Develop Your Search

Approach to a topic from many contexts /positions
in order to collect sufficient evidence
and give depth to your argument and reasoning

1. Use the subject databases to situate yourself within a critical discourse; that’s where you can learn to be conversant with the critics writing in your field.

2. Start simply with an artist’s name, Lorna Simpson. (or, titles of artworks.)

3. Examine the initial search results to discover
           the current scholarship on your topic:
“issues” addressed;
            the central debates on these issues,
            evidence and methods applied in analysis of these issues,
and so on.

4. Sort out various aspects of a topic; how do they connect?

 Take the artist Lorna Simpson as an example:

feminism (method /theory to be applied in your analysis)
women, racism, stereotype (an issue /problem),
Human figure, Human body (a visual theme).