materiality, Symbolism, and Communication in the Historiated Wooden Doors of Medieval European Churches” (J. Jung)

Wisowaty, Stephanie , “Painted Processional Crosses in Central Italy, 1250-1400: Movement, Mediation and Multisensory Effects” (J. Jung)

Young, Colin , “Desert Places: The Visual Culture of the Prairies and the Pampas across the Nineteenth Century” (J. Raab)

Zhou, Joyce Yusi, “Objects by Her Hand: Art and Material Culture of Women in Early Modern Batavia (1619-1799) (M. Bass, E. Cooke, Jr.)

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Art History Resources

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Guidelines for Writing Art History Research Papers

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Writing a paper for an art history course is similar to the analytical, research-based papers that you may have written in English literature courses or history courses. Although art historical research and writing does include the analysis of written documents, there are distinctive differences between art history writing and other disciplines because the primary documents are works of art. A key reference guide for researching and analyzing works of art and for writing art history papers is the 10th edition (or later) of Sylvan Barnet’s work, A Short Guide to Writing about Art . Barnet directs students through the steps of thinking about a research topic, collecting information, and then writing and documenting a paper.

A website with helpful tips for writing art history papers is posted by the University of North Carolina.

Wesleyan University Writing Center has a useful guide for finding online writing resources.

The following are basic guidelines that you must use when documenting research papers for any art history class at UA Little Rock. Solid, thoughtful research and correct documentation of the sources used in this research (i.e., footnotes/endnotes, bibliography, and illustrations**) are essential. Additionally, these guidelines remind students about plagiarism, a serious academic offense.

Paper Format

Research papers should be in a 12-point font, double-spaced. Ample margins should be left for the instructor’s comments. All margins should be one inch to allow for comments. Number all pages. The cover sheet for the paper should include the following information: title of paper, your name, course title and number, course instructor, and date paper is submitted. A simple presentation of a paper is sufficient. Staple the pages together at the upper left or put them in a simple three-ring folder or binder. Do not put individual pages in plastic sleeves.

Documentation of Resources

The Chicago Manual of Style (CMS), as described in the most recent edition of Sylvan Barnet’s A Short Guide to Writing about Art is the department standard. Although you may have used MLA style for English papers or other disciplines, the Chicago Style is required for all students taking art history courses at UA Little Rock. There are significant differences between MLA style and Chicago Style. A “Quick Guide” for the Chicago Manual of Style footnote and bibliography format is found http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_citationguide.html. The footnote examples are numbered and the bibliography example is last. Please note that the place of publication and the publisher are enclosed in parentheses in the footnote, but they are not in parentheses in the bibliography. Examples of CMS for some types of note and bibliography references are given below in this Guideline. Arabic numbers are used for footnotes. Some word processing programs may have Roman numerals as a choice, but the standard is Arabic numbers. The use of super script numbers, as given in examples below, is the standard in UA Little Rock art history papers.

The chapter “Manuscript Form” in the Barnet book (10th edition or later) provides models for the correct forms for footnotes/endnotes and the bibliography. For example, the note form for the FIRST REFERENCE to a book with a single author is:

1 Bruce Cole, Italian Art 1250-1550 (New York: New York University Press, 1971), 134.

But the BIBLIOGRAPHIC FORM for that same book is:

Cole, Bruce. Italian Art 1250-1550. New York: New York University Press. 1971.

The FIRST REFERENCE to a journal article (in a periodical that is paginated by volume) with a single author in a footnote is:

2 Anne H. Van Buren, “Madame Cézanne’s Fashions and the Dates of Her Portraits,” Art Quarterly 29 (1966): 199.

The FIRST REFERENCE to a journal article (in a periodical that is paginated by volume) with a single author in the BIBLIOGRAPHY is:

Van Buren, Anne H. “Madame Cézanne’s Fashions and the Dates of Her Portraits.” Art Quarterly 29 (1966): 185-204.

If you reference an article that you found through an electronic database such as JSTOR, you do not include the url for JSTOR or the date accessed in either the footnote or the bibliography. This is because the article is one that was originally printed in a hard-copy journal; what you located through JSTOR is simply a copy of printed pages. Your citation follows the same format for an article in a bound volume that you may have pulled from the library shelves. If, however, you use an article that originally was in an electronic format and is available only on-line, then follow the “non-print” forms listed below.

B. Non-Print

Citations for Internet sources such as online journals or scholarly web sites should follow the form described in Barnet’s chapter, “Writing a Research Paper.” For example, the footnote or endnote reference given by Barnet for a web site is:

3 Nigel Strudwick, Egyptology Resources , with the assistance of The Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences, Cambridge University, 1994, revised 16 June 2008, http://www.newton.ac.uk/egypt/ , 24 July 2008.

If you use microform or microfilm resources, consult the most recent edition of Kate Turabian, A Manual of Term Paper, Theses and Dissertations. A copy of Turabian is available at the reference desk in the main library.

C. Visual Documentation (Illustrations)

Art history papers require visual documentation such as photographs, photocopies, or scanned images of the art works you discuss. In the chapter “Manuscript Form” in A Short Guide to Writing about Art, Barnet explains how to identify illustrations or “figures” in the text of your paper and how to caption the visual material. Each photograph, photocopy, or scanned image should appear on a single sheet of paper unless two images and their captions will fit on a single sheet of paper with one inch margins on all sides. Note also that the title of a work of art is always italicized. Within the text, the reference to the illustration is enclosed in parentheses and placed at the end of the sentence. A period for the sentence comes after the parenthetical reference to the illustration. For UA Little Rcok art history papers, illustrations are placed at the end of the paper, not within the text. Illustration are not supplied as a Powerpoint presentation or as separate .jpgs submitted in an electronic format.

Edvard Munch’s painting The Scream, dated 1893, represents a highly personal, expressive response to an experience the artist had while walking one evening (Figure 1).

The caption that accompanies the illustration at the end of the paper would read:

Figure 1. Edvard Munch, The Scream, 1893. Tempera and casein on cardboard, 36 x 29″ (91.3 x 73.7 cm). Nasjonalgalleriet, Oslo, Norway.

Plagiarism is a form of thievery and is illegal. According to Webster’s New World Dictionary, to plagiarize is to “take and pass off as one’s own the ideas, writings, etc. of another.” Barnet has some useful guidelines for acknowledging sources in his chapter “Manuscript Form;” review them so that you will not be mguilty of theft. Another useful website regarding plagiarism is provided by Cornell University, http://plagiarism.arts.cornell.edu/tutorial/index.cfm

Plagiarism is a serious offense, and students should understand that checking papers for plagiarized content is easy to do with Internet resources. Plagiarism will be reported as academic dishonesty to the Dean of Students; see Section VI of the Student Handbook which cites plagiarism as a specific violation. Take care that you fully and accurately acknowledge the source of another author, whether you are quoting the material verbatim or paraphrasing. Borrowing the idea of another author by merely changing some or even all of your source’s words does not allow you to claim the ideas as your own. You must credit both direct quotes and your paraphrases. Again, Barnet’s chapter “Manuscript Form” sets out clear guidelines for avoiding plagiarism.

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• Introduction

Art History Dissertation Methodology: 7 Things To Keep In Mind

The methodology section for an art history dissertation is shorter compared to counterparts in the sciences, but it’s still an integral part of the graduate project that requires your undivided attention. As it will likely be based on non-empirical information taken from literature that has already been published in the field, there are some really important things you need to keep in mind when writing it:

• Determine the appropriate methodology to employ

Art historians can use any of a number of methodologies to conduct their research study (e.g., chronological, logical, iconographical, critical analysis, etc.) so it’s important that you first identify the appropriate methodology and that you fully understand how you must frame your study within it.

• Make sure you address your advisor’s requests

If you are having any doubts about which methodology to use then you might benefit from brainstorming some ideas with your graduate advisor. Even though this is your personal academic study, it still must meet certain criteria. Discuss this to find out exactly what is expected from you by the committee.

• Provide a simple step by step explanation of approach

Don’t merely define the methodology you plan on using in your work; you should provide a step by step explanation of why you chose the approach as well as how you plan on going about conducting it. Remember to keep your personal opinions or findings out of this section. The content within should be straightforward.

• Don’t introduce complex approaches in methodologies

One of the things that trip students up is when they begin to introduce complex approaches in their methodologies. This can be both confusing to the reader and to you. The best approach is to think about the simplest method for finding something out and arriving to some definitive conclusion.

• Set your work aside for a few days before revising

The process of revision is very important in high academic writing. If you don’t give yourself plenty of time to revise you might not be taking full advantage of an exercise where the main purpose is to make your argument and presentation stronger. Start this with a clear mindset to reap all of its benefits.

• Thoroughly edit and Proofread the entire section

This piece of advice really does apply to every section and all types of written assignments. Edit for sentence and word clarity. Complex structures or multi-syllabic words can be confusing and much more difficult to understand. Also, make sure you have corrected all errors in grammar, punctuation and spelling. A document that is filled with errors will be poorly received.

• Always have a fresh set of eyes critique the section

You should constantly remind yourself that you want to keep your work interesting and understandable. Even though it will be reviewed by experts in the field, your work should be written and structured so that a person outside the field could also enjoy.

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• Formatting Your Dissertation
• Introduction

Harvard Griffin GSAS strives to provide students with timely, accurate, and clear information. If you need help understanding a specific policy, please contact the office that administers that policy.

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On this page:

Language of the Dissertation

Page and text requirements, body of text, tables, figures, and captions, dissertation acceptance certificate, copyright statement.

• Table of Contents

Front and Back Matter

Supplemental material, dissertations comprising previously published works, top ten formatting errors, further questions.

• Related Contacts and Forms

When preparing the dissertation for submission, students must follow strict formatting requirements. Any deviation from these requirements may lead to rejection of the dissertation and delay in the conferral of the degree.

The language of the dissertation is ordinarily English, although some departments whose subject matter involves foreign languages may accept a dissertation written in a language other than English.

Most dissertations are 100 to 300 pages in length. All dissertations should be divided into appropriate sections, and long dissertations may need chapters, main divisions, and subdivisions.

• 8½ x 11 inches, unless a musical score is included
• At least 1 inch for all margins
• Body of text: double spacing
• Block quotations, footnotes, and bibliographies: single spacing within each entry but double spacing between each entry
• Table of contents, list of tables, list of figures or illustrations, and lengthy tables: single spacing may be used

Fonts and Point Size

Use 10-12 point size. Fonts must be embedded in the PDF file to ensure all characters display correctly. 

Recommended Fonts

If you are unsure whether your chosen font will display correctly, use one of the following fonts: 

If fonts are not embedded, non-English characters may not appear as intended. Fonts embedded improperly will be published to DASH as-is. It is the student’s responsibility to make sure that fonts are embedded properly prior to submission. 

Instructions for Embedding Fonts

To embed your fonts in recent versions of Word, follow these instructions from Microsoft:

• Click the File tab and then click Options .
• In the left column, select the Save tab.
• Clear the Do not embed common system fonts check box.

