Option 2.
Choose a review of an artwork from a newspaper, magazine, anthology, or online source of your choosing and answer the questions about it shown below. The review must be 500 words or longer to give you enough to work with, but it can be a review of any work, any type of art or craft, restaurant reviews included. The review can be, but need not be, a review intended for general audiences. Also, upload a copy of the selected review, or (if its an online review) give a link to it at the end of your essay. Please do attach the link, dont just give the address — if the link address has an error in it, I wont know what you had in mind.
(Option2,continued) Here are the questions:
a. Are there evaluations of the work in the review? What did the evaluations conclude? (By evaluations, I mean claims by the reviewer that something is a strength, weakness, a goodness, a badness. Or are there comparisons with another work as better or worse?) The claim be explicit or implicit.
b. Are there parts of the review that accomplish some other purpose, than presenting an evaluation? Explain your answer (e.g., why did you say what you did? If there are other purposes, what are they?)c. Did you personally find the chosen review to be informative? Was there anything that made it unsatisfying to you? Explain
General Instructions for the Essays
1. Essays should be 3 4 double-space pages.
2. Type all essays and use a normal margin and type. It is not necessary to write a very long essay, even for the best grade. On the other hand, if your essay is too short, you are probably staying too close to the surface. Are you sure you didnt skip steps?
3. Your answer will be graded on the basis of demonstrated understanding of the course materials, thoughtfulness, organization and clarity, and writing mechanics (for example, grammar, spelling, and sentence organization).
4. For short essays, the requirements for citations are relatively relaxed:
a. If you refer to an artwork, be sure to give its full name and the artist’s or authors name.
b. Give the source for all direct quotes and write the information in parentheses right after the quoted material. Thus,
c. For quotes from Neill and Ridley, you can use this abbreviated form: Essay Author, Essay Title, The Philosophy of Art, page xyz. Similarly, Dickie, Introduction, page xyz, works for the book by George Dickie.
d. Give the standard bibliographical information for any other sources you refer to or quote from including other textbooks (i.e., author, title, publisher, year of publication, and page number). FYI, this is much like the system that Philosophy journals use for book reviews.
