papers

Useful Links . . .

• My sample paper
  • To illustrate MLA format and layout, not content. This sample paper is taken from the opening of my 2007 book, Concordia Discors
• The BU Library's "How to Evaluate Sources" site
• The BU Writing Initiative (for help in writing papers)
• The Purdue Owl (for grammar, usage, MLA format, all aspects of paper writing)

General Considerations

In partial fulfillment of the "H – Humanities," "W – Harpur Writing," "I – Information Literacy," and "T – Critical Thinking" requirements, students in this course will be submitting:

• A three-page paper on Longus' Daphnis and Chloe
• A six-page paper relating to issues of Greek civilization under Roman rule

Format

Please adhere strictly to MLA format in all respects. The Purdue Owl and my sample paper* should help.

* Make your papers look like, not read like, my sample paper! For a condensed sample of content (a "mini-paper"), see below.

MLA format is well explained on the Owl. Here follow some supplemental "do"s and "don't"s:

1. Double-space, 12-point Times New Roman font throughout, all sections, no exceptions. Margins: 1 inch R, L, top, bottom, all pages.
2. Each page needs to have a running, auto-numbered page indication in the header, upper right, ½ inch below edge: last name + page number. Learn how to use headers; do not manually number each page.
3. Use one, not two, spaces between sentences.
4. No added space between paragraphs.
5. Do not add empty paragraphs at the ends of sections.
6. To indent, use your word processor's tabs or margin indents. Don't type spaces.
7. The bibliography counts toward minimum length. Do not, though, introduce a hard page break before your Works Cited.
8. When typing bibliographical entries, use your word processor's margin indenting function to create a hanging indent, where the 1st line of the paragraph is flush with the left margin and subsequent lines are indented.

• Do not use paragraphing / carriage returns (Enter↵) followed by spaces or tabs to format hanging indents. Let your word processor handle the line breaks.

Structure of Content

"Say what you're going to say, then say it, then say what you've said." Though an oversimplification, that isn't so far off the mark. Put differently, you should try to fit these sorts of essays into a pre-set outline similar to the following:

1. Introduction.
   1. Topic area.
   2. Question / problem.
   3. Thesis statement.
   4. Approach.
2. Main body = argumentation, that is, the case you're making, plus evidence and documentation in support of that case.
3. Conclusions.
   1. Main-points (brief recapitulation).
   2. Further implications and / or reflections.
4. Works Cited.

Maybe that structure doesn't fit your plans perfectly, but anything that strays too far from it will lack . . . well, structure. It's always advisable to make an outline when starting out, for which see the Owl.

Conversely, it should be possible to "backwards-engineer" (retro-fit) an outline to go with any well-written expository essay. The Owl calls that "reverse outlining."

Example of a mini-paper (this illustrates structure of content, not format):

TITLE:

Competition and Its Discontents: Envy and Emulation in Philostratus’ Dialogue on Heroes

INTRODUCTION:

(TOPIC, QUESTION) What does emotion have to do with heroism? Are some emotions more "heroic" than others? (THESIS) I argue that Philostratus' Dialogue on Heroes deploys emotion to make sense of heroic agōn ("competition") and its impact on those implicated or invested in it. (APPROACH) Analyzing emotion through the lens of actor-network theory, (THESIS, cont'd) I show how emotion offers a criterion for assessing a hero’s excellence. It thus proves crucial when evaluating the warriors of Greek legend as exemplars in the Roman Imperial here and now.

MAIN BODY:

(EVIDENCE, ARGUMENTATION) Olympic and Pythian victor Hieron of Syracuse is warned by the poet Pindar that citizens take umbrage at the noble deeds of others. Though it is better to be envied than pitied (Pythian 1.84–85), envy — phthonos — still posed a threat not to be taken lightly (Lucian Calumny). That threat, and its contrast with benefits deriving from zēlos ("emulation," "admiration"), are a recurrent theme in ancient Greek sources (e.g., Aristotle Rhetoric 1388a31–37) and are a matter of concern in Philostratus’ Dialogue on Heroes. Set in the Imperial present, the work features a pair of speakers seeking to gauge the relative merits of heroes who fought at Troy. Prominent among their criteria are the byproducts and side effects of competitive emotion, how it mediates networks, both functional and dysfunctional, composed of rival heroes, prizes/goals striven for, and invested observers. Here, we are dealing with (1) a zēlos model, where another's excellence proves inspirational; and (2) a phthonos model, where another’s excellence arouses frustration and bitterness. (1) can play out as rivalry between peers motivated by the ambition of each to outdo the other, or as a quasi-rivalry, where an exemplary hero inspires others to outdo themselves. (2) takes the form of a "vicious triangle," with one rival slandering another before the powers that be, and with a view to bringing that rival down. In the Dialogue on Heroes, Palamedes models (1); Odysseus, (2).