For reference, below are some instructions from ProQuest UMI for embedding fonts in older file formats:

To embed your fonts in Microsoft Word 2010:

• In the File pull-down menu click on Options .
• Choose Save on the left sidebar.
• Check the box next to Embed fonts in the file.
• Click the OK button.
• Save the document.

Note that when saving as a PDF, make sure to go to “more options” and save as “PDF/A compliant”

To embed your fonts in Microsoft Word 2007:

• Click the circular Office button in the upper left corner of Microsoft Word.
• A new window will display. In the bottom right corner select Word Options . 
• Choose Save from the left sidebar.

Using Microsoft Word on a Mac:

Microsoft Word 2008 on a Mac OS X computer will automatically embed your fonts while converting your document to a PDF file.

If you are converting to PDF using Acrobat Professional (instructions courtesy of the Graduate Thesis Office at Iowa State University):  

• Open your document in Microsoft Word. 
• Click on the Adobe PDF tab at the top. Select "Change Conversion Settings." 
• Click on Advanced Settings. 
• Click on the Fonts folder on the left side of the new window. In the lower box on the right, delete any fonts that appear in the "Never Embed" box. Then click "OK." 
• If prompted to save these new settings, save them as "Embed all fonts." 
• Now the Change Conversion Settings window should show "embed all fonts" in the Conversion Settings drop-down list and it should be selected. Click "OK" again. 
• Click on the Adobe PDF link at the top again. This time select Convert to Adobe PDF. Depending on the size of your document and the speed of your computer, this process can take 1-15 minutes. 
• After your document is converted, select the "File" tab at the top of the page. Then select "Document Properties." 
• Click on the "Fonts" tab. Carefully check all of your fonts. They should all show "(Embedded Subset)" after the font name. 
•  If you see "(Embedded Subset)" after all fonts, you have succeeded.

The font used in the body of the text must also be used in headers, page numbers, and footnotes. Exceptions are made only for tables and figures created with different software and inserted into the document.

Tables and figures must be placed as close as possible to their first mention in the text. They may be placed on a page with no text above or below, or they may be placed directly into the text. If a table or a figure is alone on a page (with no narrative), it should be centered within the margins on the page. Tables may take up more than one page as long as they obey all rules about margins. Tables and figures referred to in the text may not be placed at the end of the chapter or at the end of the dissertation.

• Given the standards of the discipline, dissertations in the Department of History of Art and Architecture and the Department of Architecture, Landscape Architecture, and Urban Planning often place illustrations at the end of the dissertation.

Figure and table numbering must be continuous throughout the dissertation or by chapter (e.g., 1.1, 1.2, 2.1, 2.2, etc.). Two figures or tables cannot be designated with the same number. If you have repeating images that you need to cite more than once, label them with their number and A, B, etc. 

Headings should be placed at the top of tables. While no specific rules for the format of table headings and figure captions are required, a consistent format must be used throughout the dissertation (contact your department for style manuals appropriate to the field).

Captions should appear at the bottom of any figures. If the figure takes up the entire page, the caption should be placed alone on the preceding page, centered vertically and horizontally within the margins.

Each page receives a separate page number. When a figure or table title is on a preceding page, the second and subsequent pages of the figure or table should say, for example, “Figure 5 (Continued).” In such an instance, the list of figures or tables will list the page number containing the title. The word “figure” should be written in full (not abbreviated), and the “F” should be capitalized (e.g., Figure 5). In instances where the caption continues on a second page, the “(Continued)” notation should appear on the second and any subsequent page. The figure/table and the caption are viewed as one entity and the numbering should show correlation between all pages. Each page must include a header.

Landscape orientation figures and tables must be positioned correctly and bound at the top so that the top of the figure or table will be at the left margin. Figure and table headings/captions are placed with the same orientation as the figure or table when on the same page. When on a separate page, headings/captions are always placed in portrait orientation, regardless of the orientation of the figure or table. Page numbers are always placed as if the figure were vertical on the page.

If a graphic artist does the figures, Harvard Griffin GSAS will accept lettering done by the artist only within the figure. Figures done with software are acceptable if the figures are clear and legible. Legends and titles done by the same process as the figures will be accepted if they too are clear, legible, and run at least 10 or 12 characters per inch. Otherwise, legends and captions should be printed with the same font used in the text.

Original illustrations, photographs, and fine arts prints may be scanned and included, centered between the margins on a page with no text above or below.

Use of Third-Party Content

In addition to the student's own writing, dissertations often contain third-party content or in-copyright content owned by parties other than you, the student who authored the dissertation. The Office for Scholarly Communication recommends consulting the information below about fair use, which allows individuals to use in-copyright content, on a limited basis and for specific purposes, without seeking permission from copyright holders.

Because your dissertation will be made available for online distribution through DASH , Harvard's open-access repository, it is important that any third-party content in it may be made available in this way.

Fair Use and Copyright 

What is fair use?

Fair use is a provision in copyright law that allows the use of a certain amount of copyrighted material without seeking permission. Fair use is format- and media-agnostic. This means fair use may apply to images (including photographs, illustrations, and paintings), quoting at length from literature, videos, and music regardless of the format. 

How do I determine whether my use of an image or other third-party content in my dissertation is fair use?  

There are four factors you will need to consider when making a fair use claim.

1) For what purpose is your work going to be used?

• Nonprofit, educational, scholarly, or research use favors fair use. Commercial, non-educational uses, often do not favor fair use.
• A transformative use (repurposing or recontextualizing the in-copyright material) favors fair use. Examining, analyzing, and explicating the material in a meaningful way, so as to enhance a reader's understanding, strengthens your fair use argument. In other words, can you make the point in the thesis without using, for instance, an in-copyright image? Is that image necessary to your dissertation? If not, perhaps, for copyright reasons, you should not include the image.  

2) What is the nature of the work to be used?

• Published, fact-based content favors fair use and includes scholarly analysis in published academic venues. 
• Creative works, including artistic images, are afforded more protection under copyright, and depending on your use in light of the other factors, may be less likely to favor fair use; however, this does not preclude considerations of fair use for creative content altogether.

3) How much of the work is going to be used?  

• Small, or less significant, amounts favor fair use. A good rule of thumb is to use only as much of the in-copyright content as necessary to serve your purpose. Can you use a thumbnail rather than a full-resolution image? Can you use a black-and-white photo instead of color? Can you quote select passages instead of including several pages of the content? These simple changes bolster your fair use of the material.

4) What potential effect on the market for that work may your use have?

• If there is a market for licensing this exact use or type of educational material, then this weighs against fair use. If however, there would likely be no effect on the potential commercial market, or if it is not possible to obtain permission to use the work, then this favors fair use. 

For further assistance with fair use, consult the Office for Scholarly Communication's guide, Fair Use: Made for the Harvard Community and the Office of the General Counsel's Copyright and Fair Use: A Guide for the Harvard Community .

What are my options if I don’t have a strong fair use claim? 

Consider the following options if you find you cannot reasonably make a fair use claim for the content you wish to incorporate:

• Seek permission from the copyright holder. 
• Use openly licensed content as an alternative to the original third-party content you intended to use. Openly-licensed content grants permission up-front for reuse of in-copyright content, provided your use meets the terms of the open license.
• Use content in the public domain, as this content is not in-copyright and is therefore free of all copyright restrictions. Whereas third-party content is owned by parties other than you, no one owns content in the public domain; everyone, therefore, has the right to use it.

For use of images in your dissertation, please consult this guide to Finding Public Domain & Creative Commons Media , which is a great resource for finding images without copyright restrictions. 

Who can help me with questions about copyright and fair use?

Contact your Copyright First Responder . Please note, Copyright First Responders assist with questions concerning copyright and fair use, but do not assist with the process of obtaining permission from copyright holders.

Pages should be assigned a number except for the Dissertation Acceptance Certificate . Preliminary pages (abstract, table of contents, list of tables, graphs, illustrations, and preface) should use small Roman numerals (i, ii, iii, iv, v, etc.). All pages must contain text or images.  

Count the title page as page i and the copyright page as page ii, but do not print page numbers on either page .

For the body of text, use Arabic numbers (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, etc.) starting with page 1 on the first page of text. Page numbers must be centered throughout the manuscript at the top or bottom. Every numbered page must be consecutively ordered, including tables, graphs, illustrations, and bibliography/index (if included); letter suffixes (such as 10a, 10b, etc.) are not allowed. It is customary not to have a page number on the page containing a chapter heading.

• Check pagination carefully. Account for all pages.

A copy of the Dissertation Acceptance Certificate (DAC) should appear as the first page. This page should not be counted or numbered. The DAC will appear in the online version of the published dissertation. The author name and date on the DAC and title page should be the same. 

The dissertation begins with the title page; the title should be as concise as possible and should provide an accurate description of the dissertation. The author name and date on the DAC and title page should be the same. 

• Do not print a page number on the title page. It is understood to be page  i  for counting purposes only.

A copyright notice should appear on a separate page immediately following the title page and include the copyright symbol ©, the year of first publication of the work, and the name of the author:

© [ year ] [ Author’s Name ] All rights reserved.

Alternatively, students may choose to license their work openly under a  Creative Commons  license. The author remains the copyright holder while at the same time granting up-front permission to others to read, share, and (depending on the license) adapt the work, so long as proper attribution is given. (By default, under copyright law, the author reserves all rights; under a Creative Commons license, the author reserves some rights.)

• Do  not  print a page number on the copyright page. It is understood to be page  ii  for counting purposes only.

An abstract, numbered as page  iii , should immediately follow the copyright page and should state the problem, describe the methods and procedures used, and give the main results or conclusions of the research. The abstract will appear in the online and bound versions of the dissertation and will be published by ProQuest. There is no maximum word count for the abstract. 

• double-spaced
• left-justified
• indented on the first line of each paragraph
• The author’s name, right justified
• The words “Dissertation Advisor:” followed by the advisor’s name, left-justified (a maximum of two advisors is allowed)
• Title of the dissertation, centered, several lines below author and advisor

Dissertations divided into sections must contain a table of contents that lists, at minimum, the major headings in the following order:

• Front Matter
• Body of Text
• Back Matter

Front matter includes (if applicable):

• acknowledgements of help or encouragement from individuals or institutions
• a dedication
• a list of illustrations or tables
• a glossary of terms
• one or more epigraphs.

Back matter includes (if applicable):

• bibliography
• supplemental materials, including figures and tables
• an index (in rare instances).

Supplemental figures and tables must be placed at the end of the dissertation in an appendix, not within or at the end of a chapter. If additional digital information (including audio, video, image, or datasets) will accompany the main body of the dissertation, it should be uploaded as a supplemental file through ProQuest ETD . Supplemental material will be available in DASH and ProQuest and preserved digitally in the Harvard University Archives.

