Contents
Introduction
Criteria and Standards
Vocabulary Specific to Each Discipline
Types of Assessment
Writing an Essay
     Choosing a Topic
     Making Notes
     Organising Your Information
     Writing and Rewriting Drafts
     Writing the Final Version
     Preparing Reference Notes
     Preparing Bibliographies
     Plagiarism
Preparing for Examinations
Gobbets in Classics
Tutorial Reading Reviews in History
Writing a Book Review

Introduction

This Study Guide is intended primarily to assist students in the writing of essays in History, Philosophy, Religion and Ancient History. It also contains some advice on preparing for exams. The Guide does not claim to be comprehensive, nor particularly original, as it is an amalgam of the collected wisdom on matters of style from the universities at which I have taught. It has benefited from revision in 2005, based on a Study Guide composed by Professor Tim Parkin from our Classics Discipline, and from material provided by Yorick Smaal. It deals with the major problems likely to be encountered by students attempting to write essay assignments or sit for exams in the School of History, Philosophy, Religion and Classics at The University of Queensland. It is not the intention of this Guide to force students into a rigid or narrow approach as far as essay writing is concerned. Many of the points mentioned below are not hard and fast rules. They are merely suggestions to improve essay-writing style.

Every essay that you submit should be based upon your own research and analysis. Any factual material or ideas you take from another source must be acknowledged in a reference, unless it is common knowledge (e.g., World War II continued from 1939 until 1945). The way you do this is through a combination of reference notes and a bibliography. Your reference notes and bibliography should tell your reader where you obtained all the specific information in your essay, and where any ideas or interpretations came from that are not your own thinking.

Most academic staff in the School recommend to students that references used in essays be placed into footnotes or endnotes, not within the text of the essay (e.g., the Harvard System, with the author's name and a reference put into parentheses). There are very valid reasons for this, due to the type of sources used in ancient and modern historical, religious studies, and some philosophical writing. Some staff are more flexible than others in their approach to referencing, but, unless otherwise notified in a course, you are advised to use footnotes or endnotes in the Chicago System style, not in-text Harvard System references. Individual lecturers may suggest that you use the in-text reference style. In this case you still need to provide in a bibliography the full reference to every work cited.

This Guide refers to points of style required in your written work. The writing you do for assessments is one of the most important aspects of your university training. Good writing is an essential part of good communication. It is a vital part of your study. It must be precise and approached as work. Your time should be carefully planned and used. Waiting until the last night and then trying to write up an essay is a very poor practice that will produce equally poor results. Few of us have the gift to write beautiful prose on our first attempt. Most authors rewrite their work several times. Word processors have made revision easier, but you still should not try to dash off an essay, make a couple of changes on the screen, print it off and hand it in. Given that usually you know what your written assignments are from the beginning of the semester, there is no valid excuse for late submission, other than sickness, and even then this often means that you have begun your work too late. If you are encountering difficulties in properly allocating your time to complete your written work successfully, see your tutors, lecturers or counsellors immediately.

Finally, three pieces of advice:

• If an assignment is lost or misplaced it is the responsibility of the student to produce a copy.
• Most students now use word processors to produce their essays. While this is commendable, failures in the new technology have brought with them a new attempt at an excuse for no or late submission of tutorial papers and essays. Computer or printer malfunction, or your own IT incompetence, are not valid excuses.
• Always leave a 4 cm (one and a half inch) margin down the right hand side of each page for comments. Double spacing between lines also makes it easier for markers to add comments or corrections. And only write on one side of the page.

Criteria and Standards

The School has adopted a Criteria and Standards Sheet for use in marking undergraduate essays. It contains 17 categories that markers will use to assess your essay assignments. Before you begin an essay you should be familiar with each of these categories. At the completion of your essay check again to ensure that you will score highly under each category. They are:
Argument and Structure:

Topic Definition

Argument/Analysis

Evidence

Conclusion

Scope and Depth of Treatment:

Bibliography

Utilisation of Sources

Originality

Advanced Skills:

Primary Sources

Use of Foreign Sources

Historiographic or Philosophic depth

Presentation:

Language and Writing Style

Spelling, Grammar and Paragraphing

Quotations; Bibliography

Reference System

Proof-reading

Length

Generally, the first two headings will be of roughly equal importance and each weighed about twice as heavily as the third heading in the determination of your overall mark. However, this weighting may vary from task to task, as may the importance of the various components under each of the headings. Your lecturer will advise you if he/she regards any of the criteria as less important in a particular essay assignment, or if some category is not relevant to the assessment. Lecturers may choose to use another type of criteria and standards marking sheet, but the categories on which you are being graded should be clear.

Vocabulary Specific to your Discipline

In general you should use simple language but avoid ambiguity, pretentious language and circumlocution. Technical terms should be used only if they are essential for precision and, whenever there is any doubt about the expertise of your audience, esoteric terms should be explained. George Orwell's 1946 essay 'Politics and the English language' (Language' in Inside the Whale and Other Essays. Harmondsworth: Penguin in association with Secker & Warburg, 1962, pp. 143-157) contains timeless advice about writing. Every student (and every veteran writer) would do well to visit this essay at least once a year. The following rules, proposed by Orwell, should be inscribed on every author's soul:

1. Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print
2. Never use a long word where a short one will do.
3. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
4. Never use passive tense where you can use active tense.
5. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an every day English equivalent.
6. Break any of these rules rather than say anything outright barbarous. There are many different guides to essay and thesis-writing style, which vary depending on the actual discipline area.

