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Writing Guidelines for Scholarly Writing in Classics

Format | Audience | Style | Structure and Content | Introduction | Conclusion | Title | Page Format | Use of Quotations
Signal Phrases with Quotations | Mechanics of Quotation | Quotation of Ancient Texts | Paraphrasing | Gender Pronouns
Spelling and Usage | Verb Tense

SCHOLARLY WRITING is a genre aimed at a particular audience and having certain conventions. Scholarly writing—and this can include term papers, research papers, interpretive papers, and articles intended for scholarly publication—follow these conventions. There are, of course, many other kinds of writing to which these conventions do not apply. For example, some college writing assignments will explicitly ask for a more personal and informal approach. In some courses in classics, you may apply more specific conventions to writing about archaeology or paleography, for example, but all your teachers will be happy if you follow these conventions in writing your course papers. They are not "what the teacher wants," rather they represent standard, good practice. NB: The Senior Thesis requires a title page and differs from the instruction given below, so see the Guidelines for Senior Theses for specific details. Essentially, all scholarly writing is generally persuasive: it seeks to persuade its readers of its conclusion or conclusions. But the scholar (and that means you) must first clearly articulate the question that motivates the paper and that you will attempt to answer. The type of question you ask will depend on the type of material you are investigating. Is the text itself ambiguous? Is historical data lacking? What are the cultural implications for a body of material evidence? Do scholars offer varying interpretations? Once you’ve established your question, it should be easier to offer your suggestion, your thesis, and to begin to compile your evidence and arguments. Here are some specific details to help you.

