Jewelry

Bookplate of Winward Prescott, via Pratt Institute Library's Flickr collection of book plates (click image to further explore)

To help you with jewelry-related research, this guide offers research tips and strategies. Learn how to find books, articles and images as well as avoid plagiarism, cite your sources and more! Need help? Contact us! (see right) 

SIFT is a method you can use to evaluate your sources to help determine whether they are credible and reliable. Simply use the four moves below if you are worried about whether a source is trustworthy:

Stop

If you have a strong reaction to information you come across, this is a good indication to do more research. 

Ask yourself whether you know the source of the information, as well as that source's reputation. If you don’t have that information, use the other moves to get a sense of what you’re looking at.

Investigate the Source

Take time to look up the source and the author. Is this source credible? Is the author impartial, or do they have a vested interest in the argument that is being made?

One way to quickly determine an author or organization's agenda is to check their Wikipedia page.

Find Better Coverage

Try checking other sources to see how they are covering the topic you are researching. Scanning multiple sources quickly can help you determine the consensus around an issue or claim.

Trace Claims, Quotes and Media

Track down the original source of claims, quotes and media. Reputable news articles will provide links within the text, and academic articles provide sources in their footnotes and bibliography. Tracking down the original source will provide context and will show if that source was misrepresented in the article you are evaluating.

Caulfield, M. (2019, June 19).  SIFT (The Four Moves). Hapgood. https://hapgood.us/2019/06/19/sift-the-four-moves/.

When doing jewelry-related research, begin by brainstorming keywords and concepts related to your topic. Then use these keywords as search terms when searching for images, articles and books in library databases and PrattCat, our library catalog.

Consider the following, depending on your topic:

• Jewelry Form / Type - such as bracelet, brooch, necklace, ornament, ring, etc.

• Material(s) - examples include beadwork, gem(s), plastic, metalwork, glass, bakelite, etc.

• Technique(s) - such as carved, cast, cut, fabricated, filed, forged, metalsmithing, mounted, silversmithing, soldered, etc.

• Style - this category may correspond to a particular time period. Examples include: art deco, contemporary, etc.

• Subject(s) - what is the the primary subject of the work? Is the subject abstracted or organic? Is it a realistic depiction of a specific plant, creature, etc.?

• Date - examples include a specific year, decade or decades, and century (2013, art deco or 1920s, 19th century, modern, contemporary, etc.).

• Title of work - both the offical name and any alternate titles or spellings (including those of other languages).

• Jeweler's Name - both his/her formal name and/or any nicknames or alternate name spellings.

What search terms can you think of? There's no one, correct search term (or search for that matter). In fact, using multiple search terms and conducting several searches is what pays off!

Remember: It pays to search smart in library resources

• use AND to combine search terms, creating results with overlap of 2 terms or concepts

• use OR between search terms to generate more results

• use NOT if you want to exclude a term or concept from your results

• use quotation marks "__" around a phrase to search for concepts represented by a few words

• use the wildcard * (an asterisk) at the end of the root of a word to get results containing all versions of a word