Classics Discipline

General Histories and Dictionaries

If you don't know much about the topic, a good place to start would be a good general history of the period or standard textbooks, such as The Cambridge Ancient History, From the Gracchi to Nero or A Penguin History of Greece. Alternatively, the Oxford Classical Dictionary is an excellent starting point for a synopsis of a historical period, place or person.
Here is a list of standard resources and their location in the Social Sciences & Humanities Library:

Oxford Classical Dictionary
     SS&H/SS&H Reference section DE5.O9 1996

Cambridge Ancient History
     SS&H D57.C25 1970

Oxford Companion to Classical Civilization
     Available Online

Concise Oxford Companion to Classical Literature
     Available Online

Oxford Encyclopaedia of Archaeology in the Near East
     SS&H Reference section DS56.O9 1997

Oxford Encyclopaedia of Ancient Egypt
     SS&H Reference section DT58.O94 2001

Ancient Greece and Rome: A Bibliographical Guide
     SS&H Reference section Z6207.G7 H67 1995

Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World
     SS&H Maps section (level 1) G1033.B3 2000

Oxford Latin Dictionary
     SS&H Reference section PA2365.E5 O9 1968

Liddell & Scott Greek-English Lexicon
     SS&H Reference section PA44.E5 L6 1996

The Library website also provides information to help you start out with your research:
http://www.library.uq.edu.au/findits/findit.php?title=Classics+and+Ancient+History

Common Mistakes

Names of people and places are commonly misspelled. Often this is due to the fact that different modern sources or translations will use different spellings, e.g. Achilles or Achilleus. Decide which one you will follow and stick to it.

Do not chop and change between Greek and Roman equivalents, e.g. Odysseus/Ulysses. If you use 'k' instead of 'c' in Greek names, such as Korkyra, you must use the 'k' for other Greek names in the same essay, e.g. Klytemnestra. Consistency is vital.

Be very careful that you understand your topic well - there are often numerous people in the ancient world going by the same name, and not necessarily separated by a number of centuries. You do not want to discover halfway through your research that you have been reading about the wrong Scipio!

Some Greek and Latin names are difficult to spell, so be careful, and make sure you understand what you are writing about: Pericles has been known to suffer the indignity of being dubbed a "Pericle" (and be very careful with computer spell checkers, or he might even end up as "Prickles"). Distinguish between singular and plural forms of terms. Accuracy is essential: if you make fundamental errors, you undermine your entire argument and jeopardise your final result.

N.B.:
1. Dates should be listed as follows: AD 69; 76 BC. You may use AD and BC (or BCE and CE) with or without stops (i.e. AD or A.D., BC or B.C., etc). Centuries must be named fully, e.g. the third century BC.

2. Words from Greek and Latin are usually italicised or underlined, e.g. ekklesia, xenia, mos maiorum. There are exceptions (e.g. procurator, quaestor), so generally it is wise to follow the example of the modern sources you are reading. Remember that you can always ask your lecturer or tutor for advice.

3. Proper names should always be capitalised. Certain terms also require capitalization, e.g. Iron Age, Roman Empire.

4. Bear in mind that Latin and Greek words can have plural forms that seem illogical to those who have not studied these languages. In Latin, eques (a Roman knight) becomes equites in the plural form; in Greek, polis becomes poleis in the plural.

Philosophical Discipline

Dictionaries, Encyclopedias and General References

You may find some of the vocabulary used in the Philosophy courses is unfamiliar, or that terms are being used in an unfamiliar way. There is a web-based Glossary of Philosophical Terms (http://www.philosophypages.com/dy) that is worth consulting for guidance. Standard dictionaries are often unreliable sources of information about philosophical terminology but philosophical dictionaries which may help include:

Audi, Robert. The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1995.

Blackburn, Simon. The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1994.

Flew, Antony. A Dictionary of Philosophy, 2nd ed. Picador, London, 1984.

Lacey, A.R. A Dictionary of Philosophy, 2nd ed. Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, 1990.

Mautner, Thomas. Dictionary of Philosophy. Basil Blakwell, Oxford, 1996.

Vesey, G. Collins. Dictionary of Philosophy. Collins, London, 1990.

A recent comprehensive general reference which provides guidance on a broad range of topics (and which is available in the Social Science & Humanities Library reference section in the form of a conveniently searchable CD-ROM is:

Craig, Edward (ed.). Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 10 volumes. Routledge, London, 1998.

Although now a little out of date on some issues, to help you get your bearings it is often worth looking up key concepts and topics (after checking entries in the index) in:

Edwards, Paul (ed.). The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 8 volumes. Collier Macmllan, New York, 1967.

More recent and less comprehensive general references are:

Cooper, David E. World Philosophies: An Historical Introduction. Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1995.

Grayling, A.C. (ed.). Philosophy: A Guide Through the Subject. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1995.

Honderich, Ted (ed.). The Oxford Companion to Philosophy. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1995.

