UCL History of Art

GUIDELINES ON BA AND MA WRITTEN COURSEWORK

Word Count
Essays must adhere to the assignment’s stated word count range or face a penalty. Notes are
included in the final word count.

Presentation

• Use a legible font (Times New Roman, Courier, and Helvetica are preferable), set in 12pt.
Line spacing should be 1.5 or double. Leave large enough margins for comments.
• Insert page numbers on each page.
• Copies of images discussed should be included (b&w will do).
• All essays should have notes and a bibliography.
• Be sure to SPELLCHECK your essay before submitting it and look for commonly misused
forms (it’s/its; there/their, etc.)

Citation and Citation Style

It is imperative that you cite the sources for words and ideas that are not your own. The correct
acknowledgment of sources recognizes the intellectual labor of others and allows your reader to
follow up on the research you have undertaken. Incorrectly cited material constitutes plagiarism.
(See the relevant BA or MA Student Handbook for further discussion of UCL’s policies on plagiarism.)
The standardized formats used for footnotes and bibliographies are what is known as citation ‘style,’
which varies according to academic discipline and geographical location. The citation style
recommended in our department is the MHRA Style Guide: A Handbook for Authors and Editors,
3rd edn (London: Modern Humanities Research Association, 2013), available for download via the
relevant Student Handbook on Moodle. While other citation styles are acceptable, it is important to
be consistent with whichever style you choose.

FOOTNOTES
Footnote reference examples (based on the MHRA Style Guide)

First references

Books by one author:

John Shearman, Mannerism (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1986), pp. 10-12.
Erwin Panofsky, The Life and Art of Albrecht Dürer (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1955), p. 87.

Book by two authors:

Elizabeth Cropper and Charles Dempsey, Nicolas Poussin: Friendship and the Love of
Painting (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996), p. 123.

Journal article (note that the page numbers are placed at the end; ‘5’ = volume number; note
gives full page range for article without ‘pp.’, followed by specific page reference in brackets):
Sheila McTighe, ‘Nicolas Poussin's Representations of Storms and Libertinage in the Mid-
Seventeenth Century’, Word and Image, 5 (1989), 333-61 (p. 337).
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Article in a book of collected essays by the same author (Panofsky):
Erwin Panofsky, ‘Et in Arcadia Ego: Poussin and the Elegiac Tradition’, in Meaning in the
Visual Arts: Papers in and on Art History (Garden City, NY: Doubleday Anchor Books,
1955), pp. 295-320.

Article in a book of collected essays with multiple authors (make sure to include the name of the
editor/editors; ‘ed. by’ = edited by):
James S. Ackerman, ‘The Regions of Italian Renaissance Architecture’, in The Renaissance
from Brunelleschi to Michelangelo: The Representation of Architecture, ed. by Henry A.
Millon and Vittorio Magnago Lampugnani (New York: Rizzoli, 1994), pp. 319-47 (p. 321).

Primary sources edited and translated by one scholar (trans. by = translated by):
Leon Battista Alberti, On Painting and On Sculpture: The Latin Texts of ‘De pictura’ and
‘De statua’, ed. and trans. by Cecil Grayson (London: Phaidon, 1972), pp. 23-25.

Primary source with several translators:

Leon Battista Alberti, On the Art of Building in Ten Books, trans. by Joseph Rykwert, Neil
Leach and Robert Tavernor (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1991), pp. 100-107.

Websites and online publications (makes sure to include the author and the full URL—this is the
web address and begins with http:// or https://—as well as the date that you accessed the
page):
Martha Easton, ‘Was It Good For You Too? Medieval Erotic Art and Its Audiences,’
Different Visions, 1 (2008) <http://differentvisions.org/issue-one/> [accessed 3 October
2016].

Later references

In all references to a book or article after the first, use the shortest intelligible form (normally the
author’s surname, or a short-title reference if you are citing more than one work by the same
author, followed by relevant page numbers). Multiple references can be inserted in a single
footnote, separated by a semicolon:

Weil-Garris, p. 228.

Shearman, p. 27; Ackerman, pp. 333-34.