CONCLUSION(S):

(SUMMARY) We see, then, emotion operating as a sense-making device, a criterion for evaluating how heroes handle agōn. (FURTHER REFLECTIONS) Why, though, does the sharing of goods (agathōn … koinōnia) lead, potentially, to phthonos (20.3)? That idea, left unexplained in the Dialogue on Heroes, seems to clash with sentiments, highlighted elsewhere in Philostratus, praising community and zēlos-like striving as antidote to mutually destructive strife (Apollonius 4.3.1–2, 8–9). As for sharing as susceptible to phthonos, I suggest it has to do with what is shared. In the Dialogue on Heroes, it is agōn itself. Winners need losers, whose loss breeds in them despondency (athumia, 27.4). And from despondency can come envy (cf. 35.5). The Dialogue on Heroes is, then, a cautionary tale. Even when we emulate exemplars like Palamedes, the mere act of competing leaves us vulnerable to our own or others' malice.

WORKS CITED

[MLA-style bibliographical citations]

Research

Inasmuch as these papers fulfill the "I – Information Literacy" GenEd, requirements are going to be very specific as to research. Your starting point will be the BU Library's "How to Evaluate Sources" site for pointers on finding secondary sources (modern research sources), print or online, suitable to your topic for either of the two papers.

Wikipedia, Bing, Google searches, even AI search results sometimes offer help but have to be used with care; they are no substitute for in-depth exploration. You need to learn how to avoid sources lacking proper authority; also, biased sources.

Proper authority. You need to use sources whose authors are listed as authors of the source in question and are recognized as authorities in the field in question: peer-reviewed books or articles, online resources accessed through the Library or housed on university (.edu) platforms — that sort of thing. Citing AI, Wikipedia, Google, or similar does not pass muster.

Bias. You need to watch out for biased sources, those with a vested interest in presenting things with a certain slant, or with an ideological commitment coloring their take on a question, for instance, websites committed to promoting a product or an ideology, or that reveal racial, religious, sexual, gender-based, or other prejudice.

Peer-reviewed secondary sources will play a major role in both papers. Specific research expectations for each paper are explained below. Here I note that peer review is a process confirming that a book, a book chapter, a journal article, a scholarly web page, basically, any scholarly secondary research source (a) has been written by an expert in the field and (b) has been vetted by one or more experts in the same field. Peer-reviewed journals will always self-identify as such. Reputable scholarly publishers of books, whether print or online, are always peer-reviewed. The scholarly credentials of websites can be tricky to determine. The Library's Services for Undergraduate Students should direct you to resources and people able to help, or just contact me

Anything that you rely on you must cite, so be careful what you rely on!

Some specific pointers:

• Wikipedia. Those articles, though often informative, too often are poorly vetted (evaluated for quality of scholarship), poorly researched, and poorly written. Plus, they're never attributed; that no author is ever listed means that no one takes responsibility. We all use Wikipedia, but I won't accept it in citations or bibliographies. (Still, if you rely on it but don't cite it, that's plagiarism)
• Google or Bing or similar searches. Like Wikipedia, universally used, sometimes informative, never acceptable as authorities
• Use of AI. AI can be a useful way to begin a research project, but it very quickly can begin to interfere with your learning — how?
  1. If I'm starting a research project, I enter terms into a generic Google (or Bing, but I use Google) search box. I'll read with interest the AI summary of results. I don't need to alert my reader that I've started out with a Google search that includes AI-generated results, but to use AI to research beyond that point is to fail to do due diligence.
  • AI only goes for results that are superficially satisfying, ones that it thinks will look good to most people
  • It will miss the most recent contributions and discoveries
  • Focusing on the "usual suspects," it will ignore potentially valuable leads
  2. I'll check to see what themes loom large in the results and if any recent scholarship gets cited. Based on that, along with assigned Study Guides, readings, etc., I'll start formulating searches in resources like:
     • Sources listed on the RFG Resources page
     • Google Scholar. (Do not, however, use the "Scholar Labs" feature in Google Scholar; it provides very poor results)
     • L'année philologique (kind of tricky to use, ask ref librarians or me for help)
     • FirstSearch SUNY AT BINGHAMTON, WorldCat Advanced Search (ditto)
     • Sources that check all the boxes as per the BU Library's "How to Evaluate Sources" site

Citation, Works Cited

Your essay must use MLA-style in-text citations as per Owl, not footnotes; avoid discussion inside parentheses. The Works Cited section must also conform to MLA standards as to type of source, information to list, etc., again, as per Owl. For formatting "Works Cited," see above; also, my sample paper.