Bunnin, Nicholas and E.P. Tsui-James. The Blackwell Companion to Philosophy. Blackwell, Oxford, 1996.

Parkinson, G.H.R. (ed.). An Encyclopaedia of Philosophy. Routledge, London, 1988.

Urmson, J.O. and J. Ree (eds). The Concise Encyclopedia of Western Philosophy and Philosophers, rev. edn. Routledge, London, 1989.

Types of Assessment

You will be required to undertake several different forms of assessment during the semester. These may include:

Tutorial Papers (usually 1000 to 1500 words)
You will usually be required to hand these in at the tutorial at which your topic is scheduled to be discussed and to take a leading role in the discussion. Check with your tutor on the procedure to follow.

Longer Essays (usually 1500 to 2500 words)
These are usually handed in at the School office at a set day and time. Please attach a filled-out and signed Cover Sheet, available from the School office. Alternatively, your lecturer may require that they be submitted via Turnitin on the course Blackboard site.

Exam Alternative Essays (usually 2500 to 3000 words)
In some Advanced level courses, you will have the option of writing an extended essay instead of doing the exam. These will be due at the same time as the exam.

Applied History Reports (length varies)
In a course such as applied history you may be asked to prepare a report that is more in the form that would be required in a consultancy situation. You will be advised on the actual form of the report.

Museum Reports (length varies)
In Classics you may be asked to select an object from the museum collection to report upon. You will need to provide a detailed description of its function, composition, dating, condition, and its historical context.

Museum Study (ca. 1000 words)
This is an essay in the Classics Discipline on a specific aspect of an artefact in the Antiquities Museum and is often associated with a Museum report. The study will be on a topic chosen by the student with the agreement of either the lecturer or the tutor.

Quizzes
Some courses use sort quizzes delivered in lectures or tutorials or online via the course Blackboard site as part of the assessment.

Book Reviews
These are sometimes used in the History Discipline. They are of a fixed length, probably similar to those you will find in academic journals, from 600 to 800 words. Advice on what is involved, and an example of a book review can be found at the end of this Guide.

Tutorial Reading Reviews
These are sometimes used in the History Discipline. These are short written assessments of chapters and articles that are used in tutorials. Advice on what is involved, and an example of a book review can be found at the end of this Guide.

Mid-Semester Tests (usually 1 hour)
Some courses in all Disciplines use Mid-Semester Tests. In Classics this is an essay on a specific aspect of an artefact in the Antiquities Museum and is often associated with a Museum report. The study will be on a topic chosen by the student with the agreement of either the lecturer or the tutor.

End of Semester Exams (usually 2 hours)
These will usually involve essay-type questions, or gobbets (used in Classics), multiple-choice questions, short notes and definition questions. Some exams consist only of essay-type questions.

Writing an Essay

The main assessable task you will be given is essay writing. Essays and tutorial papers are structured pieces of persuasive writing containing an argument and supporting evidence. They must present a hypothesis and validate it with evidence. You must answer the question you are set. This sounds simple, but it is surprising how many people actually fail to answer the question. Drafting and proofreading will help you determine whether you have fulfilled your goals.

You will be given essays that have different word limits, but their fundamental structure and purpose remains the same. When you are preparing essays, one of your key goals should be to learn about your topic. If you are able to get the information into your head, your task becomes infinitely easier.

Writing an essay involves six steps, each of which is described below:

1. Choosing a Topic
2. Making Notes
3. Organising Your Information
4. Writing and Rewriting the Drafts
5. Writing the Final Version
6. Preparing the Footnotes and Bibliography

1. Choosing a Topic
Your lecturer and/or tutor will hand out a guide to the course at the beginning of the semester that contains details of all assessment items, including tutorial papers and longer essays. Depending on the course you are taking, you may be asked to choose one or two tutorial papers out of anywhere between six to ten topics.

Early in the semester you should choose your topics from the list, and commence working on it. Usually all topics are equally difficult and it is most unwise to choose a topic solely because you think it looks "easy". Having chosen a topic you should read the question carefully and think about the issues it raises. It is important to understand precisely what you are being asked to do. You need to decide carefully which topic you feel is best suited for you to answer. Perhaps this is because it is of interest to you, or because you already have some understanding of related areas and can use this topic to build up your knowledge. If you are in any doubt consult one of the staff members involved in the course. Don't shy away from essay questions that are due early in the semester, especially if you know that you will have several pieces of assessment due soon after the mid-semester break.

Your lecturer will frame the essay questions using a variety of terms. It is essential you understand what these mean if you are to answer the question properly. Here is a list of the most common terms and what they mean:

a)  Assess: Determine the value or significance
b)  Analyse: Consider in detail
c)  Explain: Offer reasons for
d)  To what extent: Quantify the importance (i.e., to a large extent, a small extent)
e)  Compare: Examine and note similarities
f)  Contrast: Emphasise the differences (some questions will ask you to 'compare and contrast',i.e., look for similarities and differences)
g)  Discuss: Examine and consider (this does not simply mean describe!)
h)  Account for: Give reasons why
i)  Illustrate: Clarify or demonstrate with examples (this does not mean you need to draw anything!)
j)  Consider: Judge and come to an opinion

Regardless of the question, every essay paper must be a piece of argumentative writing. Do not simply tell the story! If you are unsure of exactly what the essay requires, please see your tutor or lecturer as soon as possible.