Alberti, On the Art of Building, p. 73; Alberti, On Painting, pp. 46-47.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Include in the bibliography itself only those articles and/or books that you have cited. Do not inflate
your bibliography with titles that you haven't actually referenced! Websites such as Wikipedia, while
useful for background reading, are not acceptable as research sources and should not appear on the
bibliography. If you do use a legitimate website as a source, make sure to properly cite it, with
author, URL, and date accessed (see below for examples).
Remember to arrange your bibliography alphabetically (usually by author or editor surname).
Because the bibliography is a list of sources, you only need to include page ranges for journal articles
or essays or chapters within books.
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Bibliography examples

Note: if the bibliography includes more than one work by the same author, a long dash can be
substituted for the name after the first appearance and works should be arranged in
alphabetical order of title, disregarding initial definite (the) or indefinite (a/an) articles.

Ackerman, James S., ‘The Regions of Italian Renaissance Architecture’, in The Renaissance from
Brunelleschi to Michelangelo: The Representation of Architecture, ed. by Henry A. Millon
and Vittorio Magnago Lampugnani (New York: Rizzoli, 1994), pp. 319-47

Alberti, Leon Battista, On Painting and On Sculpture: The Latin Texts of ‘De pictura’ and ‘De
statua’, ed. and trans. by Cecil Grayson (London: Phaidon, 1972)

——, On the Art of Building in Ten Books, trans. by Joseph Rykwert, Neil Leach and Robert
Tavernor (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1991)

Chilvers, Ian, ‘Bestiary’, in The Oxford Dictionary of Art, ed. by Ian Chilvers, 3rd edn (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2004) http://www.oxfordreference.com [accessed 15 July 2017]

Cropper, Elizabeth and Charles Dempsey, Nicolas Poussin: Friendship and the Love of Painting
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996)

Easton, Martha, ‘Was It Good For You Too? Medieval Erotic Art and Its Audiences,’ Different
Visions, 1 (2008) <http://differentvisions.org/issue-one/> [accessed 3 October 2016]

McTighe, Sheila, ‘Nicolas Poussin's Representations of Storms and Libertinage in the Mid-
Seventeenth Century’, Word and Image, 5 (1989), 333-61

Millon, Henry A. and Vittorio Magnago Lampugnani (eds), The Renaissance from Brunelleschi to
Michelangelo: The Representation of Architecture (New York: Rizzoli, 1994)

Panofsky, Erwin, ‘Et in Arcadia Ego: Poussin and the Elegiac Tradition’, in Meaning in the Visual
Arts: Papers in and on Art History (Garden City, NY: Doubleday Anchor Books, 1955), pp.
295-320

——, The Life and Art of Albrecht Dürer (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1955)

Shearman, John, Mannerism (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1986)

Weil-Garris, Kathleen, ‘Bandinelli and Michelangelo: A Problem of Artistic Identity’, in Art the Ape
of Nature: Studies in Honor of H. W. Janson, ed. by Moshe Barasch and Lucy Freedman
Sandler (New York: Abrams, 1981), pp. 223-51

ILLUSTRATIONS

Illustrations should be referenced within the main body of your essay and given numbers to
allow for easy consultation (Fig. 1, Fig. 2, etc.) Captions to illustrations are the corollary to
bibliographic citation, in that they give credit and provide the reader with useful
information for further research.
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Basic Rules

Include the following information when captioning illustrations:

1. Artist (if known)
2. Title of work
3. Date (if none is given, indicate at least the century in which it was produced)
4. Medium
5. Dimensions (if available)
6. Location (church, museum, private collection, etc.)

For detailed instructions on the appropriate format of captions for particular types of
artworks (manuscript illuminations, sculpture in situ, architecture, etc.) see the Writing
Guide in the BA Student Handbook on Moodle.

Additional Resources on Writing Art History Essays:

Pointon, Marcia, History of Art: A Student's Handbook, 5th edn (London: Routledge, 2014).
Pop, Andrei, How to Do Things with Pictures: A Guide to Writing in Art History (Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University, Department of History of Art and Architecture, 2008).
Available for free download:
<hwpi.harvard.edu/files/hwp/files/writing_about_art_final_web.pdf?m=1370453682>
UCL Writing Lab, a free service to enhance students’ academic writing and research skills:
<www.ucl.ac.uk/writing-lab/what-is-writing-lab>
Language + Writing Support Programme, run by UCLU for international students studying
at UCL: <http://studentsunionucl.org/l-and-w>