Essay / Thesis Guidelines and Submission Deadlines

Introduction to Essay Writing

Reading and Research towards Essays

Ask your tutor for help on the direction of your essay.

Make use of all library resources in finding material. Library staff are there to help.

Read what is central and what is essential to the essay topic. Avoid peripheral material.

Take a record of the books and articles you read, and check their bibliographies for further relevant reading. This will be necessary for your own bibliography.

You must aim for a variety of sources in your research. A single source of information is much too narrow to allow you to write a balanced, well-developed essay. Primary resources should be used where relevant.

Take notes on your reading as you go along, and particularly take note of the source of your material. When it comes to writing your own essay, your notes should be edited and organised in a sequential way in accordance with your essay outline (see below). Eliminate what is irrelevant to the essay topic.

Remember that essay writing is not simply the presentation of received facts and opinions. You have to make a critical examination, assessment and interpretation of your research material. The organisation of this in a coherent way is crucial to the success of your essay.

The Writing of Essays

Study the wording of the essay topic very carefully. For example, if the essay topic asks you to examine a particular aspect of an artist’s work, that is what you should address: a general history of the artist is unlikely to fulfil the requirements. You need to pay close attention to the terms of the essay topic.

You should establish a working outline for your essay. See how the essay can be arranged in a logical way (e.g. chronological, spatial, general-to-particular, particular-to-general). Make sure you have considered the overall organisation (outline) so you know where you are going with it. Tie your essay together with an Introduction and Conclusion.

Your Introduction is a vitally important section of the essay. It explains to the reader (examiner) the way in which you have decided to respond to the essay topic. It establishes the general method you have used in research and the direction you will take in the main body of the essay.

Do not set yourself objectives which will require an essay that is well over the required length. Equally, do not ‘bury’ the most important material in a minor sub-section of the essay.

.Grammar and Presentation are important considerations. You should ask yourself:

Have you written the essay in proper sentences?
Is the punctuation clear and accurate?
Is the spelling correct?
Each paragraph should develop a specific theme. Are paragraphs properly developed?
Are transitions from paragraph to paragraph smooth?
And, critically, is the material organised in an orderly way through which the reader can follow and understand the points being made?

If the answers to these questions are not yes, you are not communicating your ideas effectively.

Essay Guidelines

1. Format

Essays should be typed or legibly hand-written on one side of A4 paper – typing should be double spaced and in font size 12
The cover sheet must be attached to the front of the essay and include the essay title, your name, year and department and your tutor’s name. Also declaration of authorship.
Leave sufficient margins for tutor’s comments
Include illustrations only where discussed in the essay
Always refer to illustrations in text by their number (in brackets)
Include word count at the end of the essay

2. Quotations

For quotations of less than three lines, use single quotation marks and keep the quotation within the body of the main text. For short quotations within a short quotation, use single, then double quotation marks, i.e. ‘Jan Assman says that “ritual is more than an ornamentation of time,” but it is also just that’ (Luhman, 2000, p.227).

For longer quotations of over three lines do not use quotation marks; instead indent the quotation from the margins in block form and type with single spacing.

When material within the quotation is omitted, the omission is indicated by the use of three dots.

3. Methods of Citation

The NCAD name-and-date system used for citing references is based on ‘Harvard Style’.

Citations in the Text: Citations are used to acknowledge the sources of direct quotations or other writers’ ideas or opinions that you have considered, even if you are paraphrasing these ideas in your own words. It is necessary to acknowledge sources so that it is clear when you are using other people’s material.

You should cite the surname of the author or editor, the year of publication and page number(s) in brackets in your text. If a name occurs naturally in your text, add the date and page number(s) only.

e.g. ‘Things begin to change at the time of the Renaissance due to a new consciousness in the European mind’ (Amin, 1989, p.79).

or, According to Amin a new consciousness in the European mind resulted

in things changing around the time of the Renaissance (1989, p.75).

If the same author has two or more publications in the same year, the sources are distinguished by lower-case letters (a,b,c, and so on), e.g. (Amin, 1989a, p.75)

Numbered footnotes or endnotes are only used to comment on the text or provide further

information. If these contain a citation, it should be in the same format as those in the text.

4. Plagiarism

You must never copy extracts from a book and submit it as though it were your own work. Similarly, you must never present a composite of sentences and paragraphs from a number of books and submit this as your own work. PLAGIARISM IS TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE. Essays must be your own work, and only your own work. Each student must confirm this to be the case by signing the declaration on the cover sheet.

5. Bibliography

All sources of information that have been used should be listed in alphabetical order, including internet sites, interviews and unpublished material. Where the use of italics is indicated, underlining is also acceptable. Works should be cited as follows:

For BOOKS, author (or editor) (surname first), year of publication (in brackets), title (in italics), place of publication, publisher.

e.g. Poyner, Rick, (1998) Design Without Boundaries, London, Booth-Clibborn Editions.

or: Harrison, Charles and Paul Woods (ed.s), (1992) Art In Theory 1900-1990: AnAnthology of Changing Ideas, Oxford, Blackwell.

For CHAPTERS in books/exhibition catalogues, etc. (when essays or chapters have different authors): author (surname first), year (in brackets),

‘title of chapter or essay’ (in inverted commas), then write ‘in’ followed by name & initial of editor/overall author, title, place of publication, page number(s).

e.g. Smith, P.J (1997) ‘British Art in the 1980s and 1990s’ in Murphy, B. (ed.), Art from Britain, Sidney, Museum of Contemporary Art, pp. 147-159.

For ARTICLES, author of article (surname first), year, ‘title of article’ (in inverted commas), title of periodical (in italics), volume number, page numbers of article.

e.g.: Fisher, Jean (1992) ‘In search of the Inauthentic’, Art Journal, Vol. 51, pp. 8-22

For EXHIBITION CATALOGUES with no author, the organiser should be cited as author.

e.g.: Arts Council (1970) Art in Turmoil, Serpentine Gallery, London.

For FILMS, titles should be italicised (with director and date in brackets)

e.g.: Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960)

For INTERVIEWS, cite interviewer as author, followed by date (in brackets), details of the interview (interviewee), location, etc.

For WEB FILES, cite (as much of the following as available), author's last name, date (in brackets), the full title of the specific item (in inverted commas), the title of the complete work (in italics), any version or file numbers, protocol, and full URL; date of access (in brackets).

eg.: Burka, Lauren P. (1993) 'A Hypertext History of Multi-User Dimensions', MUD History. Available: http://www.utopia.com/talent/lpb/muccex/essay (2 August 1996).

References to material on the www in the text should be made in the same way as for other material, e.g. (Burka, 1993)

NOTE: Essays must always be submitted to the Visual Culture Faculty Secretary by 4.00 p.m. on the deadline date.

Visual Culture Faculty: May 2004