General Comments

One could say that writing an essay consists essentially of two processes:
(i) writing to find out what one thinks - preliminary drafts
(ii) writing to communicate one's thoughts to others - further drafts completed and essay.
It is, in fact, through the process of writing that one tends to discover and to clarify one's ideas. Many people start writing with a relatively vague idea of their interpretation, but after having written a draft they can arrive at a clearer statement of what they think (this is often found on the last page or in the last paragraph).

Writing a preliminary draft

(i) Think out the essay question in the light of the images you have studied and of what you have read.
(ii) Write a plan - this is only a guide and will undoubtedly change as you write.
Example of such a plan:

Topic: 'Cubist painting embodied a new way of representing the external world'
Discuss.
--- Intro. para - didn't describe ext. world - used signs - spectator's role.
--- Not a static but a dynamic form of representation (parallels in science, philosophy- Bergson)
--- Cubism and modern life (see Berger)
--- Which images - still life? A portrait?
--- Compare with more realist still-lives and portraits (use Cezanne's?)
--- Compare with earlier Cubist works where more legible.
--- Repres. of space? of volume?
--- Use of signs.
--- Quote Apollinaire on Cubism as 'Realist' (where?) Fry's interpretation
--- 'abstract'; compare Golding's emphasis on 'realist' qualities ....but Cubist paintings
---- are both 'abstract' and 'real' á
--- Conclusion - Cubism, and the dynamic ambiguous repres. of reality.

(iii) Write a rough draft in these terms. Do not write straight from your notes; this generally results in a patchwork of facts and opinions Its best to leave your notes somewhere else! You will remember what you need. You should return to your notes only when rewriting your draft for the final essay.

At this stage don't bother too much about how it sounds (above all don't bother about a resounding first paragraph). What you want is a broadly argued interpretation which you can develop and demonstrate as time goes on. If you want a specific fact, contrary idea or quotation, don't interrupt the flow at this stage by searching through notes or books or you may lose the thread of your argument. In such cases you can note: 'Apollinaire said "something about Cubism being realist, etc" - and then you can make this exact later.

Re-writing the Draft

The rough draft is only a beginning It is the process by which you find your interpretation, but the form in which this is put is rarely the form which communicates well. Re-writing is not just a question of making a fair copy, but of re-organising the material so that the reader can follow the argument.

A first draft rarely begins with a clear statement of your ideas (which is a natural way of communicating), and you will often find that in your first draft you don't arrive at a clear statement until the end. It therefore often helps to 'swing' your concluding statement to the beginning of the essay. Then you need to consider what evidence will convince your reader.

Very often that evidence is, of course, that which you have already used to 'find out' your interpretation, but it will have to be re-ordered. When you have finished the draft, try to leave it for a time, then examine it critically. Ask yourself questions like the following:

----- (i) What have I said?
----- (ii) Is what I have said clearly expressed?
----- (iii) Have I used evidence to support my views?
----- (iv) Have I dealt with the major issues?
----- (v) Have I given my reader a sense that I am aware of the varying interpretations and
---------= that I have come to my own conclusions about their validity?

At this stage you will probably have to clarify these points. You may find that you need to do further reading to demonstrate certain points, or to fill in the gaps in your argument.

When critically examining your essay, remember that the only facts which are useful are those which serve to demonstrate your reasoning. Irrelevant or unused facts merely obscure your argument. In particular, in the history of art there is a tendency (whatever the question and issue) to give biographies of the artists concerned. This is often quite irrelevant, and unless you can show the relevance of such facts, you should cut them out.

Remember too that your reader has no need to be told the obvious. For example, if writing an essay on a specific aspect of Monet's style, there is no need to give the entire history of Impressionism, and you can assume that your reader knows about the generally accepted accounts of the subject.

It is at this stage that you should check notes and facts (good note-taking pays off here) and indicate where you need footnotes or endnotes.

In re-writing the draft, remember:

----- (i) that the essay should begin with a clear statement of your interpretation of the issues
----- (ii) that the body of the essay should substantiate and amplify your initial statement
----- (iii) that there should be a conclusion summarising your arguments and your interpretation

Visual Material

It is not adequate to use an image merely as an illustration to an argument. You should be sure that your arguments are drawn from your experience of the images and that you have shown your grounds for developing your interpretation in terms of your chosen visual material.

Quotations

Quotations will not do your work for you, any more than illustrations will. Is not enough simply to copy out the quotation in your essay as if it explains itself since others will not necessarily read it in the way in which you do. You will therefore need to show why the quotation is there, what it is doing in your argument, how you interpret it.

