Connect with your MICA. Find information for:

Students, staff & faculty can login to access personalized content.

Parent & Guardian Access is located here.

Forgot your password?

Research Tools Exercise

Web Research

Some basic things to remember in conducting web research, or in evaluating a website:

  1. Google is a useful tool, but it's hardly completely comprehensive: always remember that it does not reference many journals or magazines, because of copyright restrictions. Furthermore, you should be familiar with the various search functions possible on Google (for instance, you can limit searches to traditionally reliable governmental or educational sites), and toy around with various permutations or synonyms in conducting a search. Finally, you can't simply trust the first sites you find, for a number of reasons...
  2. In longer online entries, the author's name and a contact e-mail should appear. Once you know the writer's name, you can do a search for other material by the same writer: is it generally reliable? And are the claims on the site adequately documented?
  1. There should also, as a general rule, be a link to the host or the sponsor. Sites posted by individuals, of course, aren't subject to any external checks regarding accuracy or reliability, so sticking with solid institutionally managed sites can be a good idea. That said, you may also have to weigh the reliability or the objectivity of the involved institutions.
  2. The Last Updated date can give information about the currency of the info; arguments can become outdated rather quickly. Google's Advanced Search allows you, again, to specify a range of dates.
  3. Finally, use your common sense. Sometimes fraudulent programmers can create believable sites that contain blatantly false information.

Corresponding Examples

  1. What do we get when we type "Diocletian died in" into Google?
  2. For instance, this website might seem to be totally legitimate; the author's name is clearly visible, and his credentials stated. But his claims are not well documented, and Google doesn't reveal any other significant work by the purported author.
  3. For example, http://www.martinlutherking.org seems to be a useful and potentially reliable wesbite, at first glance. But take a closer look at the host, named at the bottom.
  4. If we're a Central Floridian looking for some scholarship, we might end up cursing the outdated info at this website.
  5. If we type "true facts about women and aids" into Google, we'll quickly be pointed to the following site, which looks initially convincing. But what about when we look further into it?

Further Resources & Ideas

Purdue's Online Writing Lab runs a site that offers some helpful pointers about doing Web research (as well as links to online writing resources).

Also helpful is a Student's Guide to World Wide Web research, developed by Saint Louis University.

And a visit to the library to look at some more traditional sources.

Library Research

Below is a brief list of starting points, and then a second list of some topics; what I'd like you to do is to find an answer to 4 questions, from at least 3 different categories. When you've finished researching the questions (you don't need to write down your findings, unless you want to) come and check in with me. By the way, (as in most libraries), you don't need to reshelve any books; just leave them on the tables.

Useful Library Resources

  • WebCat, the MICA online catalog. Let's take a look at Roger Fry.
  • The Wilson Web (Art Index). A very useful index of periodicals.
  • The Grove Dictionary of Art, a 34-volume work on art and artists.
  • The Info desk and the reference librarians, always a good place to turn for help.

Possible Subjects: Likely Google Search Candidates

  • Who designed the Brooklyn Bridge?
  • Why is the name Nadar important in the history of photography?
  • What was the nationality of the architect Frantisek Kanka?
  • What is casein, when used as a painting medium?

The Dictionary of Art might help with...

  • What is the brief history of the altarpiece?
  • What sorts of work was Keith Haring, a 1980s American painter, known for?
  • What was Futurism?
  • Let's say you're heading to Tbilisi on a trip. What sorts of architecture can you expect?

(Current) Periodicals

  • What does Yves-Alain Bois have to say about the new MoMA, in Artforum?
  • Does African American Review cover the visual arts?
  • Check out the review of the Barnstormers, in Sculpture. What sorts of objects do they use?

(Bound) Periodicals

  • Peter Schjeldahl, now the New Yorker art critic, wrote a review of a Vito Acconci show at the Sonnabend Gallery in New York for the March/April 1972 Art in America (page 119). What was his take on the show?
  • The March 2003 issue of Artforum involved a fun look back at the 1980s. In that issue, what did Jonathan Crary argue about the film Blade Runner?

Use WebCat or Wilson Web to search for sources that might help you with..

  • How were Greek vases usually made? What sorts of subjects were common?
  • Did Vermeer use a camera obscura? And what does David Hockney have to say about this interesting device?
  • What did Picasso's preparatory sketches for Guernica look like?
  • How are Bwami masks (from the Congo) made, and how are they typically used?
  • Does the Walters Gallery have any good Roman sarcophagi in its collection?