Reference books

For quick fact-checking, historical background, and basic bibliography, the following trio is indispensable:

• The Oxford Classical Dictionary (OCD): Reference, DE5 .O9 2003 (and in the Classics Dept. office).

• The Encyclopedia of Early Christianity: Reference, BR162.2 .E53 1997.

• The Cambridge Ancient History, vols. 12 & 13: D57 .C252 1984.

Web resources

For your research papers, you may well find that you need to consult primary sources not included in your assigned sourcebooks or found in Scribner Library. Despair not! An increasing number of early Christian texts are available online — and not just the "orthodox" stuff, either. The translations vary in quality, since as a rule it's easier to put up older, out-of-copyright editions, but even an archaic translation is better than nothing. Below are some of my favorite sites:

• Early Christian Writings: Very useful collection of Christian texts from the 1st-3rd centuries. Beware: most of the translations are from the venerable Ante-Nicene Fathers (ANF) library, which tends to be archaic in language and casually confessional in bias (the editors were two 19th-cen. Anglican priests). Still, for completeness of coverage, that series, and this site, remain unsurpassed.

• New Advent, Fathers of the Church: Large collection of early (proto-orthodox) Christian texts in English translation. Other pages contain articles on a wide variety of topics pertaining to the study of Christianity; these are old-fashioned and unabashedly confessional, but could be useful.

• Christian Classics Ethereal Library: A large library of primary texts in English translation and secondary scholarship. Most of the primary texts are after our period, but you'll find Augustine, Athanasius, and Eusebius here. Also includes a nifty biblical look-up function that will take you to multiple English translations of and commentaries on any Bible verse.

• Gnostic Society Library: Outstanding collection of primary texts for the study of gnostic Christianity. Includes the entire Nag Hammadi library and an excellent collection of Manichaean texts.

Writing Resources

• Writing in Classics: A series of pages developed by Skidmore's Classics Department. A treasure trove of sound advice on essay-writing, including how to decode essay questions, how to plan an essay from start to finish, and how to avoid some common grammatical errors that drive us crazy.

• The Skidmore Guide to Writing: More trustworthy advice, especially on matters of grammar and formatting.

• Citing Sources for Classics Courses: A Basic Guide: Another good guide to how (and when) to cite sources in Classics, from Swarthmore College.

• A Note on Plagiarism: Clear, useful description of what constitutes plagiarism (it's more than you might think!) and how to avoid it, from the English Dept. of the University of Michigan.

• ILLiad, Scribner Library's InterLibrary Loan service: Allows students to request articles, essays, and books outside of the Library's holdings.

• TOCS-IN: A database of the contents to over 185 Classics, Near Eastern, and Religion journals from 1992 to the present, hosted by the University of Toronto. Although not the most comprehensive search engine of classical scholarship on the Web, TOCS-IN can give quick access to recent articles in the more common journals.

• L'Année Philologique: AKA "The Year in Philology," this is a bibliographic journal devoted to listing every piece of scholarship on every major aspect of Classical Studies in a given year. Any major research project in Classics, even at the undergraduate level, begins here. The online version of L'Année currently lists all scholarship published between 1959 and 2003.

• Searchable index of journals held by Scribner Library (print and electronic)