Course Handbook
From handbook:
APPENDIX 3: GUIDE TO THE GRADUATE RESEARCH PROJECT PROPOSAL The Graduate Research Project Proposal
Your Graduate Research Project Proposal (1500-2000 words) is due in the fourth trimester of your studies. Writing a proposal involves analyzing the work you have realized so far, formulating artistic questions and approaches for further research, outlining methodologies, and establishing a critical framework relevant to your practice. The proposal builds on and integrates the research, work and skills developed in year one. The content of the Graduate Research Project Proposal is specific to your practice and study needs, and is determined by each student in dialogue with the MFA program tutors. The proposal should outline the what, why, and how of your graduate research project and writing component. It is meant to provide you with a solid basis from which to conduct research, not to predefine or fix the work that may result from this research. The proposed project may involve any subjects, methods, references, media and forms of presentation and dissemination relevant to your work and to contemporary arts practice. Assessment of the Graduate Research Project Proposal:
Proposal Seminar
The proposal will be assessed in the Graduate Research Project and Thesis Proposal Seminar, which takes place in the fourth trimester of your studies.
The course director, an assessment panel including your advising tutors, and fellow students attend the Proposal Seminar. This is a formative assessment, which means you receive written feedback but not a grade. The assessment panel will assess your capacity to:
• Select appropriate topics for advanced research and work.
• Develop and execute a suitable strategy for research and work.
• Reflect critically upon, analyze and evaluate work undertaken and to use the knowledge gained to (re) define the aims and direction of future practice.
• Formulate appropriate objectives, topics, methods and outcomes for your Graduate Research Project and thesis.
Tips for Writing the Proposal
You will almost certainly need to complete a number of drafts of the proposal in order to produce something that articulates your positions clearly. Defining aims and objectives is not easy, but it is essential that you are as specific as possible at this early stage. Dialogue with your tutors and fellow students will help clarify your intentions. A proposal writing workshop will help you focus on simple questions like: what am I really trying to explore, find out, or produce? How am I going to do this? What research do I need to do? What form may my project take? How am I going to present my body of work? How am I going to talk about my ideas and findings to someone else? Also reflect upon the relationship between your material practice, research and writing. What form and kind of text would be the most suitable to accompany your work?
Aims and Objectives
Indicate clearly the broader aspirations underlying the project, and set specific, focused and achievable objectives for the duration of the project. It is important that you identify a set of key research questions for yourself, or key issues that emerge from your research and which you would like to pursue further. While your aims might be: ‘to produce a body of work on issues of concern to me and find appropriate forms for this’: this is too vague. You must outline the questions at hand and issues to be addressed and investigated in your work and in writing.
Rationale
What is it about your proposed project and Writing Component that particularly interests you and why will it be worthwhile and of interest to others? Provide some background and discuss the motivations for your decision-making.
Relationship to Previous Work
Explain how the proposed project relates to previous work. How is the project a progression from your recent work? Is the proposed new work a development of what you are already doing? Is it a change of direction, or very different in emphasis, approach or media? If so, why are you changing direction – what is it about your recent work that has made you decide to change direction, emphasis or approach?
Project Outline, Methods, and Approach
(What, Why, and How) Briefly describe what you intend to do and how you propose to do it. An initial plan of action, set against a time frame, should be included. How will you realize your aims and objectives? What will need to be done, by when, by whom? What methods will you employ? What resources might you need to access and draw upon? What potential problems can you envisage and how will you tackle solving these problems if they arise?
Expected Outcomes
What is the likely form that the work might take, what are the media to be employed? How do you intend to document the project?
Framing Your Practice
Here you should describe the visual, material, technical, contextual, and theoretical research you propose to undertake. It might help to identify the conversations you are part of (among your peers, with tutors, the books you’re reading, the artists you are looking at, and so on), the field or network in which you are currently situated and then identify how this immediate discourse extends into broader cultural issues. You must be able to articulate a relevant critical and contextual framework for your practice, and how you position the proposed work in relation to that framework and the culture at large. This is also where you will outline the questions, issues, and themes driving your Writing Component, with some mention of primary research (interviews, questionnaires, gallery/museum visits, etc.), and secondary research (readings, screenings, literature review, bibliographical sources, etc.).
Review of Field of Research and Practice
Provide a concise initial review of the field of knowledge and contemporary art practices with which your project intersects and interfaces. Who are the key artists, writers, curators, theoreticians and critics in the field? What are the key works, texts and other aspects of the field? What are the main debates and issues evident in the field? What gaps in knowledge and practice can you identify at the outset?
Critical Self-Evaluation
Indicate how you intend to evaluate the project. On what basis will you be making judgments about the relative merits and shortcomings of your work? What criteria are you likely to use to evaluate your project – in all its aspects: aims, objectives, methods, plan of work, the writing and the body of work itself, etc.? It might help to consider your own criteria for success or failure for a project or piece of work? Look back at past work and ask what has succeeded in the past and why? It might be useful to build into your timetable moments where you test the work (both studio and writing) and invite assessment from your peers (outside studio visits or formal moments of display and evaluation)
Initial Bibliography (Harvard Reference Format)
Indicate likely sources for the beginning and development of the project. Include all relevant sources. However, rather than list your reading ambitions for the year ask yourself: What are the sources that would enable a reader to situate my proposed project and to talk productively with me about it? Avoid Wikipedia. Harvard Reference Format style guides are readily available on the Internet. Length and Format of Proposal Your proposal should be 1500-2000 words excluding images and bibliography, to be submitted in single-spaced 12-point font according to form.