Before you begin your reading you should decide the following:

• What is the essence of the question? Does it ask "why" (reasons), "how", "what" or "so what" (effects), or a combination such as "explain" (what and why).
• One major fault with many essays is that students often write the requisite number of words on the topic without really trying to answer the question. You need to explain to your reader what you understand the key terms to be. In your research you may start with a dictionary definition to orient your own thoughts, but do not just give a dictionary definition and leave it at that in the actual essay. As the essay progresses you should make explicit the meanings of the terms, especially in relation to the topic. In other words, think carefully about every word in the question and keep thinking and referring to them when you write.
• Decide upon a possible structure. If your essay is in one of the history disciplines, you are probably better to avoid a chronological structure, because in general telling the story does not provide a relevant answer. Instead of writing chronologically or in narrative form, categorise: that is, identify the basic principles which underlie the issue raised. Thus, in a Modern History question which asks "why" you might consider:
  • What were the social reasons?
  • Economic reasons?
  • Political reasons?
  • Ideological reasons?
  • Has the historical data available shaped the interpretations?
  • Can you discern revisions in historical interpretations?

Starting Your Research

Reading

Always start your research early. There is nothing worse than going to the library a week before your essay is due and finding the shelves completely cleared out. It is your responsibility to secure your research material ahead of time.

Often your lecturer will have put some books in the library's 'High Use' section where you can borrow them for two hours or three days at a time. This ensures that everyone has a fair chance to access the material. In the same vein, it is disrespectful to your fellow students, not to mention unfair, to hoard books that you are not using.

It takes time to research, plan, write and then edit and re-write a paper. If there is someone in your class who boasts they wrote their essay at 2 a.m. the day before it was due and got a 7, they are either (a) excessively brilliant (i.e., not normal, and possibly in league with the devil) or (b) lying. Leave yourself plenty of time to complete all the steps.

You should research actively, not passively. What is the difference? Here is a brief illustration:

Marcus is reading Stockton's The Gracchi while watching the latest episode of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. He often stops to highlight sentences, but does not make any notes.

Sarah is also reading the The Gracchi, but adopts a different approach, conscientiously taking notes that are of relevance to her essay topic. When necessary, she notes down references in the footnotes for later reference.

Marcus is a passive reader: highlighting does not equal understanding! Sarah, on the other hand, is actively engaging with the text and noting what is relevant to her specific question at hand.

Wide reading is essential, if you wish to secure a good grade in any essay. However, mere quantity is not enough. You should choose your material intelligently and not waste time reading irrelevant books. Most courses issue bibliographies which will help you in choosing your reading material. In addition, it is quite easy to compile a bibliography yourself by using the bibliographies in your text books, by using the electronic catalogue in the library, by consulting the various periodical indexes that are housed in the library, or using the CD-Rom and World Wide Web (www) sources now available.

You should always research with the aim of your question in mind. If you are writing a paper on Augustus' moral legislation, you do not need to make copious notes on his skills as a general. Often it is a good idea to skim through an article or book chapter first to determine whether it will be of use to your essay. If it does prove to be useful, you can then read it again, taking in-depth notes. Similarly, don't spend all your time reading entire books when only a chapter or two may be relevant to your paper - use the contents and index to guide your reading. You may be given a choice of topics. Read through the list of questions carefully. Select your question and consider it fully, making sure you understand the issues raised. These issues will form the framework of your essay.

Now that you've chosen a topic, you can begin to research your essay. You may feel overwhelmed by the many books and articles on the subject and unsure of where to begin. Use books sensibly and try to evaluate them when you first glance through them. What do you know of the author? Is there any evidence in the book that the author is an expert on the field? Most books provide some biographical information about the author/s. Always read this to establish credentials. Is the publisher reputable? You will get to know the names of the best publishing houses. Their names provide a rough guide to the standard of the book. What they publish has been refereed, often worked on by editors, and is usually of a high standard. Is the book recently published or a new revised edition? It is not always true that the latest is the best, but generally you can expect books published in the 1990s or 2000s to contain more up-to-date scholarship than early ones. If you find multiple editions of one book always check to see if the newer ones are just reprints or a revision of the text. (There is a book on Australian race relations which originally was published in 1923, and republished without revision in 1967: beware of passing off 1920s views as 1960s views, or indeed 2000s views!) Use their contents pages and indexes to help discover what use the books will be to you, and look at the Introduction, the concluding chapter, and at conclusions to chapters. Having given the book this cursory inspection you will be able to decide if it is suitable for your essay.

The same applies to journal articles. Generally, the more recent the article, the more useful it will be. Also try to get some idea of the credentials of the author of any article. If you do not recognise the name, look in a relevant bibliography of journal articles to see what else the person has written, or check the library catalogue to locate other publications by the same author. Many of the journal articles you will read are held in the High Use section of the library. This saves wear and tear on you and the journals, but there is still nothing better than a browse through a run of issues from a relevant journal. This enables you to evaluate the journal in much the same way you can a book, gives you the feel of the article within its original context, and often you find other relevant articles in neighbouring issues. The library has a superb collection of current and past journals. By all means use the references given to you for essays, but also take the challenge of learning to use the extensive library system. Learning to use the library fully, rather than relying on the photocopied and High Use material in the library, is one of the wisest things you can do during your years at university. It equips you to be able to research a problem and develop a succinct answer, skills which you will apply all through life.

