Finding information: Classics & Ancient History resources

Richard Holmes

October 2012

Aims of the session

To help you: • Identify, find & evaluate relevant sources

of information

• Use the library effectively, and make the most of our services and resources

• Know who to contact for further help

The Library (Print)

The library online: homepage

The Library (Online)General support:• http://www.dur.ac.uk/library/current/

Subject information pages:• http://www.dur.ac.uk/library/classics/

– Resources for Classics and Ancient History• http://www.dur.ac.uk/library/classics/info_skills/

– Specific resources and an outline of how to begin your research

Be Smart: Bookmark these URLs!

Subject Specific Support: http://www.dur.ac.uk/library/classics

4 steps to finding information

1.Identify

keywords

2.Decide where

to search

3.Search

4.Review results

http://www.dur.ac.uk/library/using/finding/

1. Identify Keywords

Identify keywords from your topic:“Analyse the design of Greek costume”

Advanced searching techniques:• Synonyms: costume OR clothing \ design OR pattern• Truncation: design* to locate designs, designer, designed• Phrases: “Greek costume”• Wildcards: colo?r to locate colour or color• Joining Words: AND, OR, NOT

2. Decide where to search

Questions to ask yourself:• What information do you need?

– Overview of a topic, theory, idea, concept? • Encyclopaedias and Dictionaries (online and in print)

– Background information?• Textbook/E-book

– Information on the latest research?• Journal Article• Conference Paper• News item

3. Search: The Library Catalogue• Great if you have a specific reference or a broad research topic• Can be searched using a variety of methods

– Specific Reading list– Author/Title (combined) for known item– Keyword / Subject searches for topics

• Can add items to basket and email results • Can save borrowing history• Searches for print and electronic resources but does not search

within them

3. Search : Online Databases

Databases search a wide range of journal articles• Some contain the full text

– JSTOR• Some only provide bibliographic information

– L’Année Philologique– Web of Knowledge– Use ConneXions to see if Durham subscribes to the content

No single database will cover everything

3. Search: Other online resources• E-books:

– Cambridge collections online: cross-searchable database which includes the Cambridge Companions Complete Collection

• Online encyclopedia:– Brill New Pauly

• Websites:– Perseus Digital Library - full text primary and secondary

sources for the study of ancient Greece and Rome

4. Review your results• Are your results useful?

– Do you need to change your keywords or search in a different database?

– Use one record to find similar useful resources• Evaluate the quality of your sources

– particularly if they are found on the internet• Keep references

– e-mail yourself useful references

Where to get further help• Help and Information Point on Level 2

• Online enquiries form:– http://www.dur.ac.uk/library/using/enquiries/

• Subject information pages:– http://www.dur.ac.uk/library/classics/

• Academic Support Team:– Richard Holmes – Classics & Ancient History

Any Questions

Richard Holmes:richard.holmes@durham.ac.uk

Scholarly skills:An introduction

Paola Ceccarelli&

Ted Kaizer

October 2012

Scholarly skillsAn introduction

Paola Ceccarelli &

Ted Kaizer

Second part

HELP!!!• How do I find a book? How an article? How an

essay in an edited volume?• How do I cite a book? How an article? How an

essay in an edited volume?• How do I know whether a book is worth reading?• What does OLD stand for? And ZPE? And ANRW?

And JHS?• Where would I start looking if I were asked to write

an essay on, say, Heracles?• How to present referencing and bibliography?

Finding…

• Book: library catalogue, under name of author, or title, or keyword;

• Article: library catalogue, under the journal’s name; then look for the right year directly on the shelves (or online if the journal is online)

• Essay in edited volume: library catalogue, under ‘title’ of the edited volume, or under the name of the editor of the volume.

For instance

PRESENTATION OF SUBMITTED WORK

• key-word = CONSISTENCY- not just academic pedantic behaviour!- but: scientific criteria of comprehensibility

• See the Undergraduate Handbook on ‘presentation’» in DUO, under ‘Classics and Ancient History General

Information’ -> ‘Departmental Handbooks’

• paragraphing: a forgotten art? • spelling, punctuation, grammar

Transferable skills!!!

• Would you hire someone who cannot present their work properly - i.e. without spelling mistakes etc.?

