Research in Art & Design
A literature review is a summary of what is currently known about a research topic. A good literature
review evaluates research in the field as well as summarizing it. It locates your work in the context of
existing work in the field.
A bibliography comprises a set of references relevant to a research proposal, and is the first step in
doing a literature review. An annotated bibliography includes an evaluation of each of the references in
relation to the research proposal. It can then be used to develop a literature review of your research
area. Bibliographies can include books, journal articles, newspaper articles, exhibition catalogues, web
pages, media sources, visual material. EndNote is a software program that stores and manages
references. Monash University has a license and will provide you with the software.
Develop a search strategy – a set of keywords. These are essential for searching library catalogues
and other databases and to keep your searching focused. Write down the main concepts of your
research and think of other ways of expressing these concepts. Be prepared to amend, broaden or
narrow your set of keywords. Be mindful of alternative spellings eg American spelling.
Note down the names of authors who write in the field. Use for further searching.
Do not rely on only one or two sources of information. Different sources cover different types of
information. Don’t rely on a single search. You will need to experiment with your keywords.
Keep a record of everything you read as you go - bibliographic information (author, title, publisher, place
of publication, year of publication) and an evaluation. EndNote can help with storing information.
Keep a record of your search strategies and where you have searched.
You will need to look outside your area of practice eg painting or photography to other disciplines eg
aesthetics, philosophy, critical theory, feminist theory, science etc.
Googling can be useful, however, there is a wealth of academic research material not available freely
on the internet. Become familiar with library databases.
Step 1.
Look for an overview of your topic – very useful for finding keywords
Encyclopedias and Dictionaries
Grove dictionary of art (Grove art online) is an online reference source. Can search images and is
constantly updated. http://www.lib.monash.edu/databases/1294346.html This database is restricted to 5
simultaneous users. There is a bibliography at the end of articles – use this to look for more material.
Step 2.
Search library catalogues for books
The Monash University Library catalogue is at http://library.monash.edu.au/
Use your keywords for searching. When you find a relevant book. Click on Detailed record to see the
subject terms and use these for further searching.
Libraries Australia is a database of all books and theses in all Australian libraries
http://www.lib.monash.edu.au/databases/1867851.html
August 2006
 Monash University Library
Step 3.
Journal articles and databases
Ideas, recent works, exhibition reviews and very specific topics are often written up in journals before
being published in a book. Generally, you cannot search for journal articles in the library catalogue; you
will need to use an electronic index (database). Monash Library subscribes to a large number of
databases, some are subject specific, others are multidisciplinary.
The Database menu is at http://www.lib.monash.edu.au/databases/ Scroll down to Art & Design to
see a full list of relevant databases
Here is a selection of relevant databases and what they contain:
Database Name
Notes
Art full text
Indexing begins 1984. Abstracts from 1994. Selective full text from
1997. Subject coverage includes art history, decorative arts, nonwestern art, painting, photography, pottery sculpture, textiles
Useful for international exhibition reviews
Use IE
Abstracts only. Subject coverage includes modern art, performance
art, installation works, video art, body art, artists’ books, theatre arts
as well as traditional media including illustration, painting, printmaking,
sculpture, and drawing
Abstracts only. European and American art from late antiquity to the
present. Covers art-related books, conference proceedings,
dissertations, exhibition and dealers catalogues as well as 2,500
journals. Multilingual; limit your search to English
Use IE
Selected full text. Australian material
ARTbibliographies modern
Bibliography of the history of art
Australian Public Affairs
Information Service
Compendex
Selected full text. Engineering database useful for industrial design
Current contents
Browse the contents pages of recent Art & Architecture journals
DAAI: Design and applied arts
index
Index and abstracts only. Provides access to more than 500 design
and craft journals
Proquest dissertations and
theses
International masters’ theses and doctoral dissertations on all
academic subjects (with an emphasis on North America). Includes
abstracts
Expanded academic
Multidisciplinary. Full text. Journal coverage includes American artist,
American art journal, Art bulletin, Art business news, Art in America,
Art journal, Artforum international
Factiva or
Proquest ANZ newsstand
Libraries Australia
Newspaper articles
Proquest
Multidisciplinary. Full text. Includes graphics. Journal coverage
includes American artist, American Ceramics Society bulletin, Art
bulletin, Art in America, Art journal, Artforum international, Journal of
popular culture
A citation index which traces research in a particular area
Web of Science
Good for books not at Monash Library and non-Monash Australian
theses
Monash library won’t hold all the journals indexed in these databases. If you cannot locate the full text of
an article, place a Document Delivery request. Information at
http://www.lib.monash.edu.au/services/loans/docdel.html
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List of electronic journals http://www.lib.monash.edu.au/ejournals/
Click on Art & Design then A-Z
This will give a list of all relevant journals which are available in electronic format in a database. Clicking
on the link will take you into the database.
NB Some links will take you to a list of issues for that particular journal with an option to search within
that title, other links will simply present you with the database search box.
Step 4.
