LAT 530
Fall 2024
Papers

You are required to write a paper (10-12pp.), due Friday, December 13 (you may submit a draft for feedback on Tuesday, November 26). One way to develop a focus for the paper is to schedule your course report early and work within the report topic you choose. As you formuate a thesis for your paper and begin writing, please consult with me as necessary; note that effective and persuasive writing requires multiple drafts, a process that can be greatly faciltated by consultation and collaboration with others.

Specific Guidelines

• The paper must have a sharp argumentative focus on a scholarly problem, debate, or controversy suitable for the development of a thesis in 10-12pp., not including your Works Cited. Please consult with me about the focus and thesis in advance of writing.
  
  
• Assume a readership with specialized knowledge of the subject: do not waste space on general background, plot summary et sim.
  
  
• Your paper should be double-spaced; use 12 point type (Times or Times New Roman fonts) and standard margins (i.e. 1 inch at Top and Bottom, 1.25 inches Left and Right).
  
  
• The Works Cited (not a Bibliography, as in the reports) must contain only secondary works referenced in the paper; use the citation formats required for the report. If you use standard Latin and Greek texts (e.g. OCT, Teubner), you don’t need to cite these in your Works Cited.
  
  
• Use short, in-text references within the body of your paper, e.g.:
  
  Smith 2005: 76 asserts, “Seneca adored hemlock.”
  A lengthy biographical tradition details Seneca’s love of hemlock (Smith 2005: 71-85, Wilson 2003: 45-67).
  Smith’s 2005 biography discusses the philosopher’s reputed love of hemlock (71-85).
  
  
• Footnotes are for relevant digressions (not citations) which, if included in the body of your text, would impede the progress of your main argument.
  
  
• Avoid lengthy block quotes of Latin text; cite only words and phrases (with minimal surrounding context) that you discuss in detail.
  
  
• Use only curved (= inverted commas, i.e. “. . . ”) not straight quotation marks (" . . .").
  
  
• Quotations of 2 or more lines of text should be indented and single-spaced.
  
  
• Cite ancient authors and texts using abbreviations listed in the front of the OLD, the OCD, or LSJ.
  
  
• Cite specific text according to the usage of one of the reference works immediately above; do not use Roman numerals or the word “Book”, e.g. (after OLD style) Pl. Ps. 344-6 (though you won’t need to use “Pl.” in a paper focused on Plautus, wherein this is obvious).
  
  
• In your Works Cited, don’t include journal fascicle numbers, unless your reference is from 2024 and not all the year’s fascicles have been published in a single volume, e.g. Classical Philology 98: 23-34, not Classical Philology 98.3: 23-34 or Classical Philology 98 (3): 23-34.
  
  
• Elide page and line nos. wherever possible, e.g. 146-9, not 146-149. Note that in the case of “teens” you must use two digits to avoid the appearance of backwards reading, e.g. 15-17, not 15-7.
  
  
• Include (i.e. in your Works Cited) URLs only in rare instances where a publication exists only online; virtually all Classics journals still are published in hard-copy, which is the same as what you see on JSTOR, etc.; nor does your readership need to know when you accessed an online version of a publication.  
  
  
• You must provide your own translations of all Latin (and Greek) texts cited in the paper.
  
  
• Submit the paper in MSW (not as a PDF) to the D2L file (under “Assignments”), where it will be scanned by Turnitin.
  
  
  Examples of the course's required bibliographic formatting (adapted from the American Journal of Philology)
  
  Journal:
  O’Gorman, E. 1993. “No Place Like Rome: Identity and Difference in the Germania of Tacitus.” Ramus 22: 135-54.
  
  Book:
  Ross, D. O. 1987. Virgil’s Elements: Physics and Poetry in the Georgics. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
  
  Chapter in a book:
  Franko, G. 2001. “Plautus and Roman New Comedy.” In Greek and Roman Comedy, ed. S. O’Bryhim, 147-239. Austin: University of Texas Press. 
  
  
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