As a matter of copyright, dissertations comprising the student's previously published works must be authorized for distribution from DASH. The guidelines in this section pertain to any previously published material that requires permission from publishers or other rightsholders before it may be distributed from DASH. Please note:

• Authors whose publishing agreements grant the publisher exclusive rights to display, distribute, and create derivative works will need to seek the publisher's permission for nonexclusive use of the underlying works before the dissertation may be distributed from DASH.
• Authors whose publishing agreements indicate the authors have retained the relevant nonexclusive rights to the original materials for display, distribution, and the creation of derivative works may distribute the dissertation as a whole from DASH without need for further permissions.

It is recommended that authors consult their publishing agreements directly to determine whether and to what extent they may have transferred exclusive rights under copyright. The Office for Scholarly Communication (OSC) is available to help the author determine whether she has retained the necessary rights or requires permission. Please note, however, the Office of Scholarly Communication is not able to assist with the permissions process itself.

• Missing Dissertation Acceptance Certificate.  The first page of the PDF dissertation file should be a scanned copy of the Dissertation Acceptance Certificate (DAC). This page should not be counted or numbered as a part of the dissertation pagination.
• Conflicts Between the DAC and the Title Page.  The DAC and the dissertation title page must match exactly, meaning that the author name and the title on the title page must match that on the DAC. If you use your full middle name or just an initial on one document, it must be the same on the other document.  
• Abstract Formatting Errors. The advisor name should be left-justified, and the author's name should be right-justified. Up to two advisor names are allowed. The Abstract should be double spaced and include the page title “Abstract,” as well as the page number “iii.” There is no maximum word count for the abstract. 
•  The front matter should be numbered using Roman numerals (iii, iv, v, …). The title page and the copyright page should be counted but not numbered. The first printed page number should appear on the Abstract page (iii). 
• The body of the dissertation should be numbered using Arabic numbers (1, 2, 3, …). The first page of the body of the text should begin with page 1. Pagination may not continue from the front matter. 
• All page numbers should be centered either at the top or the bottom of the page.
• Figures and tables Figures and tables must be placed within the text, as close to their first mention as possible. Figures and tables that span more than one page must be labeled on each page. Any second and subsequent page of the figure/table must include the “(Continued)” notation. This applies to figure captions as well as images. Each page of a figure/table must be accounted for and appropriately labeled. All figures/tables must have a unique number. They may not repeat within the dissertation.
• Any figures/tables placed in a horizontal orientation must be placed with the top of the figure/ table on the left-hand side. The top of the figure/table should be aligned with the spine of the dissertation when it is bound. 
• Page numbers must be placed in the same location on all pages of the dissertation, centered, at the bottom or top of the page. Page numbers may not appear under the table/ figure.
• Supplemental Figures and Tables. Supplemental figures and tables must be placed at the back of the dissertation in an appendix. They should not be placed at the back of the chapter. 
• Permission Letters Copyright. permission letters must be uploaded as a supplemental file, titled ‘do_not_publish_permission_letters,” within the dissertation submission tool.
•  DAC Attachment. The signed Dissertation Acceptance Certificate must additionally be uploaded as a document in the "Administrative Documents" section when submitting in Proquest ETD . Dissertation submission is not complete until all documents have been received and accepted.
• Overall Formatting. The entire document should be checked after all revisions, and before submitting online, to spot any inconsistencies or PDF conversion glitches.
• You can view dissertations successfully published from your department in DASH . This is a great place to check for specific formatting and area-specific conventions.
• Contact the  Office of Student Affairs  with further questions.

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How to write the perfect design dissertation

Tutors and students from top design colleges share their advice.

Studying design is about crafting a great design portfolio that will wow potential employers, right? Well, yes. But don't discount the importance of astute creative thinking, and expressing yourself eloquently through the written word. In short, your design dissertation matters.

"I don't believe that design students should be focused entirely on portfolio work," argues Myrna MacLeod , programme leader for Graphic Design at Edinburgh Napier University. "They should also be able to demonstrate an interest in the contexts that underpin their work, and the histories and connections that have informed our practice."

• 5 top tips for graduate designers

"Think of a dissertation as an opportunity, not a burden," urges Craig Burston , Graphic and Media Design course leader at London College of Communication (LCC). "It gives us visually-minded people an opportunity to demonstrate that we too can construct arguments and distil complex notions." 

As Burston points out, this is not just an academic exercise: the power of persuasion is often key to success as a commercial designer. "Clients seek clarity, and project concepts or proposals need to be put into context," he says.

Read on to discover some top tips from leading tutors and their students for nailing your design dissertation…

01. Treat it like a design brief

"A great dissertation should be a designed artefact, and portfolio-worthy in its own right," says Burston. And like a design brief, it should be about solving a problem: "Make sure it has clearly stated aims, strong focus, and doesn't lack opinion or rhetoric," he adds.

• Best laptops for graphic design

"The value of a designed dissertation as a portfolio piece is that it's a holistic view of the individual," agrees Sarah James , senior lecturer in Visual Communication at Arts University Bournemouth (AUB). 

"It shows, type, editorial, research and aesthetic skill, as well as the personal interests and convictions of the individual."

James identifies AUB student Maarit Koobas , who investigated responsive type in both her dissertation and final project, as a particularly strong example of this. "Her design version was one of the most authentic, restrained and elegantly expressive I have ever received," she enthuses.

Koobas conducted a huge amount of initial research into both the contexts in which responsive type can be seen – such as advertising, product design, science and material cultures – and the theories behind its analysis, including semiotics, philosophy and politics. "Creating and analysing ideas, before they end up in your portfolio, is what design is all about," argues Koobas.

• 5 must-read books for design students

02. Write about your passion

"To develop essay questions, AUB students are asked to consider what they love, hate or are puzzled by in their practice – essentially, what moves them," says James. 

"A poor dissertation is inauthentically chosen for ease as opposed to interest," she adds. "It rambles and blusters, using complex language to mask insufficient research." 

"You can tell a mile off when the writer isn't interested," agrees Burston. "How can you expect the reader to care about it if you don't? Write about something that reflects your interests, focus and direction. I've read fascinating dissertations on topics as diverse as patterns in nature, and Brutalist car parks. Make me interested in what interests you."

For Edinburgh Napier graduate Fiona Winchester , this topic turned out to be typography in graphic novels. "I love reading them, but I think people still don't take them seriously as an art form, which is a shame," she says. For her dissertation, she conducted qualitative interviews using modified pages with and without imagery (shown above). 

Her advice is simple: "Narrow down your idea to be as precise as possible. The smaller your question, the easier it is to research and try to answer it."

If you're struggling to get the ball rolling on the actual writing process, Winchester advocates starting with whichever bit you have ideas for. "If you're stuck, it's so much easier to write in whatever order it comes to you, and then edit it into a dissertation, than to try write straight through from beginning to end," she insists.

03. Don't be afraid to talk to people

"I always think my students get the most out of the new streams of knowledge they find from talking to people," says McLeod. "It breaks down barriers and allows them to find answers to problems. Hopefully they will adopt that approach when designing for people also."

In some cases, this can involve interviewing your design heroes. "Students are very surprised when they send a question to Stefan Sagmeister , Milton Glaser or Michael Wolff and they reply with the most precious nugget of knowledge," smiles McLeod. 

But remember: it's your dissertation, so don't get lazy and expect your interview subject to do all the heavy lifting.

In other cases, it could be as simple as asking friends or family to help proofread. "It is quite daunting writing such a large body of text," admits Kaori Toh , a recent graduate from Central Saint Martins, whose dissertation explored the politics of design and technology.

"I often felt I'd get lost in all that text and research," she confesses. "Therefore, I would often send my drafts to a couple of friends to have them look through, and keep my writing cohesive."

04. Reflect on your design practice 

Most of all, dissertations are an opportunity to reflect on, and develop, your creative process as a designer. "Ultimately, it's your job to make your work relevant and credible, and the dissertation helps you learn how to do this," adds Burston. 

Of course, writing doesn't always come easily to visually minded people – and Burston highlights the fact that dyslexia is not uncommon amongst designers. 

"You're not on your own – in our profession, quite the opposite in fact – so do seek academic support, and just enjoy thinking and writing about 'stuff' that informs your practice," is his advice.

One of Burston's stand-out students from this year, Tom Baber , welcomed support from the university to help with his dyslexia. Baber's dissertation focused on type design, and particularly the extent to which the longwinded design process is worth the effort, compared to using an existing typeface.

"I saw it as an opportunity to approach other type designers and see what they thought. Turns out I'm not the first to ask the question," he smiles. "Writing my dissertation helped me change from a 'maker' mentality to a 'designer' mentality, and be more critical of my ideas."

Related articles:

• 15 things they didn't teach you at design school
• The skills every design graduate needs
• 5 alternative routes into design education

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What is a Dissertation (And How To Choose a Topic)?

Nailing down a dissertation topic can be difficult. We share thoughts and tips on choosing a topic for your dissertation that will have lasting impact.

Key Takeaways

• Most graduate students must complete a dissertation.
• A dissertation should be based on an original research topic of your choosing.
• Your goal is to choose a dissertation topic that addresses an important, unanswered question in your field.

The Dissertation—A Basic Overview

Graduate students are typically expected to create an original research question and conduct research based on this question while adhering to a formal experimental or scientific process. Subsequently, students must identify and pursue research aims and produce an original research paper providing critical analysis and outlining meaningful findings resulting from the research.

But for many students, selecting a dissertation topic can be the hardest part. That’s why we’ve outlined the helpful tips below.

It’s also worth noting that while high school students and undergraduate students in U.S. schools won’t typically be required to write a dissertation, the tips below can be useful for learning how to choose and write thesis topics at every level of education. Moreover, for students in pursuit of a master’s degree, the same tips can be readily applied to choosing from master’s thesis topics.

What to Know Before Choosing a Topic

For graduate students, a major part of the dissertation process will include working closely with an advisor or mentor. Your mentor will typically provide feedback and guidance at various steps of the process from fielding preliminary dissertation ideas and identifying your dissertation title to analyzing your research data and completing your research paper.

Your mentor may also be a part of the dissertation review board. Most graduate students will be required to defend their dissertation before this committee of scholars and experts. For most graduate students, and some undergraduate students in specialized programs, dissertation completion will be a major part of academic performance evaluation.

Choosing Dissertation Topics

Of course, before you get to all of the challenging steps above, you must choose a dissertation topic. The good news is that you have almost infinite options to choose from within your field. But that’s also the bad news. When it comes to choosing dissertation topics, the toughest part may be narrowing it down to a single topic.

With that in mind, we offer 10 Tips for choosing your dissertation topic .

1. Identify Your Dissertation Type

Dissertation topics will depend on the type of research you intend to do. This, in turn, depends on your field of study. Dissertation topics will often fall into two primary categories—empirical research and qualitative research.

Empirical research is often driven by your own independent field research and data gathering. This is more common in medical and natural science fields such as psychology dissertation topics, nursing dissertation topics, and subjects engaging modern technology such as computer science.

Qualitative research may be more common in fields where critical analysis is essential, such as art dissertation topics, international criminal law, business dissertation topics, and more. In these cases, existing knowledge would serve as a starting point for deeper assessment.

