Conducting Research in Classics

Select a topic and approach. The topic you select should be relevant to the issues and themes raised in the course. It should stimulate your interest, challenge your critical thinking and writing skills, and be provocative. 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 offered for guidance.

Sources. 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. BEGIN WITH THE CLASS SYLLABUS! Are there any sources made available to you by your instructor that may be relevant to your project? Every research project in classical antiquity can benefit from the following:

Oxford Classical Dictionary: an indispensable tool for beginning any research project. 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 and is on reserve in Reference (DE5 .O9 1996) and at the Circulation Desk, and is available on CD-ROM, playable on any public computer in the Library (DE5 .O9 2000). Articles in this dictionary provide the basics on many literary, archaeological, historical and social issues in ancient Greece and Rome. The "OCD" contains entries on individual authors, historical figures, major events and themes relevant to the classical world, and nearly every entry includes a few bibliographic references. If you wish to refer to a specific OCD article in your paper, for example on Alexander the Great, the proper citation is (OCD s.v. "Alexander (3) III"): it includes the common abbreviation for the dictionary, the Latin abbreviation that informs the reader to look it up under the term (sub voce), and then the term as it appears in the dictionary - here, not "Alexander the Great" but "Alexander the III" of Macedon, and the third (3) Alexander referenced in the dictionary. A little complicated, but logical.

Primary Sources. Primary sources are 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

• Ancient Greece: Social and Historical Documents from Archaic Times to the Death of Socrates. M. Dillon and L. Garland, eds.  (NY: 1994). CALL NUMBER DF75 .D55 1994
• Roman Civilization, Volume I. Selected Readings: The Republic and the Augustan Age; Volume II. Selected Readings: The Empire, N. Lewis and M. Reinhold, eds.  (NY: 1990). CALL NUMBER DG13 .L4 1990
  
  
Other sourcebooks are more specific: they might focus on a period of history (Athenian Politics c. 800-500 BC: A Sourcebook, ed. G.R. Stanton [London and New York: Routledge, 1990]), a specific location (Roman Britain: A Sourcebook, ed. S. Ireland [London and New York: Routledge, 1996]), or a particular theme (Women's Life in Greece and Rome, eds. M.R. Lefkowitz and M.B. Fant [Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1982]; an abridged version is available on-line).

Secondary Sources. One fruitful 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 are based.  Scholarship appears both in books and in journals (periodicals) and you will need to identify the relevant scholarship for your topic. Take a two-pronged approach: peruse other bibliographies to find necessary secondary literature, and conduct searches in databases like the Scribner Library for scholarship.

Bibliographies.
• bibliographies in books identified for the course (textbook, books on reserve): check your textbooks and any materials placed on reserve for the course first; these are the most accessible tools, and they have been identified as relevant to the course topics
• bibliographies on-line identified for the course: the Internet contains many bibliographies on Classics-related subjects that, with some trial and error, you should be able to locate (see the "webbased searching tools" below for some Classics-related search engines).
Reference Books.
• In addition to the OCD, there is F. W. Jenkins' Classical Studies: A Guide to the Reference Literature (Englewood, CO: Libraries Unlimited, 1996). It contains entries for some 600 reference works in Classics and related subject areas, with brief summaries of the contents and value of each work. CALL NUMBER PA29 J46 1996 IN REFERENCE
Scribner Library. Digital access to the Scribner Library allows you to conduct searches of Skidmore's library and a variety of databases.
• Searches in Lucy2, the on-line catalogue: often the trick to conducting a search for a specific topic is the willingness to be patient and try a variety of keywords until you locate relevant items. For example, if you wish to work on "slavery" in ancient Rome you might need to search for "social history" rather than "slavery"; the roles of women in ancient Greece might be located via "gender" rather than "women." Be patient and be creative.
• Shelf reads: when you locate a book on the Library's shelves, an often-productive step is to peruse the books on the surrounding shelves; you never know what you might find nearby. You may also do so on-line in the Lucy2 catalogue.
• Take advantage of the print and electronic resources available for the study of any discipline, including Classics. Both the Library and the Department provide gateways to essential tools and databases.

Internet Search Engines in Classics. The internet contains many bibliographies and search engines on classical subjects. Some recommended searching tools are JSTOR, Diotima and TOCS-IN, all of which are available via the Department's database webpage.

Advanced Searches. For research papers in 300-level courses, you should consult L’anneé philologique (annual journal in Reference which contains bibliographic entries and summaries of content for all scholarship in Classics for each year of the journal: PA29 A55 IN REFERENCE and now on-line via the database webpage). Although L’anneé is published in French, journal names and article titles (and even article summaries) remain in the language in which they were written.

Interlibrary Loan. If you cannot locate an item in Scribner Library, you may request a copy from our Interlibrary Loan office. Loan requests can take as long as 2-3 weeks, so start early but only after you have determined that Scribner Library does not own a copy.

Interlibrary Loan Book Orders
Interlibrary Loan Journal Orders
When you have completed your on-line request a form is generated with the details of the item in question. Be sure to print-out a copy of the result for your records. Note that the ILL office sets deadlines each semester for student requests for materials: spring semester is typically ca. April 17, fall semester ca. Nov. 30. Each semester all materials are due back on the last day of classes.

Always check the author of any source you use to confirm that it is scholarly in nature. Scribner Library maintains a "Web Evaluation Checklist" you should consult whenever you encounter material on-line.

Citations. As you have seen from your inquiries, many systems of citation exist in the academic world, even within one discipline (see, for example, the Classics Department's pages on Writing Essays and Papers in Classics under the section "Documentation"; compare this system with the ones suggested by The Skidmore Guide to Writing, available on-line and in print at the Skidmore Shop). Select one system and use it consistently. Employ abbreviations when possible and correctly.

Ethics. Skidmore faculty, students and staff all operate under the College's Honor Code, which obligates us to take responsibility for our own work and to give proper credit for work done by others. Be sure to familiarize yourself with, and understand fully, faculty expectations of academic honesty and integrity so that you can do your best work.