4-5 pages double spaced, 12 point font
Please type your paper. Where you refer to specific images, include a few of them at the end of your paper.

This paper will be an argumentative essay rather than a research report, though you will use research in gathering evidence to support your argument. Remember that when we speak of an argument in this context, we dont mean a fight. Rather, we mean a logically structured discourse that is intended to convince someone of something. The question I want you to address in this paper, through a case study of an artist or art movement, is the following:

What is influence and how does it work in the modern and contemporary art of China? What do we mean when we say that one style or technique influences another? What are some of the factors that cause this influence to occur?

Heres how to do it. You should choose one example (or a couple of related examples) of influence in Chinese modern or contemporary art. (anyone but li hua ) Introduce it first, with a brief description (as you know how to do). Then identify its influences. DONT STOP THERE.

Once youve identified its influences, please explain how they work, and why they happened. This explanation can draw on what youve learned about 20th-century Chinese history. For example, if you choose a realist oil painter, then obviously your artist was influenced by the European and/or Soviet oil painting traditions (although youll want to be more specific than that: whose oil painting in particular, and why?). However, the realists of the early 20th century were influenced by European oil painting for very different reasons than those that affected the realists working after the founding of the PRC. Artists choices never occur in a vacuum – they are shaped by changing standards of value. Historical, political, and cultural context will help you explain the flow of influence from one art tradition to another. You spent the last paper thinking about how your chosen artist was a product of his times and experiences. This paper is in some ways a continuation of that thinking – because influences are also a product of their times.

Your job is to convince your reader that your explanation of how influence works in this case is the most reasonable and convincing one, out of all the possible explanations that could be offered for this issue. In your conclusion, please spend some time thinking about what your example tells us about influence in general and how/why it works.

In the last writing workshop we spent a lot of time talking about the relationship between claims, reasoning, and evidence, and about the warrants or unexamined assumptions that connect them. I expect you to make use of what you learned in the last workshop to write this paper. Obviously, in this case, your main claim will be your answer to the question What is influence and how does it work in this historical moment? You must support this claim with reasoning and with evidence, and you must make the logical connections between these clear (remember that examining your warrants is one way to do this).

The research will come in when you need to cite specific evidence to support your claims and your reasoning. This evidence can come from course readings, from the research you did for Paper #2, or from additional research as you wish. Wherever you get it from, the same standards of citation apply to this paper as to the last: provide a citation for everything that doesnt come from your own brain in this case, your evidence, and perhaps some reasons if you happen to get them from someone else — use a standard citation format, and DONT only cite direct quotations.

The next writing workshop will focus on making and refining points and claims. To give yourself a head start, a word about your main claim, which is the answer to the question above. Your main claim should appear near the front of the work, ideally at the end of the introduction. Then you can follow it with the argument that supports it. Many students are tempted to hold off till the end of the paper to reveal their main point. In workshop, well talk about why this is confusing to the reader.