2. Explore Existing Data

Regardless of your subject area, your starting point will likely be existing research. This will help you differentiate between areas of existing knowledge and opportunities for deeper exploration.

Moreover, this step will give you a sense of the higher education dissertation topics that have been used in the past to explore your field. This can be a useful way to help you understand what might qualify as a viable dissertation topic.

3. Record Your Sources

As you delve into existing ideas and findings, you can also begin to gather your own body of sources on the subject. If this research is fruitful, many of these preliminary scholarly sources will form the backbone of your reference list. As you get deeper into your specific dissertation topic, this list will only grow.

4. Identify Unanswered Questions

As you explore the existing research, identify unanswered questions. Scholarly research articles will often recognize limitations to the existing study and even identify additional areas for future research. Highlight questions that might be worthy of deeper consideration as you conduct your preliminary research and reading.

5. Expand Your Research Based On Unanswered Questions

Follow the research trail for some of the most intriguing unanswered questions. Find out how deep the research goes on such topics.

Is there additional research that actually does address these questions? Have others in your field proposed similar questions in recent journal articles, scientific conferences or other public contexts? In other words, is this really an original idea? This step should help you eliminate any supposedly “unanswered questions” that are, in fact, answered elsewhere.

6. Consider Feasibility

How will you conduct the study? Using comparative analysis? Field research? Laboratory experiments with innovative technologies? In light of these needs, how realistic will it be to explore a given dissertation topic?

Be sure your institution has the resources to facilitate your research project. If additional funding or outside support is required, consider how realistic it will be to procure this support.

7. Weigh the Ethical Implications

Be sure that any research questions under consideration can be explored with full adherence to experimental ethics. This is an especially important point of consideration for those exploring sensitive topics like domestic violence, modern recovery programs, human rights abuses, and more.

Evaluate the possibility of ethical issues dealing with your topic or proposed experimental framework. Ultimately, your dissertation proposal will have to address these issues. This is a good first step in that direction.

8. Narrow Questions Based on Potential Impact

Now that you’ve narrowed down to dissertation topics that are original, feasible, and ethical, it’s time to think about why a given question might be worthy of exploration.

Some examples of questions you may want to explore include:

• How might your education dissertation topic improve our understanding of human cognitive development?
• Have you considered economics dissertation topics that might address unequal wealth distribution in America?
• Would your international law dissertation contribute to the way the global community handles human rights violations in developing countries?

Think about the ways that your research paper might help bring about real world policy change, improvements to the legal system, enhanced opportunity in the higher education sector, solutions to an economic crisis, more effective business management practices, or anything else that might positively impact knowledge, understanding and real-world outcomes in your field.

9. Identify Opportunities for Future Research

One indicator that you’ve stumbled onto a rich topic for research is the ability to mine the subject for continued exploration. Think about the ways that relevant data, empirical analysis, or consequent findings could spark additional critical thinking.

Can your chosen dissertation topic serve as the basis for future academic work? Will future college students or graduate students find the seedlings for their own research aims in your research?

While you may not necessarily choose to explore these additional questions yourself, one of the primary goals of your dissertation is to make a direct and lasting contribution to your field. Creating opportunities for others to critically analyze your findings and conduct further research is an indication that you have achieved this goal.

10. Factor in Personal Development

Dissertations certainly qualify as major academic achievements. But there’s a lot more to them. Most graduate students are already embedded in professional careers.

One of the best ways to whittle down your prospective dissertation topics is to look for ideas that apply both in your educational and professional pursuits. Indeed, aligning these interests will allow you to dive deeper into a topic that will advance your knowledge and expertise in the field where you currently work.

As a computer science student working in the gaming industry, you may conduct your research on a subject like the impact of educational games on cognitive development. A student pursuing a doctorate in business management while building a startup company might produce a dissertation on the impact of organizational culture when working in a virtual environment.

In other words, consider ways that your chosen dissertation topic can serve to advance your career even as you remain entrenched in your pursuit of a terminal degree.

And for more valuable tips on succeeding in your advanced degree program, see our Guide to Life in Graduate School .

Or get tips on studying, student life, and much more with a look at our Student Resources .

Dissertation Structure & Layout 101: How to structure your dissertation, thesis or research project.

By: Derek Jansen (MBA) Reviewed By: David Phair (PhD) | July 2019

So, you’ve got a decent understanding of what a dissertation is , you’ve chosen your topic and hopefully you’ve received approval for your research proposal . Awesome! Now its time to start the actual dissertation or thesis writing journey.

To craft a high-quality document, the very first thing you need to understand is dissertation structure . In this post, we’ll walk you through the generic dissertation structure and layout, step by step. We’ll start with the big picture, and then zoom into each chapter to briefly discuss the core contents. If you’re just starting out on your research journey, you should start with this post, which covers the big-picture process of how to write a dissertation or thesis .

*The Caveat *

In this post, we’ll be discussing a traditional dissertation/thesis structure and layout, which is generally used for social science research across universities, whether in the US, UK, Europe or Australia. However, some universities may have small variations on this structure (extra chapters, merged chapters, slightly different ordering, etc).

So, always check with your university if they have a prescribed structure or layout that they expect you to work with. If not, it’s safe to assume the structure we’ll discuss here is suitable. And even if they do have a prescribed structure, you’ll still get value from this post as we’ll explain the core contents of each section.  

Overview: S tructuring a dissertation or thesis

• Acknowledgements page
• Abstract (or executive summary)
• Table of contents , list of figures and tables
• Chapter 1: Introduction
• Chapter 2: Literature review
• Chapter 3: Methodology
• Chapter 4: Results
• Chapter 5: Discussion
• Chapter 6: Conclusion
• Reference list

As I mentioned, some universities will have slight variations on this structure. For example, they want an additional “personal reflection chapter”, or they might prefer the results and discussion chapter to be merged into one. Regardless, the overarching flow will always be the same, as this flow reflects the research process , which we discussed here – i.e.:

• The introduction chapter presents the core research question and aims .
• The literature review chapter assesses what the current research says about this question.
• The methodology, results and discussion chapters go about undertaking new research about this question.
• The conclusion chapter (attempts to) answer the core research question .

In other words, the dissertation structure and layout reflect the research process of asking a well-defined question(s), investigating, and then answering the question – see below.

To restate that – the structure and layout of a dissertation reflect the flow of the overall research process . This is essential to understand, as each chapter will make a lot more sense if you “get” this concept. If you’re not familiar with the research process, read this post before going further.

Right. Now that we’ve covered the big picture, let’s dive a little deeper into the details of each section and chapter. Oh and by the way, you can also grab our free dissertation/thesis template here to help speed things up.

The title page of your dissertation is the very first impression the marker will get of your work, so it pays to invest some time thinking about your title. But what makes for a good title? A strong title needs to be 3 things:

• Succinct (not overly lengthy or verbose)
• Specific (not vague or ambiguous)
• Representative of the research you’re undertaking (clearly linked to your research questions)

Typically, a good title includes mention of the following:

• The broader area of the research (i.e. the overarching topic)
• The specific focus of your research (i.e. your specific context)
• Indication of research design (e.g. quantitative , qualitative , or  mixed methods ).

For example:

A quantitative investigation [research design] into the antecedents of organisational trust [broader area] in the UK retail forex trading market [specific context/area of focus].

Again, some universities may have specific requirements regarding the format and structure of the title, so it’s worth double-checking expectations with your institution (if there’s no mention in the brief or study material).

Acknowledgements

This page provides you with an opportunity to say thank you to those who helped you along your research journey. Generally, it’s optional (and won’t count towards your marks), but it is academic best practice to include this.

So, who do you say thanks to? Well, there’s no prescribed requirements, but it’s common to mention the following people:

• Your dissertation supervisor or committee.
• Any professors, lecturers or academics that helped you understand the topic or methodologies.
• Any tutors, mentors or advisors.
• Your family and friends, especially spouse (for adult learners studying part-time).

There’s no need for lengthy rambling. Just state who you’re thankful to and for what (e.g. thank you to my supervisor, John Doe, for his endless patience and attentiveness) – be sincere. In terms of length, you should keep this to a page or less.

Abstract or executive summary

The dissertation abstract (or executive summary for some degrees) serves to provide the first-time reader (and marker or moderator) with a big-picture view of your research project. It should give them an understanding of the key insights and findings from the research, without them needing to read the rest of the report – in other words, it should be able to stand alone .

For it to stand alone, your abstract should cover the following key points (at a minimum):

• Your research questions and aims – what key question(s) did your research aim to answer?
• Your methodology – how did you go about investigating the topic and finding answers to your research question(s)?
• Your findings – following your own research, what did do you discover?
• Your conclusions – based on your findings, what conclusions did you draw? What answers did you find to your research question(s)?

So, in much the same way the dissertation structure mimics the research process, your abstract or executive summary should reflect the research process, from the initial stage of asking the original question to the final stage of answering that question.

In practical terms, it’s a good idea to write this section up last , once all your core chapters are complete. Otherwise, you’ll end up writing and rewriting this section multiple times (just wasting time). For a step by step guide on how to write a strong executive summary, check out this post .

Need a helping hand?

Table of contents

This section is straightforward. You’ll typically present your table of contents (TOC) first, followed by the two lists – figures and tables. I recommend that you use Microsoft Word’s automatic table of contents generator to generate your TOC. If you’re not familiar with this functionality, the video below explains it simply:

If you find that your table of contents is overly lengthy, consider removing one level of depth. Oftentimes, this can be done without detracting from the usefulness of the TOC.

Right, now that the “admin” sections are out of the way, its time to move on to your core chapters. These chapters are the heart of your dissertation and are where you’ll earn the marks. The first chapter is the introduction chapter – as you would expect, this is the time to introduce your research…

It’s important to understand that even though you’ve provided an overview of your research in your abstract, your introduction needs to be written as if the reader has not read that (remember, the abstract is essentially a standalone document). So, your introduction chapter needs to start from the very beginning, and should address the following questions:

• What will you be investigating (in plain-language, big picture-level)?
• Why is that worth investigating? How is it important to academia or business? How is it sufficiently original?
• What are your research aims and research question(s)? Note that the research questions can sometimes be presented at the end of the literature review (next chapter).
• What is the scope of your study? In other words, what will and won’t you cover ?
• How will you approach your research? In other words, what methodology will you adopt?
• How will you structure your dissertation? What are the core chapters and what will you do in each of them?

These are just the bare basic requirements for your intro chapter. Some universities will want additional bells and whistles in the intro chapter, so be sure to carefully read your brief or consult your research supervisor.

If done right, your introduction chapter will set a clear direction for the rest of your dissertation. Specifically, it will make it clear to the reader (and marker) exactly what you’ll be investigating, why that’s important, and how you’ll be going about the investigation. Conversely, if your introduction chapter leaves a first-time reader wondering what exactly you’ll be researching, you’ve still got some work to do.

