hi everybody this video is going to go
over a few basics that you'll need to
know for doing research in any of my art
history classes the first thing I want
to go over with you is how to choose
reputable sources-- something a lot of
students struggle with so I have a few
guidelines first of all make sure your
source list...I'm sorry...
make sure your source lists an author so
when you find an article online make
sure that they say who the author is the
exception to this is museum websites
museum websites are often excellent but
they don't tend to list an author it's
usually a whole department writing the
article together so that's the exception
if you're not sure if your article is
okay, even if it has no
author
just email it to me and I'll let you
know if it's alright or not
secondly your source should be published
by an outlet that has editors so you
want to make sure it's a magazine or
newspaper or some kind of a system where
somebody is looking it over besides
the person who wrote it so not just a
personal blog Wikipedia you want to
avoid those kinds of things where
there's no editorial system in place and
then lastly the school library is going
to be a great way for you to find
reputable sources the school library has
lots of online sources you really don't
even have to go to the library at all
you can find everything you need from
home and that's a place that you
probably want to start with your
research not every single topic but
almost everything you'll be researching
for my class you could probably do all
the research online in the school
library I'm going to show you how to do
that I'm going to be quick about it but
here's the basics so to do research on
the school library website go to the
Mesa site so it's just you know just
Google San Diego Mesa College and then
here it is go to where it says library
here's the library page then look for
where it says super search in super search put
in whatever it is you're researching so
let's say Impressionism is an art
movement that you are doing a paper on
then hit Search if it's the first time
you're using it that day it's going to
ask you for your ID number and your last
name you don't have to go to Mesa for
that as long as you're in the system
you registered for the class even if you
go to City or something it's still going
to work for you um so here we put in
Impressionism and searched it
you see there's 13,000 sources which is
a lot go where it says limit to and hit
full-text online once you hit that it's
going to change this so that it only
shows us online sources now you can see
there's more than 10,000 online books on
Impressionism all kinds of specific
articles you can go through them or you
can search more narrowly by limiting it
in different ways if you find that you
want to look at a specific artist let's
say Monet we can add him to the search
and it'll make it an even smaller search
result all of these sources here you can
just open them on your computer so for
example Monet and the birth of
Impressionism that sounds great
click PDF and it's just going to open as an
article then you can save it to your
computer and read it off your screen or
you can print it out this is a great way
to do research for the class without
ever having to leave your living room I
know especially my online students love
that all those rules I told you about
using reputable sources you don't need
to worry about those if you use the
school library site the school library
site is kind of guaranteed reputable
because the library already evaluated
all of those sources so if you go with
that site you don't need to worry about
making sure it has editors and so on
okay so that's how you do that the other
thing that you're going to have to do in
my class is document your sources
whenever you document your sources that
means you're going to put a bibliography
at the end of your papers and you'll
also document your sources in-text the
format you should use as MLA that just
means like how you arrange the source
the order that you put the name in and
where the commas go and so on it's just
a kind of accepted academic format for
documenting your sources I'm not going
to go through all the details here
because it's easy for you to look up on
your class website on your blackboard
site I have a PDF called research tips
something like that it looks just like
here it is research and bibliography
tips if you go here it's going to give
you on page two three and four
specific instructions and examples
for how to do bibliographies and in-text
citations so just go here and it'll show
you exactly how to do it it's not super
hard it'll give you examples that you
can even just copy this is going to be
helpful for you for your other classes
too because all you all of your classes
will make you document your sources
okay so document your sources the last
thing I wanted to mention is that for my
classes specifically for Contemporary
Art, for ART 100 the intro class and for
the women in art class you're going to
be doing a project where you have to do
research summaries sometimes I call them
research reviews sometimes I call them
research summaries they're the same
thing those are for your adopted artist
project so you know you adopted your
artist and then I asked you to do
research summaries what that means is
that you need to read an article or a
book about your artist or about a topic
related to your artist and then you
compose a research summary that includes
these elements I'm going to show you a
student example
so it'll first have your source citation
so this student read this article from
the Tampa Bay Times about his artist and
here is the citation in MLA form then
you write a summary where you say what
are the main points of the article
basically show me that you read it and
what's important about it and then you
have a little section usually about a
paragraph like this of how it relates to
your project so if you're writing a
paper for your final project then you
would write about how this article fits
into your paper if you're making an
artwork for your final project your
write about what you learned about the
artist here that might help you when you
first start your research you won't
really know too much about how it
relates to your project so this might
just be a sentence long but by the time
you're doing your third research summary
you'll probably have a whole paragraph
because you already know what your
project is you'll be doing either three
or four of these research summaries
depending on what class you have with me
for each one it is about a different
source so you're not combining sources
in these you just take one source an
article or book and then you write your
summary about it in this format then
when you have the next one it's a
completely different article or book and
you write your summary the reason I have
you do that is when you get to your
final project then you've already got
half your research done you know you
already have several summaries you've
written down the main points and you can
just use those in your paper and it
helps helps....keep
people from procrastinating and it also
just helps make your research more
efficient so I think that's it let me
just check and make sure I didn't want
to tell you anything else
mmm that's the wrong thing yeah I think
that's it so now you know the basics of
how to do research for this class and if
you ever have any questions make sure to
just email me and ask I'm always
available okay thanks