Be aware that writers present different interpretations. You will not find an "answer" to satisfy you in one book or article. Read as widely as possible, and with your essay topic and structure in mind so that you know what you are looking for, although you do not know necessarily to what conclusion your evidence will lead. Begin your reading with general texts and then move to more specialised works. Do not be satisfied with general texts, especially older ones and those mainly for the popular market. You may use encyclopedia entries to help orient you to a topic, or to check biographical context, but generally you should not use general encyclopedias as references in essays.

It is also wise to browse through any book's footnotes and bibliography as well as the text, which will lead you to other works relevant to the topic. Finally, do not cite lecture notes in your essays. This just means you are being lazy. Find the correct published sources. As one of my colleagues always writes in such cases: "flattering but not acceptable".

When reading a text, ask yourself the following questions:

1. Who wrote it and when?
2. What is the genre of the text? (history, biography, philosophical treatise, defence speech, letter, tragedy, comedy, etc.)
3. What is the purpose of the text? (to entertain, inform, to acquit a defendant)
4. What are the biases of the writer?
5. What are the writer's sources?
6. What socio-political environment was the text written in?

2. Making Notes

There are many and varied ways of setting down the information you gain from your sources. The important point to bear in mind is that you must adopt an organized approach to note taking. Take notes as you read, making sure that you write down the full bibliographical details and the page numbers where you find ideas, interpretations or information. This sometimes calls for real effort of will, but it must be done, and will save you time at the end. You need to be able to footnote quotations which you use, but you also need to indicate to your reader exactly where you gathered your information and interpretations. Do not take notes verbatim. Some intellectual process needs to take place between what you read and what you write down. If you note ideas, interpretations and information then you will avoid plagiarism, or presenting scissors-and-paste history. (See below)

There are many ways to collect your notes. You can use A4 pages and just take notes on different topics from one source on one page, or you might try using smaller pages or cards and collecting information from different sources, but on the same topic, on the one page, making sure you can differentiate the sources at a later date. Either way you need to be able to identify each source. Back in the B.C. years (before computers) I used 20 cm by 12 cm (5" by 8") cards, keyed with the author's name and initials, the date of the publication, a brief title, and the pages used. I kept a separate bibliography with each item on a 12.5 by 7.5 cm (3" by 5") card.

More recently I have begun to take notes directly onto a word processor, which requires a different system. You might also choose to use a professional computerized bibliographic and note-taking package such as Endnote. Whatever you decide to do, just be consistent and accurate.

Taking good notes takes practice. Here is one way of setting out your page to ensure logical arrangement of material - and so that you can follow your notes when the time comes to write your essay!

Top of the page: Here you should record the bibliographical details of the work from which you are taking notes. Herodotus, The Histories, trans. de Sélincourt, A., revised edition, 1996, Penguin, Harmondsworth.
Column 1: References	Column 2: Notes	Column 3: Critical Use of Sources
Book 3, Chapter 33 (p.167, Penguin ed.) Book 4, Chapter 34 (pp. 167-168, Penguin ed.)	Cambyses said to be a "madman" who suffered from the "sacred sickness". Cambyses kills the son of Prexaspes to prove he is not mad.	Consider Herodotus' hostile treatment of Cambyses throughout Book 3. What part do such stories play in the larger narrative?

3. Organising Your Information: form and structure

Read through your notes and sort them into categories that seem useful for answering the essay question. Organise each group of pages (or cards) into an appropriate sequence, eliminating duplications and irrelevancies. Then, using this sequence, prepare a detailed overall plan of your essay. Ideally, consult your tutor or lecturer to make clear any points of uncertainty. Generally, staff will not read drafts of your essay, but they will comment on sources and plans.

You should construct a coherent argument which provides the essay with unity and structure. Your argument will fall into three sections:

The beginning or introduction which gives the reader an idea of what the topic of the essay is about, and how you are going to answer the question. It should at least refer to the key terms of the topic. It is a good rule of thumb always to include a date, or some other indication of the period or concept you are talking about. It needs to consist of at least one paragraph, not just one or two sentences.

The middle or body of the essay, in which you develop the points made in the beginning and follow through various aspects of the topic which you feel need to be discussed. These points should follow in a logical way so that paragraphs lead naturally on to each other.

The conclusion or ending in which you briefly restate your main arguments and show how they answered the question.

Avoid use of quotations from secondary sources unless you are commenting on the views of the authors per se. Do not quote sentences from a book or article just because you feel you cannot say it as well yourself. You only need to quote if you are discussing the actual wording of a work. If you do quote, introduce the author's name into the text, rather than just have an isolated quotation sitting between two paragraphs. We want your words, your ideas, and your arguments. There is seldom any need, if at all, to use sub-headings in an essay. The prose should be able to carry your argument without signposts. And never write in note form in an essay.

