A&M-SA Research Guides: Art Appreciation Research Guide: Welcome

Welcome to the Art Appreciation Guide! This guide is intended to be a starting point for students taking the Art Appreciation course by providing information on how to obtain books/e-books, peer-reviewed articles, images and other information. Click on the tabs above for more information. Please do not hesitate to ask for help if you have any questions!

Starting Your Research

The first step is to choose a topic. We recommend you consider the following:

What topic are you interested in?
If your topic was set by the instructor, what does your instructor want you to learn by doing the research?

Once the topic is selected, you should:

Do a preliminary search for background information on the topic using a reference source, such as Credo Reference (Credo).
Take note of significant people, places, events, etc. Consider why your topic is important to learn about today.
Narrow your topic. Focus on the aspects that the paper will discuss.
Create initial thesis statement.
Search for scholarly articles (recently published academic research) that support your thesis. You can find them using library databases like Academic Search Complete (EBSCO) or JSTOR Arts & Sciences I-XV (JSTOR).

Search the database Credo to familiarize yourself with and explore your topic- Credo Reference gives you access to over 600 reputable encyclopedias online. Short encyclopedia articles can help you to quickly identify concepts, topics, issues, and keywords for your topic. Credo is a scholarly version of Wikipedia and comes with properly formatted citations!

Credo Reference (Credo)
Search 650+ titles including encyclopedias, dictionaries, atlases, & reference handbooks covering the arts, business, health, history, literature, math, religion, etc. Over 1,000 videos, 300,000 art images, and thousands of images for other subjects.

Looking for additional biographies? Check out Biography Reference Center Plus which contains over 430,000 full-text biographies from credible sources.

Biography Reference Source (EBSCO)
Offers over 430,000 full-text biographies from sources such as Biography Today, Cambridge Dictionary of American Biography, American Reference Library, Encyclopædia Britannica, and more.

A database provides access to published materials in scholarly journals, magazines, newspaper, books and other valuable information sources. Search databases below to find articles on your topic!

Academic Search Complete (EBSCO)
A valuable and comprehensive scholarly, multidisciplinary database with full-text peer-reviewed journal articles, monographs, reports, conference proceedings, etc.
Humanities Source (EBSCO)
Nearly 1,500 full-text journals dating back to 1907 offering worldwide content including articles, interviews, bibliographies, obituaries, original works of fiction, as well as reviews of performing arts (movies, ballets, plays, etc).
JSTOR Arts & Sciences I-XV (JSTOR)
Coverage of humanities disciplines including history, language & literature, art & art history, education, philosophy, classical studies, and music. Also includes a digitized group of rare 19th and early 20th century American Art periodicals.
Project MUSE Basic Research Collection (Johns Hopkins University Press)
Access this collection of integral journals for the humanities and social sciences, including many published by prominent university presses and scholarly societies.

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