Conducting Research

1. Select a topic. Think carefully about the kind of methodological approach you intend to take towards the topic you have selected. Read the list of terms the College’s Writing Board has listed for guidance (http://www.skidmore.edu/academics/writingbrd/qwords.HTML).

 
2. When laying the foundation for researching a topic you need to read the relevant literature – both primary and secondary sources – to understand the evidence for your topic and to determine to what extent this subject matter has been examined by others.

 
3. Primary vs. secondary sources. In the discipline of Classics, primary sources are typically the ancient evidence – literary and archaeological (sculptural, pictoral, numismatic, epigraphic, etc.) – with which you fashion your argument; they are the "stuff" of scholarly argumentation. One way to identify some of the sources that will inform a topic is to look through "sourcebooks" such as Roman Civilization, Volume I. Selected Readings: The Republic and the Augustan Age, N. Lewis and M. Reinhold, eds. (NY: 1990).

 
4. The best way to identify the primary sources is to read secondary literature – from textbooks to sophisticated scholarship – for it will include the evidence upon which analyses have been based. One quick and easy foray into a specific topic is by turning to a reliable reference source, such as the Oxford Classical Dictionary, 3^rd edition, which is a standard in Classics. Articles in this dictionary, written by renowned classical scholars, provide the basics on many literary, archaeological, historical and social issues in ancient Greece and Rome.

 
5. How do I go about establishing my own bibliography?
1. bibliographies in books identified for the course (textbook, Cambridge Ancient History, books on reserve)
2. bibliographies on-line identified for the course
3. books and periodicals in the Scribner Library
• are the books in Lucy?
• what journals are in Lucy?
• are there other materials (reference books – Jenkins) to consider?
• keywords in Lucy and other search engines
• call numbers and shelf reads

1. Lucy2 databases for Classics
2. Classics webbased searching tools

• Argos (scroll to "Other Related Searching Tools")
• Diotima
• TOCS-IN

1. DCB (Database for Classical Bibliography) and L’anneé philologique: both provide references to scholarship, while the latter gives a complete list of journal abbreviations

5. Interlibrary Loan Orders

• start early but only after you have determined that Scribner Library does not own a copy
• select the appropriate form for a book or journal article
• provide all the necessary information
• print-out a copy of the result for your records