Street Art - Possible Dissertation Topic

Street Art - Possible Dissertation Topic


Bespoke Graffiti Wall behind skatepark inspired by flight of butterflies




As it comes up to the end of the second year, thoughts turn to the final year and writing a dissertation. The possible topic of street art came about as far back as the first year's design project of St James Square where I included a bespoke graffiti wall as part of the skatepark as inspired by Cheltenham's strong association with planned street art. In this post, I wanted to initiate the research process that must begin before finalizing an essay title so I've included my idea dump:

AD6600 DISSERTATION MODULE INTRODUCTION

8000 WORDS (not including bibliography)

TITLE AND STRUCTURE 20%

RESEARCH 30%

ANALYSIS AND SYNTHESIS 40%

PRESENTATION AND LANGUAGE 10%

Harvard Referencing

·        Proposal outline – choose a specific module tutor to co-align with subject of essay

·        Research + analysis

·        Choose a topic that interests you

·        Title is important but can be decided after writing

·        Explore all avenues of a topic before homing in to decide a question/argument

·        Represent different sides of the story

·        Takes time to confirm research question and must confirm with tutor before writing

·        Pdf via Moodle

·        Include images and references

·        Plan and manage workload throughout semester to time manage

·        Keep thinking and develop initial ideas

·        Library is buying new books so can request research

POSSIBLE TOPICS:

-         Landscape Architecture, Landscape Design

-         Ecology

-         Planning

-         Urban environments

-         Landscape Arts and artists

-         Sustainability

-         Garden history

-         Climate Change

 

-         Global/international not limited to UK

-         Can merge art, media, and science

-         Show off to future employers

-         Logical thinking

-         Critical analysis

-         Combining layers of information and data and communicating this effectively

-         Insert your opinion

-         Don’t need your own primary research / don’t have to collect your own data

-         Can do your own interviews though

-         Use case studies

-         Take your own photos

-         Reference own experiences

-         Look at news and current events for inspiration

-         Read architectural magazines + landscape journals

-         Researchers delve deeper into subjects

-         Find evidence and collect in folder

-         Evidence can be literature, case studies, precedence, discussion etc…

 

WHAT DOES A DISSERTATION LOOK LIKE?

WHAT IS A LITERARY REVIEW? FINDING KEY VOICES/TEXTS AND ASSESS IN RELATION TO YOUR OWN DISSERTATION – OUTLINE KEY GOAL OF ESSAY – WHAT PROBLEM ARE YOU SOLVING? KEY PEOPLE/FIGUREHEADS TO LOOK AT -

SOURCE CREDIBILITY

ARE TRANSLATIONS CREDIBLE/RELIABLE? – YES YOU CAN USE GOOGLE TRANSLATE BUT BE CAREFUL AS IT DOESN’T ALWAYS GIVE PROPER MEANING – PARAPHRASE BUT MAKE IT CLEAR YOU’VE TRANSLATED IT

8000 WORDS ISN’T ACTUALLY THAT MUCH

DO YOU NEED A CONTENTS PAGE?

 

LIBARAY WILL REMAIN OPEN ALL SUMMER

EMAIL: rreid@glos.ac.uk

 

LOOK ON LIBRARY FOR PREVIOUS DISSERTATION EXAMPLES CAN SEARCH PARTICULAR TOPICS

IF A STUDENT HAS ALREADY COVERED YOUR TOPIC ARE YOU ALLOWED TO COVER THE SAME TOPIC? AND CAN YOU REFERENCE THEIR WORK?

 

COVER PAGE

CONTENTS

CHAPTER HEADINGS

SUBJECT INTRODUCTION

LITERARTURE REVIEW

PRIMARY RESEACH IF APPLICABLE

PAGE NUMBERS

HEADINGS

FIGURES/IMAGES PROPERLY REFERENCED

CAN QUOTE OTHER STUDENTS BUT YOU CAN DO BETTER!

USE THEIR REFERENCES TO FORM START OF READING LIST

CAN’T BE THE SAME QUESTION BUT THE TOPIC CAN BE SIMILAR IT MJUST BE A PERSONAL INTEREST THAT HAS BEEN NARROWED DOWN – CHECK ON LIBRARY RESOURCES FIRST

 

My interests:

-         Skateboarding

-         Artwork in the public realm – Bristol

-         Cheltenham graffiti

-         What is graffiti

-         Stereotypes

-         Landscape art an intervention

-         Spontaneous street art vs planned

-         Berlin, Bristol, and Belfast – random locations to discuss street art

-         Buenos Aires,

-         My experiences

-         Public interactivity

-         Livening up spaces with creativity

-         Expectations vs reality for street art

-         Impact of art festivals and exhibitions on public persona of cities

-         Vitality of town centres and how art can rejuvenate a place

-         What makes a place special?

-         Could Cheltenham be a case study

-         People’s behaviour + crime

-         Link to landscape architect

-         History of street art

-         Street art as protest

-         What aspect excites me??

-         Allow yourself to go down various rabbit holes but take a step back when needed

-         Keep a record of every bit of research

-         Mind map titles

-         What does graffiti mean?

-         Photoshop out street art and notice the lack of character/ loses its identity

-         Legislation and planning policies involved

-         Could add research process in appendix e.g. a giant poster mind map to keep track of resources

-         Academic texts are king

-         Collaborate with other courses??

-         Look for peer reviewed sources

-         How recently was it published?

-         Consolidate as you go along

-         Look for a bibliography and use those sources as well

-         Physical books!!

-         Library discovery is better than google scholar!

-         JUNKYARD DOCUMENT + BACK UP ON ONEDRIVE + KEEP UPDATED THROUGHOUT

-         CHECK SPELLING!

-         KEEP LIST OF RE-OCCURING VOCABULARY AND USE A SEARCH TOOL

-         LOOK AT CITED BY TO GET RECENT WRITTEN TEXTS + citation date and check what the citation is

-         APPLY UNI OF GLOS FILTER ON GOOGLE SCHOLAR TO SEE IF UNI HAS TEXT

-         Gentrification

-         Grayson Perry

-         Quality not quantity

-         Past five years is the best but check last 10 years as well for initial search

-         EVALUATE EVERY SOURCE

-         New library website

-         ‘The Battle for the High Street”

-         ‘From the tag to the Hashtag’ Street art and Instagram - peer reviewed

-         ‘Limiting law’

-         STREET ART AND TOURISM

-         Get historical context as well to provide background information

-         Get interviews talking to street artists and members of the public about the

 


-         SAGE JOURNALS PREMIER- SOCIAL SCIENCES

-         SCIENCE DIRECT

-         WILEY ONLINE LIBRARY


The ‘Abstract’ is a summary of the dissertation and then the method can give key details of the research method, could quote results as evidence and the conclusion is always a good thing to check for main argument.

DON’T REFERENCE YOUR OWN WORK IT WILL COUNT AS PLAGIRISM

USE MY BIB TO START A REFERENCE LIST

PLUS KEEP A SEPARATE LIST FOR ONEDRIVE

 

 

 

 

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