These are not arbitrary requirement, but ways of helping you to communicate your ideas to your reader.

Format

You should allow margins of at least 4 cm to allow the reader to comment on your, essay. Please make sure that the essay can lie flat and that the margin is accessible. Write on one side of the paper. Pages should be numbered. Your writing should be legible and typing errors should be corrected. BE KIND TO YOUR READER.

Form and Expression

The essay should be presented as a continuous argument - not in note-form. In short essays, lots of sub-headings are distracting and often lead you to oversimplify your argument. Your argument should have its own shape. Paragraphs should help the reader by showing how you develop major themes from groups of sentences dealing with specific aspect of that theme.

The argument should be clearly presented. Remember that the rules of grammar and punctuation are not arbitrary irritants: they are vital to the clear expression of an idea. For example, if a verb does not agree with its subject, your reader may easily get confused, just as he/she will not know what you're trying to saying if a sentence does not have a subject and a verb.

Remember that, if your reader has to spend his/her time correcting rudementary grammatical and spelling errors, he/she is the less likely to be sympathetic to what you are saying. In addition, avoid empty phrases, or meaningless purple patches. You need to ask yourself all the time - what are these words saying?

Remember that your reader will have been reading many other essays and will welcome the clear expression of an individual argument.

Titles

Italicise or underline titles of works of art and books. Use quotations marks for articles, chapter headings from books, unpublished material and theses.

Quotations

Quotatons of up to three lines should not be separated from the main text; they should be indicated by single quotation marks. Quotations of three or more lines should be separated and indented (in single-space if your essay is typed double-space). In such cases, do not use quotation marks, e.g.

-------Roberts stated that he wishes to represent 'the delight and fascination of the great
------ pastors life and work'. However, he also painted the deep quiet space of nature;
-------lingering where the wandering almost silent river bathes the feathery wattle-branches;
------ sometimes on a hillside watching the sun setting over range and valley...

These statements reveal that he was no longer as interested in the representation of urban life as he was when he first returned from England.

Non-sexist Language

Be careful not to use words in a way that implies only male experience and authority, or infers that general human types are men (for example do not automatically assume that an ar an artist is a 'he'). The 'he/she' or 's/he' form is clumsy, but when used appropriately, can be a useful corrective. Do not use they as a singular pronoun.

'Apparatus' - footnotes or endnotes, bibliography list of illustrations and appendices

There are a number of technical devices used to give authority to your interpretation, to give additional information, and to indicate the sources of your factual material, quotations, etc. These include a bibliography, appendices and footnotes. In the history of art, lists of illustrations and captions to illustrations have a particularly important role.

This section spells out recommendations for the 'apparatus' supporting essay or thesis presentation. You do not have to follow them in every particular (e.g. you may choose the use Latinisms and to list publishers in your notes, but whatever you do you must be consistent). The golden rule is to use the 'apparatus' as an essential aid to your reader. It should therefore be immediately clear. It is worth mastering these devices as soon as possible, so that you can come to use them almost without thinking.

Note: required forms may vary from publisher to publisher, country to country. Those recommended here are drawn from standard modern practice in Australia.

Footnotes, notes or endnotes

As a rule-of-thumb one could say that, although footnotes or notes are necessary, your interpretation should be able to stand without them. Thus, you should not carry on your main argument in footnotes. Generally speaking footnotes should be used to back up the argument by giving sources. Occasionally they can be used to present subsidiary arguments or useful details which would clutter your main argument.

Appendices can be useful in presenting a detailed argument the 'result' of which you can use in your text, (e.g. a complex argument about the disputed dating of a specific work). An appendix can also be used to provide detailed information which can then be used in a summarised form in the text (e.g. an essay on women artists of the 1970s might include an appendix of lists of exhibitions with an analysis of how many male and how many female artists exhibited). Appendices are best avoided in short essays.

Reference to footnotes/ notes

When to use notes is a question of judgement. As a general rule however, you should use them to indicate the sources of:

-----(i) facts which are not generally known or agreed upon
---- (ii) information which cannot be taken for granted
-------- (e.g., percentages of male and female artists in exhibitions in a certain year)
---- (iii) particular approaches or interpretations
---- (iv) quotations
---- (v) it is not necessary to footnotes facts which are generally known


Location of footnotes/ notes

Notes may be placed at the foot of the page ('footnotes') or at the end of an essay ('notes' or 'endnotes'). If you are writing a thesis of several chapters, place the notes at the end of the thesis, not at the end of a chapter (they can be difficult to find). If you have a great number of notes located together at the end of a long essay or thesis, it helps your reader if you indicate the pages or chapters to which they refer at the top of the page.

