Writing Component guidelines
From the handbook:
APPENDIX 4: GUIDE TO THE GRADUATE RESEARCH PROJECT AND WRITING COMPONENT
Introduction
This Graduate Research Project consists in a body of work for exhibition in a group setting, and an accompanying 8000-word text knows as the ‘Writing Component’. This guide indicates expectations for the successful completion of the project and the Master of Fine Art degree from the Piet Zwart Institute.
Producing a Body of Work
Whatever the nature of your practice, a Graduate Research Project must take into consideration the MFA final compentencies and:
• Have definable aims and objectives, against which it can be monitored and evaluated.
• Have defined parameters in terms of time, media, materials and the processes involved.
• Be manageable and achievable within the framework of six trimesters of studies in the MFA program.
These may seem obvious points but serious difficulties can arise if the proposed objectives are unable to be realized in the given time, or because particular processes, media or materials have not been suitable or available in the way that was envisaged at the outset. This reinforces the importance we attach to formulating a clear and detailed proposal in the early stages, though we recognize that much will develop as your research and work progress. Your three advising tutors will serve as key interlocutors for your Graduate Research Project, however, external voices, including guest tutors, collaborators, a guest curator or exhibition producer, dialogues with technical staff and peers, will also influence the outcomes of your research, material practice, and writing. The Interim Assessment is used to measure progress and allow you to make any necessary conceptual and practical adjustments. The final Graduate
Assessment traditionally takes place in the venue within which the work is presented to the public. This assessment concerns the final work produced and presented, as well as the trajectory of your research and work throughout the year. The Graduate
Research Project is weighted 70% research and practice, 30% writing component (with adjustments made when writing is the main component of a student’s practice).
As your research progresses, it is likely you will produce a number of works over the course of the year, and not everything can be included in your final presentation. It’s likely the nature of your final presentation cannot be determined as far in advance as you may like. Therefore, scrutinizing and editing your own work for presentation is a skillful art you will wish to engage in as the final assessment draws near.
The Writing Component
The Writing Component of the Graduate Research Project must be carefully planned from the start. Its main purpose is to articulate in writing the issues, questions and ideas that inform or shape your practice. Think of the Writing Component as a parallel activity to the body of work in progress, as another manifestation of your research. You will establish with your writing tutor the most appropriate form for the expression of your practice, develop a strong relationship between writing and practice, and learn to consider your writing as an integral part of your practice, as a medium of reflection and production. Your text, just like the work you exhibit as a requirement for your degree, must be suitable to be read by professionals, peers, and a broader public
The textual requirement for the award of the Master of Fine Art degree contains up to 8000 words, excluding bibliography/iconography. If you choose to submit an entirely text-based graduate research project the scope and scale of that text will be determined with you by your advising tutors and the course director.
You are required to deliver six copies of the text in a suitably bound form (one for each of your two advising tutors, one for your writing tutor, two for the archive of Piet Zwart Institute, one for the archive of the Willem de Kooning Academy). Furthermore, you are required to email the final version to the PZI MFA office.
Please note that the entire document may not exceed 1MB in digital form, so this means the images will need reworking for the digital version of the thesis. Make sure you include time in your schedule for formatting, printing, and binding your thesis. The delivery deadline is final and technical problems with printing, binding, or formatting the digital version of the thesis will not be considered acceptable reasons for missing the deadline. The Writing Tutors are sensitive to the different issues presented to students writing in their second language and with varied experiences of writing and research. It is the student’s responsibility to discuss their needs with their tutors; part of the process will be to arrive at a mode of writing that is appropriate to the aims and objectives of the research project and can communicate to a broad readership of tutors, peers and other interested parties. Special attention will be given to the acquisition of skills in editing and proofreading. Students are expected to adhere to the Harvard Referencing System in the bibliography and when citing sources
Methodology
The Writing Component of your Graduate Research Project should embody the development of your research or reflect a key aspect of your research. How will you document and analyze your writing process? Develop a method that suits you and your practice. Maybe you will keep a journal, take notes as you go along, keep copies of drawings, diagrams and plans, photograph different stages of the work, make video documentation, retain copies of computer images and texts as they are changed and developed, whatever helps to track the development of your research through references, quotes, illustrations, and bibliographies. Contextualization
The issues, questions and ideas that you are dealing with in your graduate project arise out of a matrix of influences, experiences, contacts and references. In other words: they have a context. What is more, the writing component emerges from the context of your material practice and should engage with, or extend, its motivations and formal and conceptual processes. It is important to demonstrate an awareness of these contexts and an understanding of how your work is situated within them. How you do this will depend on the nature of your project and practice. You may, for example, directly engage with relevant practices, concerns, ideas and arguments through the use of citation and footnotes. Or you may take a more indirect approach which demonstrates awareness and understanding through the choice of form, mode of address, and the methods of research and writing themselves. What is important is that the issues, questions and ideas animating your work are explored in as much depth as possible, and that your knowledge is convincingly demonstrated.
Bibliography
At the Master level, engagement with already existing bodies of knowledge in your chosen field of research is essential. The bibliography is the place where you direct your reader to the sources and relevant materials that have informed your research. You may choose to provide an annotated bibliography which includes summaries of arguments, comparisons, critical evaluations and indicates their influence on your thinking and practice.
Presentation
Your text should be presented in a form that suits its aims and intentions, and that clearly demonstrates the qualities and information we have indicated above. It should be carefully organized, effectively constructed and appropriate to the nature of your practice and research. While a ‘book’ format may be perfectly suitable, other possibilities should be considered. For example: a book with a supplementary portfolio of visual documentation; a book with CD or DVD; a large format book or portfolio with diagrams, drawings and other visual material; a boxed collection of printed texts documentation and samples of materials; an artist’s book taking a more unusual form.
This is only an indicative list.
Word count
The word count for the writing component is 8,000 words excluding bibliography, with a margin of 10 per cent either side (so should fall within the range of 7,200 - 8,800 words). It is important to bear this formal constraint in mind from the outset: 8,000 is a specific volume of words to work with, and substantially longer texts will need to be edited down to meet this requirement.