  1. FORMAT
    • 1—There are several formats for documentation,and you may use any, as long as you are consistent. (Duke offers a handy online comparison of formats at www.lib.duke.edu/libguide/cite/works_cited.htm.) In LANG 120 you probably learned MLA-style format and documentation, and this is fine. When in doubt, ask your professor. When writing for other departments, use the format expected in that discipline.
  2. AUDIENCE
    • 2—Imagine your audience as a community of intellectually curious, educated people who are interested in the question you are writing about and probably know something about it (unless your subject is an obscure one). Probably they have read the literary text you are discussing, but maybe not lately. They expect you to follow the conventions of scholarly discourse. Your peers are good examples of this audience, ideally; and your professors will model this imaginary audience when they evaluate your papers.
  3. STYLE
    • 3.1—Aim for a mature, graceful, semi-formal style and tone. Avoid contractions. Avoid slang. Avoid the impersonal "you," which is too colloquial.
    • 3.2—However, also avoid cumbersome formality.You may use "I" and "we." It is better to say "we see" than the passive "it is seen." (The passive need not be avoided on principle, only when it is used as a vague generalization.) Do not refer to yourself as "this writer." Do not write "it is the purpose of this paper to…"
    • 3.3—The elegance of a graceful, semi-formal style is usually economical. Avoid fillers such as “There is/are…” or “It may be that…” etc.
  4. STRUCTURE and CONTENT
    • 4.1—Your paper should have a unity: the motivating question, the thesis, the evidence and arguments, and the conclusion, should cohere in their persuasive effort. The question and thesis are usually stated within the first paragraph.
    • 4.2—Your paper should have a structure of ideas which progresses towards your conclusions. Usually it is best not to follow strictly the order of plot in a story or of lines in a poem, though this is not always true. You create the order of ideas about the literary work.
    • 4.3—Do not include a lengthy plot summary or description unless the work you are discussing is little known. Just remind readers of what they need to know if they are to follow the points you are making.
    • 4.4—Do not let a secondary source (a critic of Homer, if you are writing about Homer) supply the structure of your argument. You must get your mind around secondary sources and use them critically, with a conscious awareness that each represents only one approach to the literary text. It can be helpful to concentrate on conflicts that you discover between two secondary sources.
    • 4.5—Secondary sources other than critical discussions of your primary text, if you are writing a literary analysis, are good to use (e.g. history, philosophy, sociology, critical theory, etc.) Then you can discover a relation between the secondary source and your primary text, allowing you to say something original.
  5. INTRODUCTION
    • 5.1—The introduction may set up the question and thesis by a) providing background needed to understand it, or b) preparing the reader to understand its importance or interest, or c) providing a survey of critical thought about the text or issue (what scholars have already said about it).
    • 5.2—Do not use the first paragraph to summarize your paper at length.
    • 5.3—Do not begin with “Throughout history…” or anything resembling that cliché.
    • 5.4—Quotations can be interesting beginning points.
    • 5.5—In the process of composing, you may want to bypass the introduction and come back to it after your argument has taken shape. Realize that the first version is not the final draft: you may begin by putting your thoughts down in any order, because this will not and must not be their final form.
  6. CONCLUSION
    • 6.1—The conclusion should not go off into wholly new ground, nor should it merely summarize. It may draw out implications or consequences of the point that has been made or show how the reader's understanding of the point is deeper now than it was when the point was first stated in the introduction.
    • 6.2—Short papers do not need elaborate conclusions.
  7. TITLE
    • 7.1—Every paper, no matter how brief, should have a title.
    • 7.2—Make the title so informative that someone seeing it in an index would know exactly what the paper is about.
    • 7.3—A clever title or a short quotation may be combined with an informative subtitle, using a colon (:) between them.
  8. PAGE FORMAT
    • 8.1—In general, do not use a title page. Put your name, course, instructor, and date in upper left. Drop a few spaces and type the title. NB: The Senior Thesis requires a title page; see the Guidelines for specific instructions.
    • 8.2—Pages must be numbered.
    • 8.3—Use double spacing and normal (1") margins.
    • 8.4—Use a normal font (e.g. Times New Roman,Palatino, Courier)
    • 8.5—In general, use one staple. Do not use a cover or folder of any kind.
  9. USE OF QUOTATIONS
    • 9.1—Use frequent short quotations from your primary text to support your points.
    • 9.2—Do not use long quotations unless you will discuss them at length.
  10. SIGNAL PHRASES WITH QUOTATIONS
    • 10.1—Use a signal phrase to introduce almost every quotation. This usually means identifying the author, sometimes the text, part of a text, or speaker. ("Austin claimed that. . .." "By the end of Book III, Aeneas is so moved that he says. . . .")
    • 10.2—Use the author's full name on first mention, then last name only in subsequent mentions.
  11. MECHANICS OF QUOTATION
    • 11.1—A sentence that includes a quotation should still be a grammatical and properly punctuated sentence if the quotation marks (QM) are hypothetically removed.
    • 11.2—Use ellipsis points (…) to signal deletions only if needed to avoid misleading the reader. If it is obvious that something has been left out, ellipsis points are not needed. For example, it is unnecessary to signal deletions when you quote only a phrase.
    • 11.3—Space between ellipsis points: (. . .) NOT(...), though most programs do this automatically.
    • 11.4—Use a fourth point if a period is needed to end the sentence: (….)
    • 11.5—Periods with parenthetical citation: place after the parenthesis except for blocked-in quotes; for blocked in quotes (no QM), place before the parenthesis.
    • 11.6—NOTE: Periods and commas adjacent to closing quotation marks: place periods and commas INSIDE the QM unless a parenthetical citation follows.
    • 11.7—Don't use more than one punctuation mark adjacent to a QM. (CB. #11.1.)
    • 11.8—Always show the line-endings of quoted poetry; use a virgule (/) or, if quotation is blocked in, set the lines as you found them.
  12. QUOTATION OF ANCIENT TEXTS
    • 12.1—Latin quotations should be italicized;Greek may be transliterated if a Greek font is not possible (but SP Ionic is free and can be downloaded from www.monachos.net/other/fonts/get_greek_font.shtml.) Greek in a Greek font must include all accents and diacritical marks. Quotations should be short unless the passage will be discussed at length (cf. 9.1)
    • 12.2—Translations should accompany the original languages, either one of your own or a translation that you consider accurate,with proper attribution.
    • 12.3—Greek proper names may be spelled in their Latinized forms, which appear in the Oxford Classical Dictionary (OCD) (e.g. Aeschylus, Socrates) or in their transliterated forms (e.g. Aiskhylos, Sokrates), but should be used consistently throughout the paper.
    • 12.4—References made within the body of the text should include, as appropriate, the unabbreviated form of the author’s name (spelled as it appears in the OCD), the full title of the work (italicized and with first letter capitalized) and the book, line, or other necessary numbers. Arabic numerals should be used throughout. References to lines or pages should be inclusive; “f.” and “ff.” should be avoided (e.g. Aeschylus Eumenides 140-77; Plato Res publica 572c2-d4; Vergil Aeneid 4.1-19).
    • 12.5—References made parenthetically within the text and in notes should use abbreviations of the author’s name and the title of the work (a list of abbreviations appears on pages xxix-liv of the third edition of the OCD).
    • 12.6—To keep footnotes or endnotes from multiplying, you should include references parenthetically within the text if you are not adding remarks or other citations.
  13. PARAPHRASING
    • 13.1—Put the material completely into your own words and your own sentence patterns. Paraphrased material, of course, must still be attributed to its source.
    • 13.2—If you want to use a distinctive phrase from the source, put the phrase in quotation marks. No need to use QMs for single words unless they are highly distinctive or technical terms. In that case use QMs for the first mention and then drop them for subsequent mentions.
  14. GENDER PRONOUNS
    • 14.1—Use of the masculine pronouns to refer to all persons has become unacceptable in modern scholarly usage. However, don't create agreement problems in the course of trying to avoid "he." Don't write "if a student…they," but instead shift everything into the plural, as in "if students…they."
    • 14.2—Don't use "he/she" or "s/he," which are unpronounceable. Occasional use of "he or she" is OK. (Don't overdo, or it gets awkward.) Some writers alternate between "she" and "he."
  15. SPELLING AND USAGE
    • 15.1—The possessive of "it" is its with no apostrophe, NOT it's; it’s is the contraction of “it is.” The past tense of to lead is led.
    • 15.2—Always use a spell-check program and lookup the options if you are not sure which one is correct. However, never rely on spell-check as a substitute for your own close reading, since a word may be correctly spelled but wrong (e.g. “if” for “is” or “then” for “than”). Ideally, have someone else read your paper for you before you turn it in.
    • 15.3—Always consult a dictionary if you are not sure of a word’s meaning. An online version of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) is available through Ramsey Library if you are on campus: http://dictionary.oed.com/
  16. VERB TENSE
    • 16.1—Use present tense for fictional actions (“Achilles weeps over Patroclus.”)
    • 16.2—Use past tense for historical actions. (“Hannibal defeated the Romans at Trasimene.”)

It is most wise to begin writing well in advance of the due date for the final draft. Begin crafting your question, gathering material, reading the work of other scholars, and drafting your own interpretations as soon as you can. You should discuss your work with your professor at any point, especially in terms of your initial question. Your professor will generally be glad to read through a draft in advance of the due date and to provide guidance, usually in the form of questions, to help you clarify your work. For the Senior Thesis, of course, drafts and meetings with advisors are necessary to the project and scheduled in advance.
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