References

• Whenever you quote an author, ancient or modern, you must give full references (including pages) so that the reader may check the quotation• You must never use an author’s words without marking them as a quotation, by putting them “between inverted commas”

*** IF YOU QUOTE AN AUTHOR LITERALLY, WITHOUT SHOWING SO BY MEANS OF INVERTED COMMAS AND A REFERENCE, THIS COUNTS AS PLAGIARISM***

Plagiarism:

a) the act of using someone else’ words, ideas, or work and pretending they are your own;

b) an idea, phrase, story, etc. that has been copied from someone else’ work, without stating that this is where it came from

[Longman’s Dictionary of Contemporary English]

Referencing within the text:

• add a footnote after the first strong interpunction (semicolon or full stop), and cite in the footnote the ancient source and/or the scholar you are discussing;

• if it’s an ancient author, you may also simply put the reference to the ancient author in the text, between parentheses (Thuc. 1.4.3)

Referencing within the text (2):in the footnote

• use for ancient authors the standard abbreviations;

• as for modern scholarship, you could go for the full reference; alternatively, we suggest the ‘Harvard system’: name of author, year of publication, page(s).

• example: see Lissarrague 1993, 25; Loraux 1996, 31-36.

END BIBLIOGRAPHY

• alphabetic order (of name of author)• only modern literature: do not list ‘Homer, Iliad’ in

between books/articles of secondary literature!

if you wish, you may list the ancient sources (with their editions / translations) separately, under a different heading, before you give the modern bibliography. Remember: titles of ancient works (e.g. the Iliad) should be italicized.

End bibliography (2), traditional model

• Author + Title of Book + place of publication [and publisher]) + year

– NB For ‘year of publication’ the book’s edition is what matters, not the book’s unchanged reprint

• Author + ‘Title of article’ + Journal and full details (series number, year, page numbers)• Author + ‘Title of article’ + name of editor of the volume + (ed.), Title, place of publication [and publisher] + year, and pages.

Examples of correct references:

• Example of book:I. Gildenhard, Paideia Romana: Cicero’s Tusculan

Disputations (Cambridge, 2007)• Example of article in journal:

I. Gildenhard and A. Zissos, ‘Ovid’s Hecale: deconstructing Athens in the Metamorphoses’, JRS 94 (2004), 47-72

• Example of article in edited volume:I. Gildenhard, ‘Reckoning with tyranny: Greek thoughts on Caesar in Cicero’s Letters to

Atticus in early 49’, in S. Lewis (ed.), Ancient Tyranny (Edinburgh, 2006), 197-209

End bibliography (3): if using the Harvard system, then

• Author + year + Title of Book + place of publication [and publisher])

– NB For ‘year of publication’ the book’s edition is what matters, not the book’s unchanged reprint

• Author + year + ‘Title of article’ + Journal and full details: series number, page numbers.• Author + year + ‘Title of article’ + name of editor of the volume + (ed.), Title, place of publication [and publisher] + pages.

Examples of correct references:

• Example of book:Gildenhard, I. (2007), Paideia Romana: Cicero’s

Tusculan Disputations, Cambridge.• Example of article in journal:

Gildenhard, I. and Zissos, A. (2004), ‘Ovid’s Hecale: deconstructing Athens in the Metamorphoses’, JRS 94, 47-72

• Example of article in edited volume:Gildenhard, I. (2006), ‘Reckoning with tyranny:

Greek thoughts on Caesar in Cicero’s Letters to Atticus in early 49’, in S. Lewis (ed.), Ancient Tyranny, Edinburgh, 197-209.

DOCUMENTS & SOURCES‘ancient sources’ vs ‘modern literature’, or

‘primary’ vs ‘secondary’ sources?ancient sources:

– literary texts– inscriptions (epigraphical sources)– papyri + parchments– coins (numismatic sources)– sculptures & reliefs– vase-paintings, frescoes & mosaics– archaeological remains

modern literature, written by professional scholars

Scholarly literature online:

JSTORThe scholarly journal archive, available via the University Library

web-site, or directly on http://www.jstor.org/

NB If you refer to an article that you found and read on JSTOR, you *must* refer to the original, printed resource, *not* to the URL-page!JSTOR is not an electronic version of the original text, but a photographic reproduction of the printed page

Ancient literary sources

• Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, Mass. - London)Latin (red) or Greek (green) texts with translation on the opposite page, with introduction and critical notesComplete catalogue: http://www.hup.harvard.edu/loeb/author.html

• other collections of ancient texts, but without translation:» OCT [Oxford Classical Texts]» Teubner [Bibliotheca Scriptorum Graecorum et Romanorum Teubneriana]

• many useful translations in Penguin volumes, or by other publishers• Classical authors on-line:• Perseus: old version, http://old.perseus.tufts.edu/oldhopperor (new version): http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/collections• Lacus Curtius:http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/home.html

Using commentaries

• Nearly all ancient texts have received historical or literary commentaries, some as part of series, some as individual books.

• Main commentaries ARE mentioned in the OCD3, at the end of the respective entries of ancient authors.