Web pages
There are a number of ways of searching the internet:
Directories. Good for browsing and broad topic searches. Try Google web directory:
http://www.google.com/dirhp?hl=en
Subject gateways: They are an excellent way of becoming familiar with key internet resources in your
subject area. A list of subject gateways is Pinakes
http://www.hw.ac.uk/libWWW/irn/pinakes/pinakes.html
Search engines. For example Google. http://www.google.com.au/
There are a number of ways to search Google, Images search,
Advanced search:
Google Scholar enables you to search specifically for scholarly literature, including peer-reviewed
papers, theses etc http://scholar.google.com/
You will often find the full text of journal articles in Google scholar if you are logged on to a Monash
computer. At home, the full text may not be available – you will need to go to the library databases
page.
Step 5.
Theses
For Monash theses use the library catalogue and search monash thesis art
Search Libraries Australia for other Australian theses
Search Proquest dissertations and theses for US theses.
Search Index to these in Great Britain and Ireland for UK theses
There is an online tutorial to help with theses searching at
http://www.lib.monash.edu/vl/thes/thescon.htm
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Step 6.
Keeping up to date
Make a list of journals which write in your area. Use the Current Contents database to see what’s in the
latest issue.
Examples of scholarly journals:
Critical inquiry
Journal of visual culture
Oxford art journal
October
Journal of popular culture
Journal of aesthetics and art criticism
Step 7.
Citing and Referencing
The referencing style preferred by the Dept of Theory of Art & Design is the Chicago style (sometimes
referred to as Turabian), which is a footnote system.
This style is outlined in the book Manual for writes of term papers, theses and dissertations, 6th ed. by
Kate Turabian. There are copies in the Caulfield Library at 808.02 TUR 3:6
An author-date system (eg Harvard) is also acceptable and more suitable for Design papers. There are
several Harvard styles, the one most widely used in Australia is based on the Australian Government
style guide outlined in the book: Style manual for authors, editors and printers 2002, 6th ed. There are
copies in the Caulfield Library at 808.02 A938.1S 2002
Whichever system you use, consistency and accuracy is essential.
There is an online tutorial to help you with citing and referencing at
http://www.lib.monash.edu/tutorials/citing/
Endnote will manage citing and referencing for you.
Tips for database searching
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Use boolean operators AND , OR, NOT to combine terms eg projected images NOT lasers
Keep words together by searching “as a phrase”
Use a truncation symbol to find variations of a word – this is usually an asterisk (*) but can be
another symbol eg fetish* will find fetish, fetishes, fetishism,
Add more terms to focus your search eg conceptual art AND philosophy AND illustration
Combine terms with OR to broaden your search eg tattoo OR body art OR body painting OR
body piercing
Limit your search eg limit to full text, document type, publication year etc
Search in the abstract or subject field to focus your search (the subject field is sometimes called
the descriptor field)
Search by keywords or search in all fields to broaden your search
Databases can be index only, index & abstract or full text
Where there is no full text the sfx button will search the library catalogue for sources of the full
text (either print or a different database)
Full text, when available, may be offered in different formats .txt. .html .pdf. If you are using the
article as a reference .pdf is best as it shows page numbers, however it may be slow to download
There are no images in the Art full text database, however the Artist and Work field lists
illustrations that accompany text
Proquest contains images
ARTbibliographies links to images in web sites
Most databases are international in focus, containing little Australian material
The Informit group of databases index Australian material, but are mainly indexes only
Some databases have licence restrictions eg a limited number of concurrent users
Monash Library does not hold all the material indexed in databases
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Writing about Art and Design
Books in the Caulfield Library – level 4:
Title
Proposals that work: a guide for planning dissertations and grant
proposals
Call No.
001.44 L814P 2000
SAGE handbook of qualitative research
300.72 D417S 2005
Doing a literature review: releasing the social science research
imagination
300.72 H325D 1998
The necessity of artspeak: the language of the arts in the Western
tradition
700.14 H315N 2003
Aesthetics and art criticism: the role of emotion in art
701.17 HOF
A short guide to writing about art 8th ed
701.18 B261S 2005
Grove book of art writing
701.18 G286G 2000
Art of writing about art
701.18 H886A 2002
Writing about art; what? how? why? who?
701.18 H669
Words for pictures
701.180945 B355W 2003
Critical terms for art history
701.4 N429C 2003
Thinking and writing about art history
707 R354T 2004
Visualizing research: a guide to the research process in art and design
707.2 G778V 2004
Art practice as research: inquiry in the visual arts
707.2 S949 A 2005
Design research: methods and perspectives
745.2 L378D 2003
Critical theory today: a user-friendly guide
801.95 T994C 1999
How to write a thesis
808.042 M983H 2002
Technical writing: process and product 4th ed
808.0666 G382T 2003
Writing winning business proposals
808.06665 F853W 2003
Writing about visual art
808.0667 C316W 2003
Writing about art
808.0667 S275W 1998
Judy Nolan
judy.nolan@lib.monash.edu.au
9903 2440
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