Now that you’ve set a clear direction with your introduction chapter, the next step is the literature review . In this section, you will analyse the existing research (typically academic journal articles and high-quality industry publications), with a view to understanding the following questions:

• What does the literature currently say about the topic you’re investigating?
• Is the literature lacking or well established? Is it divided or in disagreement?
• How does your research fit into the bigger picture?
• How does your research contribute something original?
• How does the methodology of previous studies help you develop your own?

Depending on the nature of your study, you may also present a conceptual framework towards the end of your literature review, which you will then test in your actual research.

Again, some universities will want you to focus on some of these areas more than others, some will have additional or fewer requirements, and so on. Therefore, as always, its important to review your brief and/or discuss with your supervisor, so that you know exactly what’s expected of your literature review chapter.

Now that you’ve investigated the current state of knowledge in your literature review chapter and are familiar with the existing key theories, models and frameworks, its time to design your own research. Enter the methodology chapter – the most “science-ey” of the chapters…

In this chapter, you need to address two critical questions:

• Exactly HOW will you carry out your research (i.e. what is your intended research design)?
• Exactly WHY have you chosen to do things this way (i.e. how do you justify your design)?

Remember, the dissertation part of your degree is first and foremost about developing and demonstrating research skills . Therefore, the markers want to see that you know which methods to use, can clearly articulate why you’ve chosen then, and know how to deploy them effectively.

Importantly, this chapter requires detail – don’t hold back on the specifics. State exactly what you’ll be doing, with who, when, for how long, etc. Moreover, for every design choice you make, make sure you justify it.

In practice, you will likely end up coming back to this chapter once you’ve undertaken all your data collection and analysis, and revise it based on changes you made during the analysis phase. This is perfectly fine. Its natural for you to add an additional analysis technique, scrap an old one, etc based on where your data lead you. Of course, I’m talking about small changes here – not a fundamental switch from qualitative to quantitative, which will likely send your supervisor in a spin!

You’ve now collected your data and undertaken your analysis, whether qualitative, quantitative or mixed methods. In this chapter, you’ll present the raw results of your analysis . For example, in the case of a quant study, you’ll present the demographic data, descriptive statistics, inferential statistics , etc.

Typically, Chapter 4 is simply a presentation and description of the data, not a discussion of the meaning of the data. In other words, it’s descriptive, rather than analytical – the meaning is discussed in Chapter 5. However, some universities will want you to combine chapters 4 and 5, so that you both present and interpret the meaning of the data at the same time. Check with your institution what their preference is.

Now that you’ve presented the data analysis results, its time to interpret and analyse them. In other words, its time to discuss what they mean, especially in relation to your research question(s).

What you discuss here will depend largely on your chosen methodology. For example, if you’ve gone the quantitative route, you might discuss the relationships between variables . If you’ve gone the qualitative route, you might discuss key themes and the meanings thereof. It all depends on what your research design choices were.

Most importantly, you need to discuss your results in relation to your research questions and aims, as well as the existing literature. What do the results tell you about your research questions? Are they aligned with the existing research or at odds? If so, why might this be? Dig deep into your findings and explain what the findings suggest, in plain English.

The final chapter – you’ve made it! Now that you’ve discussed your interpretation of the results, its time to bring it back to the beginning with the conclusion chapter . In other words, its time to (attempt to) answer your original research question s (from way back in chapter 1). Clearly state what your conclusions are in terms of your research questions. This might feel a bit repetitive, as you would have touched on this in the previous chapter, but its important to bring the discussion full circle and explicitly state your answer(s) to the research question(s).

Next, you’ll typically discuss the implications of your findings? In other words, you’ve answered your research questions – but what does this mean for the real world (or even for academia)? What should now be done differently, given the new insight you’ve generated?

Lastly, you should discuss the limitations of your research, as well as what this means for future research in the area. No study is perfect, especially not a Masters-level. Discuss the shortcomings of your research. Perhaps your methodology was limited, perhaps your sample size was small or not representative, etc, etc. Don’t be afraid to critique your work – the markers want to see that you can identify the limitations of your work. This is a strength, not a weakness. Be brutal!

This marks the end of your core chapters – woohoo! From here on out, it’s pretty smooth sailing.

The reference list is straightforward. It should contain a list of all resources cited in your dissertation, in the required format, e.g. APA , Harvard, etc.

It’s essential that you use reference management software for your dissertation. Do NOT try handle your referencing manually – its far too error prone. On a reference list of multiple pages, you’re going to make mistake. To this end, I suggest considering either Mendeley or Zotero. Both are free and provide a very straightforward interface to ensure that your referencing is 100% on point. I’ve included a simple how-to video for the Mendeley software (my personal favourite) below:

Some universities may ask you to include a bibliography, as opposed to a reference list. These two things are not the same . A bibliography is similar to a reference list, except that it also includes resources which informed your thinking but were not directly cited in your dissertation. So, double-check your brief and make sure you use the right one.

The very last piece of the puzzle is the appendix or set of appendices. This is where you’ll include any supporting data and evidence. Importantly, supporting is the keyword here.

Your appendices should provide additional “nice to know”, depth-adding information, which is not critical to the core analysis. Appendices should not be used as a way to cut down word count (see this post which covers how to reduce word count ). In other words, don’t place content that is critical to the core analysis here, just to save word count. You will not earn marks on any content in the appendices, so don’t try to play the system!

Time to recap…

And there you have it – the traditional dissertation structure and layout, from A-Z. To recap, the core structure for a dissertation or thesis is (typically) as follows:

• Acknowledgments page

Most importantly, the core chapters should reflect the research process (asking, investigating and answering your research question). Moreover, the research question(s) should form the golden thread throughout your dissertation structure. Everything should revolve around the research questions, and as you’ve seen, they should form both the start point (i.e. introduction chapter) and the endpoint (i.e. conclusion chapter).

I hope this post has provided you with clarity about the traditional dissertation/thesis structure and layout. If you have any questions or comments, please leave a comment below, or feel free to get in touch with us. Also, be sure to check out the rest of the  Grad Coach Blog .

Psst… there’s more (for free)

This post is part of our dissertation mini-course, which covers everything you need to get started with your dissertation, thesis or research project. 

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36 Comments

many thanks i found it very useful

Glad to hear that, Arun. Good luck writing your dissertation.

Such clear practical logical advice. I very much needed to read this to keep me focused in stead of fretting.. Perfect now ready to start my research!

what about scientific fields like computer or engineering thesis what is the difference in the structure? thank you very much

Thanks so much this helped me a lot!

Very helpful and accessible. What I like most is how practical the advice is along with helpful tools/ links.

Thanks Ade!

Thank you so much sir.. It was really helpful..

You’re welcome!

Hi! How many words maximum should contain the abstract?

Thank you so much 😊 Find this at the right moment

You’re most welcome. Good luck with your dissertation.

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Many times Clarity and vision of destination of dissertation is what makes the difference between good ,average and great researchers the same way a great automobile driver is fast with clarity of address and Clear weather conditions .

I guess Great researcher = great ideas + knowledge + great and fast data collection and modeling + great writing + high clarity on all these

You have given immense clarity from start to end.

Morning. Where will I write the definitions of what I’m referring to in my report?

Thank you so much Derek, I was almost lost! Thanks a tonnnn! Have a great day!

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This was very helpful. Clear and concise. I know exactly what to do now.

Thank you for allowing me to go through briefly. I hope to find time to continue.

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Very interesting! It will definitely set me and many more for success. highly recommended.

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Very nice and easy to understand. Thank you .

That was incredibly useful. Thanks Grad Coach Crew!

My stress level just dropped at least 15 points after watching this. Just starting my thesis for my grad program and I feel a lot more capable now! Thanks for such a clear and helpful video, Emma and the GradCoach team!

Do we need to mention the number of words the dissertation contains in the main document?

It depends on your university’s requirements, so it would be best to check with them 🙂

Such a helpful post to help me get started with structuring my masters dissertation, thank you!

Great video; I appreciate that helpful information

It is so necessary or avital course

This blog is very informative for my research. Thank you

Doctoral students are required to fill out the National Research Council’s Survey of Earned Doctorates

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How can i arrange my specific objectives in my dissertation?

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Writing a Masterpiece of an Art Thesis

An art thesis needs to combine both artistic talent and knowledge of theory.

Art Thesis may be written on any topic that can be considered as art or connected with the arts. Art is a very broad subject unlike many other disciplines. It is borderless. Because of this reason there is disagreement as to the definition of art. There is a branch of philosophy that studies about art. Philosophy of art is called aesthetics. Anyway art is generally considered actions performed and the objects created to express and share the thoughts, feelings, emotions and experiences of an artist. The purpose of the artistic creations is to share or stimulate the thoughts, feelings, emotions and sensory experiences. The form of art can be classified under different branches depending on the medium used by the artist to express himself/herself. Branches of art are classified according to the medium.

• Performing arts: Dance, Music, Theatre

• Visual Arts: Painting, Photography, Sculpture, Architecture, Interior Design, Landscaping

• Literature: play, novels, short stories, poetry

Anything can pass as art depending on the artist’s ability, skill and mastery to express or share his/her ideas, feelings, emotions, and experiences with others effectively by creating what he/she calls as a work of art using any medium. Therefore the author of the art thesis also can write on any topic if he/she can prove that topic is connected to the arts. The main idea of the thesis is to study deeply into the topic to find out how it connects with the artistic expression of feelings, emotions and experiences.

Select a Narrow Specific Thesis Idea

Though the art is a broad subject your thesis topic should be narrow enough to tell anything concrete. Traditionally students select projects for their Master in Fine Arts (MFA) degree, and produce works of art to show their insight, mastery and the knowledge on the selected medium, techniques, and the materials apart from their knowledge on the subject area. Other students must do some research to write a thesis to show their academic excellence in the selected area of study. The study has to be original and must make a contribution to the knowledge on the topic. There are some common traditional thesis types for art thesis.

• Monograph is a thesis written on an artist. The thesis may examine some aspect of the artist’s work, and a comparison and contrast with other contemporaries, and connection of character of his expression to his background. For instance a student may choose to write on the “Influence of Greek Orthodox Religious Background to El Greco’s Paintings”. This thesis cannot go out of hand and limited to a very specific area. And there are enough opportunities to study deeply into the subject and this is a subject which is not adequately researched.

• A synthesis essay also can be written on a topic combining two or more theories on a subject area in art. Two opposing views on the same topic can be contrasted and assert your stand on it.

• You can select a theory on art and give a critical overview on it.

If you are settled for a thesis idea, a narrowed down thesis topic and your stand, now you can write the thesis statement. Discuss your professor or the instructor and get the approval for your topic.