The most convenient reference to a note is numerical. The number should generally be placed at the end of a sentence or, if necessary to be very specific, at a break in the sentence (e.g. at a comma, a semi-colon or brackets.)

Example:

<IMAGES>

1. 'New Painting', exn cat., John Smith Gallery, London, 1-3 May, 1912
2. Not to be confused with Stampnich
3. Collected Works, London, 1980


Form of footnotes/ notes. First reference

The first time you refer to a source you must give all bibliographic details. Subsequent references must be shortened.

Books

Author's full name (or that of editor or compiler). In notes, the first name and/or initials precedes surnames. In a bibliography the surname comes first.

Complete title of book (exactly as given on title page, underlined or italicised)
Name of translator if any Edition, if other than the first
Number of volumes
Where published
Date of publication (you can, if it is relevant, refer to the date of the first edition)
Volume number, if any
Page number(s) of particular citation

It is not necessary to list the publisher; if you do, be consistent and list the publisher for every entry.

Examples

-----Ludmilla Vachtova, Frank Kupka, London, 1967, 13-17*

*Sometimes you will find that the page reference is indicated by p. (page) or pp. (pages). Today, however, the tendency is simplified and the 'p' is often omitted.

----- Benedict Nicolson, Joseph Wright of Derby: Painter of Light, 2 vols, London, 1968, I, 95
------Bernard Smith, Australian Painting 1788-1970, 2nd ed., Melbourne, 1971, 170

Articles

Periodicals, poems, chapters of books, essays and articles in collections, the rule is to use quotation marks when citing a reference that is part of a whole (an article is part of a journal; a chapter is part of a book, etc).

Author's full name (as with books)
Title of article (in quotation marks)
Name of the periodical (underline)
Volume number (if necessary)
Date of the issue
Page number(s) of the particular citation

Examples:

-----Marianne W. Martin, 'Futurism, and Apollinaire, Art Journal, Spring 1979, 256

It is not necessary to give volume and issue numbers when a month and year are sufficient to identify the source. But one has to be careful of some northern hemisphere journals which use the seasons - which, of course, are different from ours.

Poems, chapters of books, essays and articles in collections

The same form applies as for articles.

Examples:

-----Guillaume Apollinare, 'Zone', Oeuvres Poetiques, Paris 1962, 149; first published
-----in Les Soirees de Paris, Nov. 1912, 23

-----Guillaume Apollinaire, 'Modern Painting', Apollinaire on Art: Essays, ed.
-----Leroy C. Breunig, trans. Susan Sulleiman, London 1972; first published as
-----'La Peinture moderne, Der Sturm, Feb. 1913, 2-3

Exhibition catalogues

Title of exhibition catalogue
Museum/gallery or other location
City and date
Page reference

Example:

----- Fernand Leger, exh. cat., Musee des Arts decoratifs, Paris 1971, 65

The authors of a catalogue used not to be listed; today they are:

Example:
------ Meda Mladek and Margit Rowell, Frantisek Kupka. 1871-1957.
------ A Retrospective, exh. cat., The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, 1975, 64

Theses

Authors full name
Title of thesis
Type of thesis
University or College
Date of thesis

Example:

------Lindsay Errington, Social and Religious Themes in English Art 1840-1860,
------ Ph.D. thesis, University of London, 1973

Since this entry is unpublished, the title is neither underlined nor given quotation marks.


Form of footnotes/notes: Subsequent references (incl. Latin abbreviations)

After the first full reference to a book, article, etc., subsequent references should be shortened. Enough information should be given to allow easy identification. For example:

5. Fernand Leger, exh. cat., Musee des Arts decoratifs (Paris, 1971), 65
6. Ludmilla Vachtova, Frank Kupka, London 1967, 13-17
7. Vachtova, Kupka, 75
8. Marianne W. Martin, 'Futurism, Unanimism and Apollinaire, Art Journal, Spring 1979, 256
9. Martin, 'Futurism, Unanimism and Apollinaire', 268
10. Ibid., 270 (if same page, Idem can be used)

Avoid using the Latin abbreviations 'op.cit.' or 'loc. cit'. Students almost invariably use them incorrectly. A shortened authors name and shortened title immediately gives the reader the unambiguous information that is required. 'Ibid' and 'idem' are more useful, but should be used only when the preceding note to which they refer is immediately visible - it is irritating if the reader has to search through the preceding pages to find the relevant note.

