Writing Guidelines
History of Art Policy on Late Work
In order to be uniformly fair to all students taking courses in the Art Department, the following policy regarding work submitted late will be honored by all faculty members. If a paper or other project is one day late, it will be marked down one-third of its given grade (e.g. an A to A-, or an A- to B+ etc.) unless the student can present a medical excuse from a doctor or a note from the Dean about extenuating circumstances in the family. Every two days thereafter until seven days from the original due date, the paper or project will be marked down another one-third grade. After the seventh day after the first due date, the grade will be further reduced by one-third each day it is outstanding. This includes weekends. In accordance with college policy, late papers will not be accepted after the last day of classes.
History of Art Policy on Documenting Sources for Papers
In order to emphasize the importance of acknowledging sources and the proper citation format used in its implementation, students in Wheaton College History of Art courses are required to follow 2 sets of rules (unless otherwise indicated):
- To avoid plagiarism, students need to apply the guidelines detailed in Sylvan Barnet’s A Guide to Writing About Art, 9th edition, pp. 327-335. This material deals with Acknowledging Sources (Borrowing Without Plagiarizing, Fair Use of Common Knowledge, “But How Else Can I Put It?” and Checklist for Avoiding Plagiarism). If you are ever confused about what constitutes plagiarism, please ask your professor(s), your advisor and/or a librarian for assistance.
- To cite properly, students should refer to the guidelines found in The Chicago Manual of Style, which is also available in hard copy in the library.
Both sources provide a broad range of sample citations for both notes and bibliography for various sources (books, journal articles, websites), which students should follow precisely. An additional page at the Chicago site provides formatting for “author-date” documentation system, which we do not follow.
Writing Resources
We strongly encourage our students to seek external readers for their work and we have specialized history of art tutors who can help from syntax and grammar, to argument construction, and paper organization. The Tutoring Center in Kollett Hall offers valuable resources for our students and we recommend they make regular use of it.
Additionally, we strongly recommend our students use Peer Tutoring in the library.
A wonderful resource for writers authoring texts in the discipline of art history is Sylvan Barnet’s book A Short Guide to Writing About Art (New Jersey: Pearson, 2010) in its 10th edition.