Start the Writing with the Thesis Outline

Now you have a firm thesis Statement. You must write down your thesis outline. You must give thought to the type, and means of obtaining of relevant research material. Collect the material and find evidence for proving your art thesis. Follow the normal thesis structure and keep on adding flesh to your outline. Write the introductory chapter giving background information to educate the readers and stating your thesis. Then you may present your case writing one chapter for each of your points or arguments. Your two or three chapters that argue your case must be connected so as to give coherence to the essay as a whole. Keep the most important argument to the last. Final conclusive Chapter must restate your thesis summing up the arguments. Write an abstract of your thesis essay. This should come before the introduction. Many students taking courses in arts may find it difficult to write theses as their medium for self expression may be something else. Nevertheless, they have to get the good grades for their subjects. If you are not confident to write a thesis without any help it is always advantageous to get professional thesis help .

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• How to Write a Thesis Statement | 4 Steps & Examples

How to Write a Thesis Statement | 4 Steps & Examples

Published on January 11, 2019 by Shona McCombes . Revised on August 15, 2023 by Eoghan Ryan.

A thesis statement is a sentence that sums up the central point of your paper or essay . It usually comes near the end of your introduction .

Your thesis will look a bit different depending on the type of essay you’re writing. But the thesis statement should always clearly state the main idea you want to get across. Everything else in your essay should relate back to this idea.

You can write your thesis statement by following four simple steps:

• Start with a question
• Write your initial answer
• Develop your answer
• Refine your thesis statement

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Table of contents

What is a thesis statement, placement of the thesis statement, step 1: start with a question, step 2: write your initial answer, step 3: develop your answer, step 4: refine your thesis statement, types of thesis statements, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about thesis statements.

A thesis statement summarizes the central points of your essay. It is a signpost telling the reader what the essay will argue and why.

The best thesis statements are:

• Concise: A good thesis statement is short and sweet—don’t use more words than necessary. State your point clearly and directly in one or two sentences.
• Contentious: Your thesis shouldn’t be a simple statement of fact that everyone already knows. A good thesis statement is a claim that requires further evidence or analysis to back it up.
• Coherent: Everything mentioned in your thesis statement must be supported and explained in the rest of your paper.

Prevent plagiarism. Run a free check.

The thesis statement generally appears at the end of your essay introduction or research paper introduction .

The spread of the internet has had a world-changing effect, not least on the world of education. The use of the internet in academic contexts and among young people more generally is hotly debated. For many who did not grow up with this technology, its effects seem alarming and potentially harmful. This concern, while understandable, is misguided. The negatives of internet use are outweighed by its many benefits for education: the internet facilitates easier access to information, exposure to different perspectives, and a flexible learning environment for both students and teachers.

You should come up with an initial thesis, sometimes called a working thesis , early in the writing process . As soon as you’ve decided on your essay topic , you need to work out what you want to say about it—a clear thesis will give your essay direction and structure.

You might already have a question in your assignment, but if not, try to come up with your own. What would you like to find out or decide about your topic?

For example, you might ask:

After some initial research, you can formulate a tentative answer to this question. At this stage it can be simple, and it should guide the research process and writing process .

Now you need to consider why this is your answer and how you will convince your reader to agree with you. As you read more about your topic and begin writing, your answer should get more detailed.

In your essay about the internet and education, the thesis states your position and sketches out the key arguments you’ll use to support it.

The negatives of internet use are outweighed by its many benefits for education because it facilitates easier access to information.

In your essay about braille, the thesis statement summarizes the key historical development that you’ll explain.

The invention of braille in the 19th century transformed the lives of blind people, allowing them to participate more actively in public life.

A strong thesis statement should tell the reader:

• Why you hold this position
• What they’ll learn from your essay
• The key points of your argument or narrative

The final thesis statement doesn’t just state your position, but summarizes your overall argument or the entire topic you’re going to explain. To strengthen a weak thesis statement, it can help to consider the broader context of your topic.

These examples are more specific and show that you’ll explore your topic in depth.

Your thesis statement should match the goals of your essay, which vary depending on the type of essay you’re writing:

• In an argumentative essay , your thesis statement should take a strong position. Your aim in the essay is to convince your reader of this thesis based on evidence and logical reasoning.
• In an expository essay , you’ll aim to explain the facts of a topic or process. Your thesis statement doesn’t have to include a strong opinion in this case, but it should clearly state the central point you want to make, and mention the key elements you’ll explain.

If you want to know more about AI tools , college essays , or fallacies make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples or go directly to our tools!

• Ad hominem fallacy
• Post hoc fallacy
• Appeal to authority fallacy
• False cause fallacy
• Sunk cost fallacy

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A thesis statement is a sentence that sums up the central point of your paper or essay . Everything else you write should relate to this key idea.

The thesis statement is essential in any academic essay or research paper for two main reasons:

• It gives your writing direction and focus.
• It gives the reader a concise summary of your main point.

Without a clear thesis statement, an essay can end up rambling and unfocused, leaving your reader unsure of exactly what you want to say.

Follow these four steps to come up with a thesis statement :

• Ask a question about your topic .
• Write your initial answer.
• Develop your answer by including reasons.
• Refine your answer, adding more detail and nuance.

The thesis statement should be placed at the end of your essay introduction .

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Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Digital art'

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Consult the top 50 dissertations / theses for your research on the topic 'Digital art.'

Next to every source in the list of references, there is an 'Add to bibliography' button. Press on it, and we will generate automatically the bibliographic reference to the chosen work in the citation style you need: APA, MLA, Harvard, Chicago, Vancouver, etc.

You can also download the full text of the academic publication as pdf and read online its abstract whenever available in the metadata.

Browse dissertations / theses on a wide variety of disciplines and organise your bibliography correctly.

Holder, John Frans Patrick. "Immersive, digital, expressive, art." Thesis, University of East London, 2011. http://roar.uel.ac.uk/3137/.

Bergman, John. "IMMERSIVE GALLERY OF DIGITAL ART." Thesis, KTH, Arkitektur, 2018. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-223228.

Kavanaugh, Anya. "Effectiveness of Digital Response Art." Digital Commons at Loyola Marymount University and Loyola Law School, 2020. https://digitalcommons.lmu.edu/etd/905.

Jones, Benjamin David. "Digital butterflies of the backstreets : participatory art and the digital divide." Thesis, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/10443/3063.

Edström, Jesper, and Nicky Ristic. "Digital art recommendation system : A personalized virtual tour of digital collections." Thesis, Uppsala universitet, Institutionen för informationsteknologi, 2021. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-449497.

Casbarro, Shaun M. "Experimental digital printing methods." Virtual Press, 2003. http://liblink.bsu.edu/uhtbin/catkey/1265100.

Christiansen, Lauren. "Redefining exhibition in the digital age /." This body of writing is available online with supplemental images, 2010. http://exhibitioninthedigitalage.tumblr.com/.

DE, VINCENTIS Stefania. "Il museo di arte antica in una prospettiva digitale. Progetti di Digital Art History tra teoria e applicazione all'interno dei luoghi della cultura." Doctoral thesis, Università degli studi di Ferrara, 2020. http://hdl.handle.net/11392/2478840.

Milton-Smith, Melissa. "A conversation on globalisation and digital art." University of Western Australia. Communication Studies Discipline Group, 2008. http://theses.library.uwa.edu.au/adt-WU2009.0057.

Konstantelos, Leonidas. "Digital art in digital libraries : a study of user-oriented information retrieval." Thesis, University of Glasgow, 2009. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/1333/.

Minnie, Heinrich. "Homunculi of the Digital City." Master's thesis, Faculty of Humanities, 2021. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/32863.

Heron, Julie. "The art of homecoming." Thesis, University of Ballarat, 2002. http://researchonline.federation.edu.au/vital/access/HandleResolver/1959.17/43455.

Heron, Julie. "The art of homecoming." University of Ballarat, 2002. http://archimedes.ballarat.edu.au:8080/vital/access/HandleResolver/1959.17/14603.

Sheridan, Jennifer Gayle. "Digital live art : mediating wittingness in playful arenas." Thesis, Lancaster University, 2006. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.442720.

Lotz, Felix. "A conversation between Art Nouveau and Digital design." Thesis, KTH, Arkitektur, 2016. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-193091.

Lilas, Zilvinas. "The work of art in the digital era." The Ohio State University, 1996. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1327337143.

Lam, Yui-yim Margaret. "Realm of media art." Hong Kong : University of Hong Kong, 1999. http://sunzi.lib.hku.hk/hkuto/record.jsp?B25947382.

Chan, Ching-yan Janet, and 陳靜昕. "On digital aesthetics: scrutinizing aestheticstudies in the digital era." Thesis, The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong), 2004. http://hub.hku.hk/bib/B30681893.

Andersen, Evan. "An analysis of the art image interchange cycle within fine art museums /." Online version of thesis, 2010. http://hdl.handle.net/1850/11981.

Turner, Rhys. "Etherscapes massless, elastic, technology and control /." Connect to full text, 2004. http://hdl.handle.net/2123/1100.

Choe, Nancy Sunjin. "An Exploration of the Qualities and Features of Digital Art Media in Art Therapy." Digital Commons at Loyola Marymount University and Loyola Law School, 2013. https://digitalcommons.lmu.edu/etd/19.

Chan, Ching-yan Janet. "On digital aesthetics scrutinizing aesthetic studies in the digital era /." Click to view the E-thesis via HKUTO, 2004. http://sunzi.lib.hku.hk/hkuto/record/B30681893.

McBurnie, Jonathan. "Collisions: drawing in the digital age." Thesis, The University of Sydney, 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/2123/13133.

Waelder, Laso Pau. "Selling and collecting art in the network society: Interactions among contemporary art new media and the art market." Doctoral thesis, Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/10803/399029.

Johnson, Mia. "Digital art on the World Wide Web, 1996-1997." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 1997. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk3/ftp04/nq25074.pdf.

Sniadecki, John Paul. "Digital Jianghu: Independent Documentary in a Beijing Art Village." Thesis, Harvard University, 2013. http://dissertations.umi.com/gsas.harvard:10971.

Hancock, Mary T. "Cultivating Territories and Historicity: The Digital Art of Skawennati." University of Cincinnati / OhioLINK, 2014. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1396530332.

Clifford, Alison. "Articulating the interstitial : interpretive responses in digital art practice." Thesis, Glasgow School of Art, 2014. http://radar.gsa.ac.uk/3716/.

Paquette, Andrew John. "The development of proficiency among undergraduate digital art students." Thesis, King's College London (University of London), 2018. https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/en/theses/the-development-of-proficiency-among-undergraduate-digital-art-students(1eecb985-b369-4207-aaa0-80383188c0aa).html.

Calderone, Ursula University of Ballarat. "I hope that I have got some art." University of Ballarat, 2008. http://archimedes.ballarat.edu.au:8080/vital/access/HandleResolver/1959.17/12783.

Calderone, Ursula. "I hope that I have got some art." Thesis, University of Ballarat, 2008. http://researchonline.federation.edu.au/vital/access/HandleResolver/1959.17/54811.

Calderone, Ursula. "I hope that I have got some art." University of Ballarat, 2008. http://archimedes.ballarat.edu.au:8080/vital/access/HandleResolver/1959.17/14619.