• Some examples of useful commentary series:– Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics (i.e. the ‘Green &

Yellow’ series)– Commentaries by the Bristol Classical Press

Abbreviations

• Common abbreviations of Greek and Latin authors are listed – in the OCD3;– in the OLD [Oxford Latin Dictionary];– and in the LSJ [Liddell & Scott’s Greek-English Lexicon]

• Lists of common abbreviations of journals, epigraphic corpora, etc. are found in – L’Année philologique (see below), or in – Claros – concordance of Greek inscriptions, at

http://www.dge.filol.csic.es/claros/cnc/2cnc.htm

Fragments

A minority of the works of ancient authors are preserved completely or in large parts; some are completely lost; other writings are known only from so-called ‘fragments’, which in most cases (exception made for papyrus fragments) are not loose shreds of paper, but quotations from a lost work included in the preserved works of other authors.

1) Fragments of ancient historians: Felix Jacoby, Die Fragmente der Griechischen Historiker (FGrHist, or ‘Jacoby’), published between the 1920’s and late 1950’s. Fragments of 856 authors, commentary never completed;

now: updated online version, Brill’s New Jacoby, with English translations and commentaries by a team of international scholars: link through the library catalogue, or http://www.brillonline.nl.ezphost.dur.ac.uk/subscriber/uid=1522).

– E. Courtney (ed.), The Fragmentary Latin Poets (Oxford, 1993)– R. Kassel and C. Austin, Poetae comici graeci, in 10 volumes (non translated)– B. Snell, S. Radt and R. Kannicht, Tragicorum graecorum fragmenta, in multiple volumes (non translated)NB: tragic and comic fragments have recently been edited (with translation) for the Loeb (by Sommerstein and Storey respectively, and Henderson for Aristophanes); so also the fragments of the epic cycle (by West); of Hesiod (by Most); lyric fragments (by Campbell).

Other collections of fragmentary texts (2)

Main Reference Works:

• OCD3 S. Hornblower and A. Spawforth (eds.), The Oxford Classical Dictionary, 3rd ed. (Oxford, 1996).The student's best friend!

• LIMC Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae (Zürich, 1981-)Each volume is in 2 parts, one of texts and references (with articles in various languages), the other of illustrations. See also the online ‘bibliographical supplement’ (Ergaenzungsbibliographie) at http://www.rzuser.uni-heidelberg.de/~m99/index.html

• BNP: Brill’s New Pauly (Leiden, 2002-): English translation of Der Neue Pauly. Enzyklopädie der Antike; can be consulted online:

http://library.dur.ac.uk/record=b2639846~S1

Reviews:what are they, why are they useful?

• Bryn Mawr Classical Review, online only http://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/• The Classical Review [online via JSTOR and the Cambridge University Press website- see Library catalogue]• GNOMON [paper; see library catalogue]• Journal of Roman Studies (review section) [paper and online via JSTOR]• Journal of Hellenic Studies (review section) [paper and online via JSTOR]• PLEKOS, http://www.plekos.unimuenchen.de/startseite.html

(only partly in English) [online only]

HANDBOOKS & COMPANIONS

• CAH Cambridge Ancient History (Cambridge)Main narratives of Ancient History. Originally published 1924-39 in 12 volumes. Updated 2nd edition started in 1970s, recently finished, in 14 volumes.

• Fontana History of the Ancient WorldSeries of introductions to Greek and Roman history (series editor O. Murray), giving an up-to-date account of various periods in Antiquity.

• Routledge History of the Ancient WorldComplete history of the Ancient World in several volumes (series editor F. Millar), including the Ancient Near East and Late Antiquityhttp://www.routledge.com/rcenters/classics/series/rhaw.html

• Blackwell Companions to the Ancient WorldSeries of overviews of periods of ancient history, genres of classical literature, and the most important themes in ancient culture

http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/seriesbyseries.asp?ref=CAWZ

Bibliographical search

• L’Année philologiquehttp://www.annee-philologique.com/aph/• TOCS-IN Provides tables of contents of selection of Classics, Near Eastern Studies, and Religion journals, both in text format and through Web search programhttp://www.chass.utoronto.ca/amphoras/tocs.html• GNOMON on-linehttp://www.gnomon.ku-eichstaett.de/Gnomon/en/Gnomon.html

A reminder:

• Most of the electronic resources mentioned are accessible via links from the ‘internal access’ page of the Department of Classics & Ancient History, University of Durham (http://www.dur.ac.uk/classics/local/internal/),

• or from the page of the Durham University Library dedicated to Classics resources:(http://www.dur.ac.uk/library/classics)