Writing Papers

It is common to see people in Novack Café (a part of the library that is open 24 hours) in the wee hours of the morning, surrounded by Red Bull cans, typing away to meet their paper deadline. With GreenPrint (Dartmouth’s printer station) nearby and Novack Café open until 2AM for caffeine supply, it is a pretty popular way to finish up that 10-page paper.

Although I have gone that route many times freshman year, I decided to do something different for my art history paper this term and start a little bit early. Dartmouth has so many resources available to assist your writing and research, and I wanted to take advantage of them.

I first started my research at the Sherman Art Library. I was looking for material on the Museum of Modern Art’s expansion project. Sherman has its own Art History librarian, and she helped me find journal articles from the library’s many online journal subscriptions. One cool thing I found out during this process was that Dartmouth students also have full access to the New York Times archives (No need to pay for TimesSelect!). For those that were not available, I could request that it be sent to me as a PDF file from another university that does have the article. I also checked out some books that I had found in the stacks.

After I acquired the materials and read through them to get a sense of what to write about, I summarized my points and ideas. To discuss my argument and to improve them, I went to my professor’s office hours. (Office hours are set times in which you can go talk to your professors in their office about class material, assignments, tests, etc.) My professor gave me advice about how to lead my arguments and suggested things that I should look into to strengthen my paper.

You should go to your professor to discuss the paper’s contents, but for pure writing issues, there are other resources. For art history specifically, there is a department writing editor. Art history essays can be slightly different in format and style from other subjects, so she is available by appointment to help you format and revise your paper.

A general writing support system is called RWiT, the student center for research, writing and information technology. RWiT tutors are Dartmouth students who went through a training program. They are available by appointment, and they will tell you what parts are weak and help you revise your paper.

I am on the third page of my paper – I’m so glad I started early and got so much guidance!