One important basis for good essay writing is paragraph structure. Look critically at your paragraphs. A paragraph is a group of sentences that develops one main idea. It should have a topic sentence indicating clearly the main point of the paragraph, a body sentence developing that one main idea, and a concluding sentence demonstrating explicitly the relevance of the material you have presented in the paragraph. A little trick is to ask yourself the question, "So what?" and if you have not explained the relevance to the reader then do so. Do not leave it to the reader to make the connections. You must make them for the reader. Ensure that each new paragraph flows on from the previous one and into the next.

It is quite legitimate to use quotes from primary sources, from the period about which you are writing.

Discipline-Specific Information for Classics

In writing your essay, you should present evidence that will support your answer to the question. In Classics and Ancient History, there are two types of sources of information that we use, ancient sources and modern works. Remember that ancient sources may contain both evidence and opinion. Modern works can only add opinion.

Ancient Sources

These should form the backbone of your essay. Every ancient historian must base his or her argument on the evidence from the ancient world.

There are many different types of ancient evidence.

A. Literary Sources: The works of many writers from antiquity have survived to the present day, and these are indispensable to all scholars, even those who work primarily with archaeological evidence. Ancient authors such as Tacitus, Livy, Thucydides and Plato wrote in Latin or Greek, but their works are available to us in English translations. There is no substitute for a knowledge of the ancient languages, but English translations will suffice for undergraduate papers.

The two major translation series are Penguin paperbacks and the Loeb series (small hardcover books, green for Greek and red for Latin, which contain the original text facing the translation). Always read the ancient writers critically - they often have an agenda to push, and do so shamelessly.

B. Archaeological Remains: Archaeological material has shed invaluable light on the ancient world, and provided evidence that either corroborates or contradicts the literary sources. Archaeological evidence could be a pot illustrating scenes from mythology, food remains, or even the ruins of a Mycenaean citadel. Reports from archaeological excavations are often published in journals or book series.

C. Inscriptions: Inscriptions were set up throughout the ancient Greek and Roman world. They could chart the career of an important politician, indicate a boundary marker, or record a peace treaty.

Scholars usually publish such inscriptions in books or articles with a commentary.

D. Papyri: Egypt has provided us with tens of thousands of documents preserved on papyri (the most widely used writing material in the Graeco-Roman world), dating particularly from the period of the Roman empire. Mainly written in Greek, they cover an enormous range of subject matter, from official regulations and petitions to tax receipts and private letters.

E. Coins: Money makes the world go round, and the ancients have left plenty of it for us to find. Coins might commemorate a military victory, an emperor's accession, marriage or a politician's family ancestry. In a world without television and newspapers, coins were essential propaganda tools for spreading a political agenda.

NB: Archaeological evidence is not necessarily 'unbiased' in contrast with the literary sources. Reports of digs are still the product of the excavator, and thus often omit or pass over details the writer considers irrelevant. Other aspects, such as the thoroughness of the dig and whether the site has been looted in antiquity or modern times, must also be considered.

Notes on the use of Ancient Sources:

When you are reading your ancient sources, remember to bear the following things in mind and think about how they affect the usefulness of the work as a piece of historical evidence:

1. TIME: Is the text contemporaneous with the event, or was it written afterwards? If so, how much later?
2. BIAS: Consider how the author's place of origin, social status, religion, political leanings etc., may affect his (and very occasionally, her) objectivity.
3. PURPOSE OF WORK: What is its intended audience?
4. SKILLS: How reliable is the author? What sources did he rely on? What techniques did he use?

Modern Works

Modern scholars aim to synthesise and analyse the evidence from the ancient world to produce reliable and unbiased historical accounts of the period. Be aware that modern historians often fall into the same traps as writers from antiquity. Always read the writings of modern classical historians with the same critical eye as you would the ancient writers, and go back and check their sources for crucial points of your argument. Modern scholarship takes several forms:

A. Books: Books represent the culmination of many years of scholarship, and often synthesise large amounts of evidence into an account of a particular historical period, author, theme, or region.

As it takes many years to write and publish a book, they are often beginning to become out of date by the time they hit the library shelves. Be sure to note the date when a book was published - it could be seriously out of date if it was released in the 1930s and new evidence or theories have come to light since then. However, there are some classic treatments that will always be worth reading, such as Sir Ronald Syme's The Roman Revolution, or Emily Vermeule's Greece in the Bronze Age.
Your course bibliography will guide you as to which books are the most relevant to your topic. Always consult your lecturer or tutor if you have any doubts about a source.

B. Journal Articles: Much more specific scholarly research is published in academic journals, which appear at least once a year, with some published biannually or quarterly. Articles will usually address one specific historical problem and attempt to solve it. Owing to the shorter publication time, historical debates can often be tracked over the years through journal articles.

C. Commentaries: Commentaries are written to accompany and elucidate the works of classical authors. In a commentary, the author will provide in-depth, sometimes line-by-line analysis of the historical and/or literary and grammatical complexities of a work. These can be extremely useful for passages whose interpretation is subject to debate.

D. Reviews: Some journals, such as Classical Review, are devoted to publishing reviews of recent books. These can be helpful in deciding whether a particular scholar's view is controversial and whether his/her arguments withstand scholarly scrutiny by his/her peers.

Notes on the use of Modern Works:

Modern works should be used judiciously. Do not simply quote large chunks of text from standard text books. You should use these works to inform your awareness and reading of relevant ancient sources and to become aware of scholarly debates.

