Go to Dr. Norman's writing manual for classical archaeology papers.

There are three major writing assignments for this course: 1) autobiography for your Hellenistic identity, 2) a postmortem after every workshop, and 3) a research paper.

• For footnote, bibliography and other formatting issues, consult the writing manual. Do not turn in any writing assignment before you have consulted this manual and understand its directions.
• For general tips on writing papers in classical archaeology such as finding bibliography, etc., again, consult the writing manual.
• Failure to follow my specific guidelines will lower your grade.

Special Instructions

All writing assignments must be formatted as follows:

• 12 -point font
• Times New Roman or Courier fonts
• 1" (no more, no less) margins all around
• with page numbers (if more than 1 pg long)
• for the identity assignment and postmortems, your name (nothing else) at the top; for the research paper, a specifically formatted title page--see below

Special Instructions for Each Assignment

I. Autobiography / Hellenistic Identity assignment:

A short (e.g., 1000-1200 words, excluding Works Cited) “autobiography” of your Hellenistic identity; this may take the form of a diary entry/ies, correspondence, a more formal essay or any other format you select. Consult the syllabus for due date. On the due date, bring a hard copy of the autobiography to class for the WIP TA to evaluate AND email me a copy as a WordPerfect or Word attachment. I will post them on the website in order to open up a dialogue about the Hellenistic world. I encourage you to work with the WIP TA on these projects; you may want to submit a draft to the TA for feedback before submitting the final version. This assignment is worth 25 points and will account for 5% of your grade.

Special instructions for the autobiographies:

• should be written in first person since this is an autobiography
• does not need to include footnotes
• must include a list of sources (in proper bibliographic format) at the end -- no more than 25% of your sources may be online only sources (i.e., JSTOR sources do not count as part of the 25%)

II. Postmortem:

Workshop Postmortems (PMs): very short (e.g., 400-500 words) discussions of workshops. Because I find that writing improves my thinking and my learning, I require that you write a postmortem of each workshop. Undergraduates must email their PMs to the WIP TA as Word or WordPerfect attachments; graduate students must email their PMs to me. PMs must be received by the start of the next class meeting after each workshop. The WIP TA will evaluate the PMs submitted by undergraduates and will select a few each time to post on the website; I will evaluate the PMs submitted by graduate students. The point of this assignment is to help you capture information / ideas / perspectives discussed during our workshops and thus to capitalize on the progress made in these sessions, to collect your thoughts about the exercise, and to articulate what ideas you want to carry away from it. Each postmortem is worth 5 points and all of them together will account for 5% of your grade.

Special instructions for the postmortems:

• can take any format you wish
• suggested length: 400-500 words

Click here for a good example of a postmortem.

III. Research assignment:

You will write a major research paper on some aspect of the Hellenistic world (4000-5000 words for undergraduates and 7000-8000 words for Honors Option students or graduate students). All topics must first be approved by me. Consult the syllabus for due dates and course information for more instructions.

Each part of this assignment is valued as follows: prospectus, 25 points; bibliography, 25 points; draft, 50 points, and final draft, 100 points. All of the parts, averaged together, will account for 30% of your grade.

If this is a Writing Intensive section of the course, I encourage you to work with the WIP TA on drafts of your paper before submitting the final draft to me. Writing is a process and going over drafts of your paper with the WIP TA will significantly improve your final product. If this is not a WIP section, I still encourage you to write several drafts of the paper before submitting it.

The purpose of this assignment is to improve both your research skills in Classics and your professional writing in the discipline. In addition, the assignment allows you to conduct scholarly research, construct a sophisticated argument, and develop critical thinking skills.

Special instructions for the research paper:

• consult my manual for writing papers in classical archaeology
• must have properly formatted bibliography--no more than 15% of your sources may be online sources
• in-text citations are used only for references to ancient texts and should be formatted as follows:
                    "...in the house" (Il. 6.2).
                    [Note the punctuation.]
• for abbreviations for ancient texts, consult the fronts of the large Latin and Greek dictionaries in the Alexander room (Park 222)
• for abbreviations for scholarly journals, etc., see the list at the front of any volume of L'année philologique
• must have a properly formatted title page

Sources: Students often ask how many sources they should have for their paper. There is no magic number. I find it hard to imagine, however, that you can write a good paper without consulting at least 5 to 10 works. In general, the more sources you consult, the better your grasp of the information will be and the greater your chances will be of writing a successful paper.

Internet Sources: The www can be a tremendous source for information but let me caution you against relying too heavily on it for sources. This is because there is simply so much garbage posted on the web -- and classical archaeology is a field that attracts more garbage than most. Indeed, my rule is that no more than 15% of your sources for your research paper may come from the internet.

Three additional bits of advice.

1. Generally, in a paper for a Classics course, it is better to discuss the actual ancient sources and not to depend solely on what modern scholars say that they say. Quote and cite Thucydides' own words, not what Kagan says about Thucydides.
   
2. Introductory material, definitions and descriptions should appear early in the paper, followed by evidence, discussion and analysis.
   
3. Italicize foreign words that are not in common usage in English.

A word about illustrations.

I encourage you to include illustrations with your paper; they will help you present your arguments effectively. But remember, every illustration needs a caption. Every caption should include information indicating the source of the illustration (e.g., book, article, etc.) and a brief description of what the illustration shows. Look at the captions under the photos in the sources you consult for some ideas on what to include in your own captions.

Also, you must include a call out in the text for each illustration included in your paper. For example, "The central scene on the Parthenon frieze seems to show the Panathenaic peplos (see fig. 3)."

IV. Key to My Editing Marks:

• A squiggly line under your word/s means that I think your phrasing is awkward and should be redone, either for clarity or for elegance.
• A small circle above and behind a word or sentence means that I think you need a footnote there.
• A circled word with "sp" above meants it is misspelled.
• A circled word with “wc” above it means that your word choice is poor or confusing.
• A line through a word or phrase means that it should be omitted.
• A / with # means that you need to insert a space.
• A dot inside a small circle means you need to insert a period.
  
  Remember, every paragraph should have a thesis sentence near its beginning.