Citing Preprints, Research Projects (= working papers)

These days, scholars often post final, near final, or in-process versions of their research in anticipation of the official release of a publication, as forinstance, in the case of sites like the foillowing:

• The Binghamton University Orb (Open Repository @ Binghamton)
• ResearchGate

If you find something on sites like the aforementioned, you still need to cite the item by the publisher's venue, if it's got a publisher. If it does, you will see that listed. If hasn't yet been published, you need to cite with full citation info, but replace the date the with "forthcoming"; for journal articles, leave the pages part blank:

Scholtz, Andrew. “Making Sense: Envy in Libanius’ Declamation 30.” American Journal of Philology, vol. 146, no. 4, forthcoming.

If the item in question is a working paper, a data set, something, in other words, without a clear sense of publisher, let me know. Those can be tricky to figure out.

Use of First Person

I encourage the use of "I" and first-person pronouns generally in papers. ("I shall argue that. . . .") I don't penalize the avoidance of same ("It will be argued that"); for me, it's all a matter of individual preference.

Paper 1 on Longus' Daphnis and Chloe

Topic

Because the first oral presentation will be a "pitch" for the topic of your first paper on Longus' Daphnis and Chloe, this "Topic" section is the same for both the presentation and the paper. Obviously, the presentation, being a preview of the paper, will not involve the same depth of research as will the final product. Conversely, the paper will involve research additional to what you've done for your first presentation. Specific research req's for the presentation are covered on the Oral Presentations page; for the paper, on the Papers page.

This presentation-plus-paper project will be a critical-thinking exercise. It will have you speak/write on some aspect of Daphnis and Chloe relating to both of the following:

1. A theme/issue/question that interests you and is central to this course. Find those course themes on the course homepage under the heading "Course Topics."
2. A featured secondary source (FSS) that figures prominently in your research.
   • This will be a modern, scholarly, peer-reviewed book, book chapter, journal article, website, etc.
   • You are free to use the Swain chapter on the novel as your FSS, though you do not have to — maybe something else better fits your topic
   • For your FSS, please do not use a dictionary/encyclopedia entry, a bingdev webpage for this course, nor any source that has not been peer reviewed

With regard to the preceding, make sure you address the following critical-thinking questions:

You paper and presentation will need to reflect critically on your FSS: What light does it cast on D&C, how well does it answer your questions about the text? Explain. Conversely, do you take issue in whole or in part with the author's claims, conclusions, approach? Again, explain. (For guidance on how to reflect critically on your FSS, please refer to the Critical Thinking page.)

Whatever your preference for topic, make sure to keep it small-scale!*

* Please don't try to explain or summarize the whole novel or a lengthy section of it. Likewise, avoid topics that are too broad for treatment in five minutes or three pages, as in, "The Meaning of Life in Longus' Daphnis and Chloe." Finally, avoid statements, whether thesis statements or statements of any kind, that draw sweeping or unwarranted conclusions, for instance, "Daphnis and Chloe proves that the topic of love was alive and well in Greek literature of the Imperial period." That may be so, but how does one piece of evidence prove so broad a claim? How is that even relevant to our course?

I don't require you to clear your topic in advance with me, but I'm happy to talk about it with you; stop by my office during office hours or make an appointment. Still, you'll have a chance to test-drive your topic in your oral presentation. That will allow you to retool it if need be.

Length

Approximately 850 words all told, or three double-spaced pages, Times New Roman font. "Works Cited" counts toward length.

Research Requirements (paper 1)

You'll need to cite a minimum of three sources.