Geiger, William. "The art educator's role in technology education." Online version, 2009. http://www.uwstout.edu/lib/thesis/2009/2009geigerw.pdf.

Hartley, Julian Alex. "Museums and the digital public space : researching digital engagement practice at the Whitworth Art Gallery." Thesis, University of Manchester, 2015. https://www.research.manchester.ac.uk/portal/en/theses/museums-and-the-digital-public-space-researching-digital-engagement-practiceat-the-whitworth-art-gallery(8eebb8f4-b0b5-4e40-a419-50be3c2e6e9a).html.

Boivie, Joakim. "Digital Wanderlust : Med digital materia som följeslagare i skapandet." Thesis, Blekinge Tekniska Högskola, Institutionen för teknik och estetik, 2017. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:bth-14703.

Yen, Koon-wai Michael. "Urban channel for electronic media and arts." Hong Kong : University of Hong Kong, 1996. http://sunzi.lib.hku.hk/hkuto/record.jsp?B25951397.

Salisbury, Brian. "OF GODS, BEASTS AND MEN: DIGITAL SCULPTURE." Master's thesis, Orlando, Fla. : University of Central Florida, 2009. http://purl.fcla.edu/fcla/etd/CFE0002587.

Hermosilla, Abby L. "Virtual Elsewhere/s: Decolonizing Cyberspace in Skawennati's Digital Territories." Kent State University / OhioLINK, 2021. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1619431752147577.

Clinnin, Kaitlin Marie. "Beyond Binary Digital Embodiment." Thesis, Virginia Tech, 2012. http://hdl.handle.net/10919/32341.

Meintjes, Anthony Arthur. ""From digital to darkroom"." Thesis, Rhodes University, 2001. http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1007418.

Marner, Anders. "Digital media embedded in Swedish art education : a case study." Umeå universitet, Institutionen för estetiska ämnen i lärarutbildningen, 2013. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:umu:diva-71559.

Partin-Harding, Melissa C. "Innovative Teaching Strategies: Teaching Art Photography In The Digital World." Bowling Green State University / OhioLINK, 2011. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1308282675.

Suliman, Helen-Joy. "Framing the digital the viewing environment for web specific art work /." Access electronically, 2004. http://ro.uow.edu.au/theses/234.

Gasparetto, Débora Aita. "Arte digital no Brasil e as (re)configurações no sistema da arte." reponame:Biblioteca Digital de Teses e Dissertações da UFRGS, 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/10183/150958.

Haute, Lucile. "Performer dans les environnements mixtes : Actualisation de l'espace programmé." Thesis, Saint-Etienne, 2014. http://www.theses.fr/2014STET2197/document.

Kruger, Leanne. "Metapolis : virtual reality vs. real virtuality in a digital art pavillion." Diss., University of Pretoria, 2011. http://hdl.handle.net/2263/29982.

Hempson, Garth Jake. "The naturally imperfect form : investigations of the application of digital sculpting methods - extracted art : incorporating and translating ‘found art’ into the medium of digital sculpture." Thesis, Queensland University of Technology, 2012. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/60246/1/Garth_Hempson_Thesis.pdf.

Agyeman, Cynthia A. "Artists' Perception of the Use of Digital Media in Painting." Ohio University / OhioLINK, 2015. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1443101832.

Ferreira, Daniel Peixoto. "Expressividade procedural: narrativas e jogos digitais." Universidade de São Paulo, 2016. http://www.teses.usp.br/teses/disponiveis/27/27159/tde-22092016-141634/.

Santos, Pedro Miguel Baptista dos. "Industrias criativas: o papel da escola na formação dos artistas digitais." Master's thesis, Universidade de Évora, 2021. http://hdl.handle.net/10174/30135.

Delta Passage: 2024 MFA Thesis Exhibition

March 26 - April 13, 2024 Delta Passage 

Saturday, March 30, 2024 Public Program | 6:00 - 6:30 PM Reception | 6:30 - 8:30 PM

The gallery is closed Tuesday, March 26, due to inclement weather and will reopen Wednesday, March 27.

The Katherine E. Nash Gallery at the University of Minnesota is proud to present Delta Passage , a thesis exhibition featuring the work of Namir Fearce, Whalen Polikoff, and Calvin Stalvig, all of whom are about to complete their Master of Fine Arts degrees in the Department of Art. Drawing from the exhibition’s title, a delta marks the point of convergence where a river empties into another body of water. In relation to water, deltas signify transition, often a movement into—or merging with—something larger. 

Entering the program together in September of 2021, this trio is now at the precipice of their own delta. Remixing a triad of video, sculpture, and photographic images, Fearce’s work invokes the wisdom of fugitive genealogies to unearth liberated joy from grief. Through large scale painting and video projection, Polikoff pulls at the seams of conservative nationalist desires in order to critique the consequences of state-sanctioned violence. Finding magic in the domestic everyday, Stalvig’s installations gather notions of the sacred, across cultures, to create unworldly encounters with objects. An amalgamation of fertile ideas and approaches spanning the last three years, Delta Passage is an invitation to wade in deep and experience these three distinct, yet overlapping, bodies of work.

Saturday, March 30, 2024 Public Program | 6:00 - 6:30 PM | InFlux Space, E110 Reception | 6:30 - 8:30 PM | Regis East Lobby

That same evening visit Bill Gaskins: Black Mystery Month in the Quarter Gallery and Fresh Works in the Regis West Gallery.

About the Artists:

Namir fearce.

Namir Fearce holds a BFA in Studio Art with a concentration in film and sculpture from the University of Illinois Chicago. His work has been featured in  Dazed ,  Paper ,  Them , and  Office Magazine , in addition to  The New York Times . He is a 2020 Walker Arts Fellow and a Black Harvest Film Festival nominated director. Fearce most recently curated, directed, and produced a multi media performance and storytelling festival,  Hi Cotton , which has been shown in Minneapolis, Rio De Janeiro, and Berlin.

Artist Statement

Namir Fearce is a North Minneapolis born interdisciplinary artist and cultural worker. His studio practice engages experimental film, assemblage, and music under the moniker Blu Bone. Fearce is informed by a constellation of Black Indigenous histories and sites of memory that weave complex emo-political worldscapes, while conjuring a futurity of pleasure and freedom. The emo-political is the positionality of the fugitive—those who by embracing their Indigenous technologies of survival, somatic, and pleasure based knowledge, agitate and resist the white fascistic cognitive schema and doctrine of domination.

Fearce’s work collapses, samples, and collages these histories and sites of experience to transmute grief as a technology of survival and practice of cultural resistance. Through performance he embodies across species to access an expanded empathy, an understanding of the reversal, and the way of the blues. Across all facets of his practice exist sites of ritual and ceremony that visually, sonically, and somatically converge and reverberate to generate a feedback loop as the blues does—a portal that opens to a collective reimagining.

Whalen Polikoff

Whalen Polikoff (b.1996, United States) received his BFA in sculpture from the Lyme Academy College of Fine Arts in 2019. He is an interdisciplinary artist working in painting, drawing, printmaking and sculpture. He navigates the visual, verbal, metaphysical culture that shaped his early childhood growing up in Central New York. As a cancer survivor, his diagnosis in highschool continues to inform the urgency of his practice and his relationship to survival. 

My work addresses the visual, verbal, and metaphysical culture that shaped my early childhood. At the heart of this culture was a desire for national and social belonging—a promise of safety. We see these same desires made tangible through the conservative nationalism that can be found in america’s mainstream political parties and identities. The biden administration, with backing from the democratic and republican parties, continues to aid the aparthied state of israel in its genocide of the Palestinian people. My work bears witness to the justification of atrocities by the state as a result of nationalist complacency and conditioned ambivalence towards violence. 

Calvin Stalvig

Calvin Stalvig creates sculpture, installation, works on paper, digital collage, video, and performance. By approaching artmaking with a child’s curiosity and love for the material world, he alchemizes the everyday ordinary into poetic compositions charged with sacred symbols and relationships. Calvin has exhibited at The Invisible Dog Art Center, Brooklyn, NY; Governors Island, New York, NY; Electronic + Textiles Institute Berlin; and Regis Center for Art, Minneapolis, MN. His work has been included in Issue 2 of the Minneapolis-based publication Scorched Feet / Quemados Pies. He is the former Director of Youth Programs at Beam Center in Brooklyn and holds an M.A. in Youth Development from City University of New York.

Artist Statement I was born and raised in a family of folk painters, assemblage artists, and stage actors living on the harbor’s edge of Lake Superior Gitchi-gaami—one of Earth’s largest freshwater portals to the underworld. I am a sensualist compelled by a desire to feel, taste, manipulate and co-create with the world around me. To this end, my practice slips between mediums. I cast beeswax in silicone and iron in sand. I stitch industrial felt into rock formations inspired by the Icelandic landscape. I epoxy stacks of glass into trophies while dreaming of future collaborations with glassmakers in Murano. 

The Katherine E. Nash Gallery spans 5,000 square feet for the presentation of exhibitions and related programming that engage with a wide range of artists, scholars, and collaborative partners.

Location Regis Center for Art (East) 405 21st Avenue South Minneapolis, MN 55455

Gallery Hours Tuesday - Saturday, 11 am – 5 pm

The Regis Center for Art is locked to the public on Saturdays, with U-card access only. Visitors can call 612-624-7530 to gain entrance into the galleries and should plan to enter the building's main entrance located on 21st Avenue South directly across from the parking garage.

Upcoming Closures April 22-29, Closed for Installation

Contact Us [email protected] 612-624-7530

Parking & Public Transit Learn more about the parking options below : 21st Avenue South ramp 5th Street South lot 19th Avenue South ramp

Hourly metered parking is available nearby on 22nd Avenue South and Locust Street .  The gallery is accessible via Metro Transit buses and light rail lines. For your best route, visit  Metro Transit Trip Planner .

Accessibility  Regis Center for Art is accessible to visitors who use mobility devices or prefer to avoid stairs. Service animals are welcome in the gallery.

A fully accessible, gender neutral restroom is available on the 2nd floor of the Regis Center for Art (West). To access this restroom, take the elevator to the 2nd floor and proceed across the skyway towards Regis West. As you exit the skyway the restroom will be directly across from you. Fully accessible gendered restrooms are located directly to the left hand side when exiting the gallery on the first floor of Regis Center for Art (East).

Large bags and backpacks must be left at the gallery front desk with the attendant. In order to protect the art, no food or drink is allowed in the gallery.

April 30 - May 11, 2024 VItal Condition (BFA Thesis)

Thursday, May 2, 6:00-9:00 PM Public Program | 6:00 - 7:00 PM  Reception | 7:00 - 9:00 PM Outdoors at the Regis Center for Art

Join us for a joint program from 6:00-7:00 pm for the BFA and BA Spring Class of 2024, followed by a reception with light refreshments from 7:00-9:00 PM, rain or shine, outdoors at the Regis Center for Art.