You do, however, need to recognise what these words signify as you will encounter them - particularly in older texts:

-----'ibid.' (Latin, ibidem = 'in the same place'); used when references to
------ the same work follow one another (as in n. 10 above). A page reference is necessary.

-----'idem' (Latin = 'the same'); used to refer to the same reference and same page number
------ (as in n. 10 above).

-----'op. cit.' (Latin, opere citato = 'in the work cited'); used to refer to an already cited book.

-----'loc. cit.' (Latin, loco citato = 'in the place cited'); as with op. cit. but used for the
------ location of an article, poem, etc., in a book or journal.

Footnotes/endnotes conclusion

There are other more detailed conventions of usage, but the above information provides a basic guide. Remember that the conventions of footnotes are not designed simply to be irritating to the writer, but are a common language which will provide the reader with everything needed to locate your reference. It is worth mastering these conventions as soon as you can, as you can then relax and need not check up every time you make a note. Examiners or markers can become extremely irritated if they are not used correctly and may even give the essay back to you, reserving the mark until you have corrected them.

Bibliography

This should contain a list of the works you have read in the preparation your essay (except for, say,, general encyclopaedia which you might have consulted as background - unless you have used a particular article from a specialist work such as the Encyclopedia of World Art).

A bibliography should be set out in alphabetical order at the end of your essay. If it is long and complicated, it can be useful to arrange it in different sections, e.g., primary material (that written in the period under discussion), secondary material (later texts).

It is often hopeful, however, when listing primary material, to do so chronologically. In this way, one can show, for example the evolution of the interpretation of a particular artist's works. There are, of course, many other ways of breaking up the bibliography. Do not however separate articles from books. Probably the simplest organisation is alphabetical.

If you list several works by an author, or authors, these should be listed chronologically.

Forms of references

The material and form of bibliographic references are the same as those for footnote/endnote references, with one exception: since the listing is alphabetical, the surname of the author should precede his/her given name or initials. Always use the name as it is given on the title page - in full.

If you have consulted a book which has been edited more than once, make sure that you have indicated the number and date of the edition, since different editions may have changes in page numbering.

e.g. Smith, Bernard, Australian Painting, 2nd ed., Melbourne 1971

Many works are published by an institution or collectively.

e.g. The University of Sydney, Arts Faculty Handbook, Sydney, 1981 edition

Useful Guide to special problems

Style Manual, Canberra (several editions)


Abbreviations

Abbreviations in common use in bibliographes/notes (do not use in the body of the text):

ch. = chapter
ed. = editor, edited by, edition
et al.= (Latin = et alii = and other authors)
ff.= and the following pages (e.g. Smith, Australian Painting, 16ff.)
n.d. = no date
trans. = translated by
p./pp.=page/pages


References to works of art

Since illustrations of works play a major role in our subject, you should master the conventions in using them. The following is standard modern practice.

Whatever you do, be consistent.

In the text underline or italicise the titlies of works - do not use quotation marks.
e.g. Margaret Preston's Implement blue

Capitalisation

This is controversial. Museums now tend to drop all capitals except for the first word; most publishers capitalise the first word and first noun; it is rare today to find almost every word capitalised as in the nineteenth century image (see the Tom Roberts below).

Always give the exact title. If in doubt consult the catalogue of the relevant museum in which the work is located, reputable exhibition catalogues, or the artist's catalogue raisonne (the complete works with full details of their history, their condition, their bibliography).

If it is a very long title, you could shorten it after the first time you mention it in your text (e.g. Tom Roberts, Evening When the Quiet East Flushes Faint at the Sun's Last Look - henceforth referred to as Evening'), but tell your reader you are going to do so. Sometimes an artist will use a nondescript title (e.g.Landscape ), or will repeat the same title, so be careful to specify which work is meant, either by using a date, measurements or location

List of illustrations and captions

The form for paintings and sculpture is:

Artist's full name
Title (underline or italicise)
Date
Measurements (height by width)
Location/Collection

e.g. Frank Kupka, The First Step, c.1901-10. Oil on canvas, 81 x 127. The Museum of Modern Art, New York

You could introduce the list of illustations by saying: 'All works are executed in oil on canvas unless otherwise stated. All measurements are in centimeters.' It is often helpful to indicate the source of your illustration, particularly if this is obscure.

The form for buildings is:

Architect
Name of building (not underlined)
Location
Date

e.g. Thomas Rowe, Kelly's store (formerly Mechanics' Institute), Yass, 1869