4. Writing and Re-writing Drafts

You must use academic prose when you write your essays and answer your exam questions. An essay needs to be a continuous series of well-written, correctly spelled English sentences which are formed into coherent paragraphs and carry a succinct argument. An essay is usually written in a fairly impersonal and objective style. Avoid conversational and chatty language. Avoid personal pronouns: do not use "I" and "my" when you write. Academic prose need not be boring, but it should avoid sensationalism. You must use language that is appropriate for scholarly work: it should be clear, succinct, and objective. Never use racist, sexist, or offensive language. The use of colloquialisms is inappropriate. Do not use contractions.

Following your overall plan, write a rough draft as quickly as you can, concentrating on the development of your answer. Stick to the point and support your ideas with reasons and evidence, including specific examples and/or factual details. Demonstrate that you have been thinking, not merely copying. Ideally, leave this initial draft for a day or so, to mature. On your return, check your essay for coherence and clarity, and look for gaps, or mistakes, or inconsistencies. Then re-write your initial draft, or sections of it that need editing, into the final essay.

The essay question has a word limit and you are supposed to keep to that limit (within 100-200 words or so), depending on the actual length specified. If the essay is much longer then you have not demonstrated skill in concise organisation of your thoughts, which is one of the requirements of any good essay. If your essay is much shorter than the limit, you have probably not read enough on the topic or understood it sufficiently. Marks may be deducted for both exceeding the stated word limit or not writing enough.

University study requires that you analyse various issues that are put before you. Mere description is not sufficient. We are not interested in your ability to recite facts. What we are interested in is your ability to interpret evidence or discuss philosophical ideas. Thus, your essay must constitute a logical coherent argument. Instead of adopting the arguments and interpretations of others you should inject a degree of originality into your work by attempting to formulate views of your own.

Students are often reluctant to do this because they are afraid that perhaps by disagreeing with the experts they will be marked down. This is a mistaken view. However, you will be marked down if your opinions are obviously superficial or demonstrably erroneous. The way to avoid this is to read widely and to think about the questions raised in your reading. We want to read your well-informed, logical and reasoned opinions, backed up by sufficient evidence. We are not interested in reading off-the-top-of-your-head, ill-thought-out generalisations.

There are two traps which must be avoided:

• The mere presentation of factual material for its own sake.
• The presentation of a series of rash generalisations for which you produce no factual or theoretical evidence.

Synopsis of Essay Preparation

• Read widely and intelligently.
• Reflect on the issue raised in your reading before you commence writing.
• Be guided by the needs of the particular Discipline. In Classics, for instance, you will need to interweave ancient and modern sources. In History you should have primary and secondary sources.
• Make sure that your essay has a clear structure that a reader can follow.
  • Develop your main argument regarding the topic and state this in your first paragraph.
  • Usually this main argument will contain a number of subsidiary arguments. Use these as the basis for your plan of the essay.
  • In the body of the essay you should expand and defend the argument you advance in the opening paragraph. You should use the factual information you have collected as evidence to support your arguments.
  • What conclusions have authors reached about your topic? Have you dealt with historiographic or philosophical or ideological issues?
  • You should round off your discussion with a suitable conclusion.

Essential Points to Bear in Mind When Writing

• The essay should be a coherent logical piece of analytical prose: you should ask and answer questions, make comparisons, presenting and defending a thesis or argument. Rather than just stating facts, this approach explains and interprets them. Why did events take place, what were their consequences, how did they relate to other developments? Why did the authors you read take differing stands? What is your own interpretation?
• You will need to provide evidence and examples to strengthen your analysis and arguments.
• If you encounter material which seems not to agree with the argument you have proposed, you cannot just ignore it. Remember that the lecturer marking your essay will be aware of the contrary argument. You need to note that there is more than one interpretation and explain why you think that other evidence or arguments are less important or persuasive. This can be done in the text of your essays, or in an extended footnote.
• You should not be handing in your first draft. Make sure you leave plenty of time for rewriting to ensure your argument is both consistent and convincing, and the evidence supports your point of view. You should also be reading for errors in spelling and grammar - the most professional paper will seem amateur if it is littered with typos.

Final Checklist

• Have you written more than one draft of the essay?
• Does your essay answer the question?
• Does your introduction agree with your conclusion?
• Does your argument flow logically from paragraph to paragraph?
• Are any generalisations supported by adequate evidence?
• Are you objective? Obvious bias has no place in scholarly writing.
• Are you specific? Avoid vague phrases.
• Have you used quotations properly? While it is quite in order to use short, relevant, direct quotations from other authors to support or expand points you make, these should not be used to make your points for you.
• Have you plagiarised? Needless to say, the unacknowledged copying of other writers constitutes plagiarism and will be dealt with severely. For further explanation refer to the section on plagiarism below.
• Do not throw around phrases such as "socialism" without defining them.
• Do not use contractions such as "don't" and "can't".
• Do not use contractions such as "Govt".
• The use of slang, racist or sexist language is totally unacceptable in oral or written presentations.
• It is generally a sound policy to avoid the use of personal pronouns such as "I feel ..." or "in my opinion". Strictly speaking, their use is tautological and their frequent use can be annoying to the reader. The use of "We" is also to be avoided.
• Do not use note form. The numbering of points is quite in order in a Guide such as this, but the practice should be avoided in formal prose.
• Do not use a racy or conversational prose style. But equally, scholarly writing need not be turgid. Write close, concise English.
• Avoid the practice of attaching lengthy appendices to your essays. Any appendices used must be strictly relevant to what you have written in the body of the essay. Marks are not awarded for mere bulk.
• Are you within the stated word limit? If you are asked to write 3000 words do not write 2000 words or 4000 words.
• Be accurate regarding places, dates, names, and note and bibliographic references.
• Correct spelling, grammar and syntax are essential.
• Avoid using the historical present tense.