January 16 - December 27, 2024 Dreaming Our Futures: Ojibwe and Očhéthi Šakówiŋ Artists and Knowledge Keepers Katherine E. Nash Gallery | January 16 - March 16, 2024 Rochester Art Center | April 24 – July 21, 2024 Tweed Museum of Art | September 3 – December 27, 2024

September 12 - December 9, 2023 Regis Center for Art 20th Anniversary Exhibitions: Works by Faculty and Staff

May 2 - 13, 2023 Heart of the Matter (BFA Thesis)

March 28 - April 15, 2023 lineage  (MFA Thesis)

January 17 - March 18, 2023 A Tender Spirit, A Vital Form: Arlene Burke-Morgan & Clarence Morgan

September 13 - December 10, 2022 A Picture Gallery of the Soul

January 21 - March 28, 2020 The Beginning of Everything

September 10 – December 7, 2019 Queer Forms

September 15, 2015 - January 27, 2019 Covered in Time and History: The Films of Ana Mendieta   Katherine E. Nash Gallery | September 15 - December 12, 2015 NSU Art Museum | February 28 - July 3, 2016 BAMPFA | November 9, 2016 - January 15, 2017 Bildmuseet | June 18, 2017 - October 22, 2017 Martin-Gropius-Bau | April 20 - July 22, 2018 Jeu de Paume | October 16, 2018 - January 27, 2019

Mission The Katherine E. Nash Gallery is a research laboratory for the practice and interpretation of the visual arts . 

Vision We believe the visual arts have the capacity to interpret, critique, and expand on all of human experience. Our engagement with the visual arts helps us to discover who we are and understand our relationships to each other and society.

The Katherine E. Nash Gallery will be a center of discourse on the practice of visual art and its relationship to culture and community — a place where we examine our assumptions about the past and suggest possibilities for the future.

The Nash Gallery will play an indispensable role in the educational development of students, faculty, staff, and the community.

History Professor Katherine "Katy" E. Nash (1910–1982), a faculty member of the Department of Art from 1961–1976, proposed that the Student Union create a university art gallery. Founded in 1979, the gallery moved to its current location in the Regis Center for Art in 2003. Learn more about the remarkable life and work of Professor Nash .

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‘Art and Architecture of Migration and Discrimination’ released

History of Art and Visual Studies

By | Staff , College of Architecture, Art, and Planning

Esra Akcan , Michael A. McCarthy Professor of Architectural Theory (AAP), and Iftikhar Dadi , John H. Burris Professor of Art History and Visual Studies (A&S), recently published Art and Architecture of Migration and Discrimination: Turkey, Pakistan, and their European Diasporas (Routledge, 2024) , a collection of essays on art and architecture that reveal both distinct and convergent histories, stories, and experiences of late 20th-century Muslim migrations and diasporas in Europe.

"During the second half of the 20th century, enormous compulsory migrations from these two countries resulted in significant Muslim diasporic communities in cities such as London and Berlin, yet they have never been studied together," says Akcan. "This book brings together an array of architecture and artistic media that responds to the conditions of the diaspora. What we find is that discrimination has been both the cause and result of migration — for example, internal problems have compelled citizens to emigrate, and blatant discriminatory and ideological constructs shape their experiences in their countries of arrival as well."

The book's subject matter is largely informed by a 2017 Mellon Collaborative Studies seminar co-taught at Cornell by Akcan and Dadi on the relationship between migration, discrimination, and the city. The seminar, which took place against the backdrop of the largest refugee crisis since World War II due to the war in Syria, prompted reflections on statecraft, neoliberalism, and crony capitalism and addressed matters related to statelessness, citizenship, human rights, and violence. Along with Akcan, Dadi, and other scholars, a number of doctoral students in the class contributed essays to the publication, including Aslihan Günhan, Ecem Sarıçayır, Lara Fresko, and Vinh Phu Pham.

According to Akcan and Dadi, the book's power is in the essays, which when read together show how mass-enforced displacement emerges from these cases not as a pathology specific to the Middle East and South Asia, but as a central policy of nation formation — a European concept and type of governmental entity that became an international norm during the decolonization processes and postwar reparations of the 20th century — which tragically resulted in new forms of violence in the world, rather than repairing the damages of colonization, WWI, or WWII.

For a complete list of contributing authors and a preview of this title, please visit the Taylor & Frances website to download a PDF.

Art and Architecture of Migration and Discrimination , edited by Esra Akcan and Iftikhar Dadi is one of many recent faculty publications to be featured in AAP's annual Launchpad event on April 17, 2024. Launchpad is held in Milstein Hall and is free and open to the public. The event includes presentations by the authors as well as a reception with opportunities to peruse and purchase many of the publications.

Read the story on the College of Architecture, Art, and Planning website.

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Center for Latin American Visual Studies | Department of Art and Art History | University of Texas at Austin

March 26, 2024 , Filed Under: Uncategorized

Schedule of 2024 ISLAA Forum Participant Dissertation Presentations

DISSERTATION PRESENTATIONS

Friday, April 5

9AM-12:15PM + 2PM-4:30PM

DFA 2.204  

Open to the public

SESSION I  

Each presentation followed by discussion  

9:05 Lynne Lee  

Rice University  

Black Art in White Narratives: Early Afro-Brazilian Art History at the Crossroads of Science and Aesthetics  

9:40 Juan Gabriel Ramírez Bolivar  

Institute of Fine Arts, New York University  

The Idea of Hispanoamérica in the Visual Culture of Mexico and Colombia (1920-1940)  

10:15 COFFEE BREAK, Dean’s Patio in DFA  

10:45 Joseph Shaikewitz  

Incongruent, Incomprehensible: Trans Femme Visualities in Latin America, 1900–1960  

11:20 Alhelí Harvey  

University of Texas at Austin  

Experiencing Enchantment: A Cultural Ecology of Place in New Mexico  

12:00 LUNCH BREAK  

SESSION II  

2:05 Lucía Laumann  

Universidad Nacional de San Martín/CONICET  

Las grabadoras. Formación gráfica, prácticas y derroteros institucionales de las mujeres en Buenos Aires a mediados de siglo XX  

2:40 Lucy Quezada  

Shaping the Official Field: Art and Power during the Civilian-Military Dictatorships of Argentina, Brazil, and Chile  

3:15 COFFEE BREAK, Dean’s Patio in DFA  

3:45 Jennifer Leite Sales  

The Experimental: Reimaging Art and Pedagogy in 1970s Brazil  

4:30 Letícia Cobra Lima  

University of California, Santa Barbara  

Assembling the Body: Sculpture in Argentina, Brazil, and Colombia, 1960-1996  

5:00 RECEPTION, Dean’s Patio in DFA  

Electronic: Email UT CLAVIS

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'All my own': Studio art seniors display year of work in exhibitions

UNC senior Isabel Schomburger poses for a portrait in front of her Honors Thesis Exhibition at Hanes Art Center on Wednesday, March 20, 2024. 

Exhibits all around town made from linocut prints, ceramic sculptures and a variety of other mediums explore themes of disenchantment, sports culture and modern interpretations of history.

Last summer, six students applied and obtained approval for their exhibition proposals to the Department of Art and Art History’s Senior Thesis Honors Program  in Studio Art. These exhibitions will be rotating on display for the public through April 6 both on campus and around Chapel Hill-Carrboro.

Most recently, "Y ou've Once Said" by Wang Yiming  wrapped up its exhibition in February, and  Timothy Joseph Anderson's "On Permeable Zones” finished earlier this month. 

"Most Improved Player"

In her thesis  “Most Improved Player,”   Isabel Schomburger  drew from her identity as both an artist and club volleyball athlete to  examine  the culture of practice, repetition and labor in both art and sports. 

The installation is a group of textile multimedia works, using reclaimed sporting equipment such as secondhand jerseys, knee pads and a volleyball net. The materials came from various local sources, such as Schomburger’s own club volleyball team, Facebook Marketplace and other community members’ uniforms.

“It is important to the exhibition,” she said . “While it is personal work and it's born of my self reflection on my identity and doing both practices, it's about the greater experience of practice.”

“Most Improved Player” finished its d isplay  in the John and June Allcott Gallery last week.

UNC senior Isabel Schomburger poses for a portrait in front of her Honors Thesis Exhibition at Hanes Art Center on Wednesday, March 20, 2024. Schomburger, awarded "Most Improved Player," is one of six senior exhibitions featured under The Senior Thesis Honors Program in Studio Art.

"Another Way of Going On"

Marin Carr-Quimet's   installation, "Another Way of Going On," is mainly composed of  ceramic sculptures  exploring the theme of disenchantment.  The works use the style of  surrealism, which often expresses the unconscious mind,  to find a way to encompass the loss of magic, myths and ritual in the rational modern age, Carr-Quimet said.  

The exhibition’s representational sculptures are derived from imagery of Carr-Quimet’s dreams. Some of the pieces are small and abstract, while one is a 3 foot by 3 foot life-size figure.

The works dwell on a sense of hopelessness living in a modern world, they said, but were created in a somewhat playful way.  Carr-Quimet said this can imply that sitting with despair can help one discover a new way of living. 

“Another Way of Going On” will be in the Allcott Gallery from March 24 to 29.

"Quantified Self"

“Quantified Self" is the thesis of   Cora McAnulty  and  looks into   the social movement of individuals collecting data about themselves to optimize their life and self-discovery.

McAnulty’s exhibition is a narrative introducing an imagined Quantified Self zealot that tracks every aspect of their life. The installation follows the character’s obsession and descent into madness, grappling with insecurity and narcissism.

For the project, McAnulty collected data on herself to represent in her graph drawings, images that are also systems of data visualization. 

As a  statistics and analytics major, McAnulty said she recognizes the beauty of data, but wants her work to emphasize caution.

“My work does look more at a critique of it, looking at the ways data can be manipulated and can reduce you to less than a human being and less than your whole personhood and into just a number,” she said.

“Quantified Self ” will display in the John and June Allcott Undergraduate Gallery in Hanes Art Center from March 24 to April 6.

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"Dances of Infection"

Isabella Gamez’ s installation “ Dances of Infection ” combines  Gamez’s two majors , studio art and biostatistics. The art  takes historical research on infectious diseases, such as the Black Death , and contextualizes them in modern understandings of public health. 

Gamez utilized printmaking to represent the cyclical nature of disease, such as the flu’s annual occurrence. She reprinted designs on multiple layers of surfaces with recurring images of rats, fleas and bacteria to parallel multiplication in germ theory.

Her thesis started with small 12 inch by 12 inch linocut prints, then expanded into adding a large conceptual piece incorporating human elements such as a 14th century bed and a figure of a body.

As an undergraduate researcher , Gamez is also working on a more traditional senior thesis in a public health research lab. But “Dances of Infection” holds a special connection for her.

“This project was all my own,” she said. “It was led by me. The analysis was designed by me. All the choices were designed by me. This gave me a lot more confidence, honestly, in my critical thinking abilities.”

"Dances of Infection" will display in 128 E. Franklin St. Suite 130 — near Cosmic Cantina — from March 24 to April 6.

@dthlifestyle | [email protected]

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