Getting Started - Assignment | Art Mini-Research Sequence (Armstrong) - Research Guides at Lone Star College

Mini Assignments for your Research Project

Warm Up Exercise: Popular vs Scholarly
Resource Guide

Discussion Post!

You'll compare a scholarly article to a popular source on the same topic (i.e. an artist of your choosing) in a post to the D2L discussion board. How in depth is the information? What tone do they use? What sources are provided?

Example Pairs of Articles:

Ex. 1: Scholarly: "Andrew Wyeth and the Transcendental Tradition"
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Ex. 1: Popular: "Andrew Wyeth, Artist With a Prim and Unyielding Eye, Dies at 91"
Ex. 2: Scholarly: "Groundwork: Race and Aesthetics in the Era of Stand Your Ground Law"
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Ex. 2: Popular: "Amy Sherald’s Shining Second Act"

Example Discussion Post
Based on the Ex. 2 articles.

Skills to Flex:

Recognize the visual and substantive differences between popular and scholarly sources of information
- see also: the handout and/or tutorial and/or guide on source types
Locate a credible popular source using the web or the databases
Locate a scholarly article using the library databases

Goal:

To lay the groundwork for your future research in the next phase of the assignment, the annotated bibliography.

Learn the Terms & Popular vs Scholarly
Learn common library jargon terms and the characteristics of popular and scholarly source types.

Your Goals:

short, introductory paragraph about your artist
annotated citations for 4 total sources:
- 1 scholarly article from the library databases (textbook doesn't count)
MLA format for the page and the citations

Example Guide from the librarian
Just to give you an overall sense of what you should be producing. This example uses 5 sources just for variety.

You'll be assembling a list of resources to help out other people trying to research your artist, using a mix of scholarly and popular sources. Each one should be cited and include an explanation of how that source will be helpful.

Note! This video was recorded for an older version of the assignment! The research principles and all are still true and valid but if you hear a mention of how many sources you need, don't listen. :)

0:22 Looking at assignment goals & example
1:09 Example walk-through
2:09 Annotations explained
3:22 Guide: MLA page info
3:52 Research tab - use those databases for an easier life
5:37 Ebook Central (book database demo) + how to use books as sources efficiently
8:17 Ebook Central citation tool
9:48 JSTOR demo (scholarly articles)
12:11 "Popular source" databases (i.e. magazine or news articles)
14:07 Google search trick
15:44 Video databases - documentaries could sub for Internet sources
16:38 Grading rubric