• One will be Longus' Daphnis and Chloe
• The others must include at least two secondary, outside sources, that is, modern scholarship meeting standards (peer review, etc.) described above. One of these will be your featured secondary source (FSS) as per topic description
• Any additional research source is optional. It can be a reading, ancient or modern, assigned for class; a bingdev course webpage; a dictionary/encyclopedia article (e.g., Oxford Classical Dictionary, Brill's New Pauly); indeed, any ancient or modern source pertinent to your topic. If modern, it must be of a scholarly character as per above, oir it must be a web page for this course

Structure

As this paper will be very short, I would not advise devoting too many words to the introduction or the conclusion. This last might work best as just a sentence or two in the final paragraph — something to round it off. You may not even need a formal conclusion. You will, though, need an introduction to clue us into what to expect.

Paper 2 on Competition in Imperial Greek Sources

Topic

What does a given piece of ancient evidence assigned for class — this time, not Daphnis and Chloe — tell us about some aspect of competition in the Roman Imperial East? What light is shed on the matter by your featured secondary source (FSS) relating to your topic? (Possibly the Dickie chapter assigned for class, possibly something else.) How might that featured source fall short? Explain. . . .

Here, our aim is not a broad overview of competition in the Roman Imperial East; that would be a 1,000-page book twenty years in the making. Nor is it "everything that piece-of-evidence-X has to say about competition." Again, too broad.

Rather, it's what a particular piece of evidence — a reading, an artwork, etc. — has to say about competition in the Imperial East. And, of course, what light your featured secondary source sheds on issues of competition in a given piece of evidence.*

* The primary piece of evidence on which you'll focus can be taken from any assignment for this class this semester — any assignment except the one we began with: Daphnis and Chloe. You may, if you like, introduce D&C into your paper; you may not, however, focus on it. As for the FSS, it plays the same role as that played by the FSS for paper 1. Here, the one limitation is that, this time, your FSS must be different from any and all sources used for paper 1.

How to Narrow Down Your Topic. . . .

Starting with your Short Writing Assignments (SWAs), choose one that seems to offer a path to a paper 2 topic. In so doing, ask yourself the following:

1. Which of our assignments (not D&C) interests you in ways relating to the overarching themes of our course? What is it that interests you about that assignment? What is the specific issue that you're drawn to? Write on that.
2. Which of the overarching themes of our course do you find particularly interesting? Which assignment for class (not D&C) seems to have something interesting to say about that theme? Write on that.

The next step is to ask which FSS you wish to critique for the purposes of this paper. It can be a secondary modern scholarly reading assigned for class (e.g., Dickie on competitive emotion). Or it can be something else. Either way, you'll be critiquing your paper 2 FSS just as you did for paper 1.

Meet with me so I can help you choose a topic. Part of the process of selecting topics and texts is for you to meet with me. This is required; make an appointment or come to walk-in office hours. All topics will need to be approved by me by a deadline noted on the schedule of assignments.

Sequence of Tasks

This paper will require the following things to happen:

1. A meeting with me by a certain date (see the schedule of assignments) to brainstorm topics.
2. An email to me, sent by a particular date (schedule of assignments), listing:
• Your focus (ancient) text
• The issue it and you are addressing
• The FSS you'll be using and why you'll be using it
3. Submission of a six-page paper by a particular date (schedule of assignments).

Research Requirements (paper 2)

Research requirements are basically the same as for paper 1, the only differences being:

1. Your primary piece of ancient evidence must not be D&C, though you can certainly use D&C as an additional source.
2. Your FSS must not be a source used for your paper 1.
3. You must address at least one, additional primary (ancient) source assigned for class. That is for purposes of comparison and contrast. This can be (it does not have to be) D&C.

Length

Approximately 1,700 words all told, or six double-spaced pages, Times New Roman font. Bibliography counts toward length. No hard page break before the bibliography.

Assessment

The following is a checklist. I don't have a precise point breakdown for each bullet.

1. Does the submission show evidence that the writer has studied and processed the instructor's comments on SWAs and other prior submissions? Is there improvement?
2. Does the submission fulfill requirements as to
   • Topic, focus, scope, and length?
   • Formatting and layout, use of MLA, etc.?
   • Research? Is the research adequate to the writer's needs and the requirements of the assignment? Does the writer make good use of sources?
3. Does the writer formulate, develop, and properly defend an argument?
4. Does the writer make appropriate use of lenses? (Assigned modern theory texts — required for second paper project only)
5. Does the writer evaluate reasoning deployed in primary and / or secondary sources?
6. Does the writer deploy reasoning and reflection that are nuanced and aware of alternate perspectives?
7. Is the submission well-constructed, well-organized, well-expressed? Is it clear, can I follow it?
8. Does the submission show evidence of having been proofread for spelling, punctuation, grammar, word usage, etc.?