Writing the Final Version

Re-write your initial draft, or sections of it, into the final version. Consider all of the points below:

• Use a wide margin (4 cm or one and a half inches wide) so that comments may be written in it when the essay is corrected. If you do not leave a margin do not expect any comments or corrections from the marker.
• Only use on side of the page.
• Essays should be typed if possible. Hand written essays will be accepted, but illegible essays will be returned unmarked for rewriting.
• If your essay is typed, it must be neatly done. The text of the essay should be typed in double line spacing but any indented quotations used should be typed in single line spacing.
• Indent the beginning of each new paragraph.
• Write or type on only one side of the paper.
• Write your name on every page of the essay (they can come apart).
• Fasten pages together firmly with a staple.
• Either make a photocopy, or print an extra copy of your essay as a record. It is your responsibility to produce another copy if the original has been lost.
• Affix a standard title page to your essay. These can be obtained from the School office.
• Please re-read your essay before handing it in.
• No essay should be handed in without footnotes and bibliography. If you do this do not be surprised when your essay is returned unmarked.
• Have you filled in the School's assignment cove sheet and attached it to your essay?

Referencing

Preparing Footnotes and Bibliography

It is the responsibility of each student to ensure that their assessable work is presented with the correct referencing techniques and a bibliography, following particular advice provided in any Course Profile. The UQ Library Homepage (under Advanced Skills - UseIts "How to: guides) includes short style for the Chicago, AGPS, MLA, Harvard, Legal and Vancouver referencing styles. The Library also holds full hard copy versions of these and other style guides. For those of you quite new to these reference systems, the Harvard system inserts the author's name, the date of publication and the page reference into the sentence i.e. (Stanner, 1977, 24). The other systems rely on footnotes or endnotes, each numbered consecutively in the text, with the reference appearing at the foot of each page or at the back of the paper.

The referencing system we generally recommend is the Chicago Style, and the full details are available on the "UseIts" section of The UQ Library Homepage. However, different Disciplines and different lecturers might ask you to use a different system. Please take the advice of the coordinator of the particular course.
Two general pieces of advice:

• While slight stylistic variations are acceptable, what must never vary is your consistent method throughout your references.
• Students often make the mistake of thinking that they only need to reference quotations. You must use references to indicate the source of a direct quotation and of ideas, opinions and statistical material that you have taken -- not necessarily in quotation -- from another author.

In Classics you must support your assertions with references to the ancient evidence and modern discussions. A system of referencing allows you to show readers where you obtained the information from so they can go and look it up for themselves.

A list of all the source materials, known as a bibliography, must be included at the end of your essay. A History, Studies in Religion or Philosophy bibliography is usually only one list, but a Classics bibliography should be clearly divided into two sections: ancient sources and modern works. In advanced modern history essays you may be better to separate primary and secondary sources into two sections.

As your bibliography is a list of works consulted, it should not only include those books specifically cited in the text of your essay, but also those that you have used in your research.

When do I need to put in a reference?
You must reference any information you have taken from both ancient sources and modern works. There are two types of quotations:

A. Direct Quotation

• A direct quotation is a word-for-word extract taken from the original work.
• The general rules for all direct quotations, ancient and modern, are:
• Keep them short.

1. The fewer you have in any given essay, the better.

2. If the quotation contains a mistake or misspelling, you must not correct it when you are reproducing the text. To show that you know there is a problem and it is not your fault, place [sic] directly after the mistake.

3. For quotations less than one sentence long, place them within the text of your paragraph, clearly marked by quotation marks, " ". For example: Rankin (1987: 145) states, "We may doubt whether Vindex wished to replace the emperor at Rome".

4. For a quotation longer than one sentence, you should set it below the text of your paragraph and indent it; you do not need to place the quotation in quotation marks. You should place it in single-line spacing (the rest of your essay should be 1.5-line or double-line spacing).

For example:

Suetonius (Nero 4) states,

Indeed there is no kind of relationship that he did not violate in his career of crime. He put to death Antonia, daughter of Claudius, for refusing to marry him after Poppaea's death, charging her with an attempt at revolution; and he treated in the same way all others who were in any way connected with him by blood or by marriage.

B. Indirect Quotation An indirect quotation is when you have used an idea or opinion from another source but have put it into your own words. For example:

Suetonius' Life of Domitian depicts the emperor in an unfavourable light (Jones 1996: xv).

How do I reference correctly?

There are a number of acceptable referencing systems. The most important thing is that you are consistent in your use of referencing throughout your essays and tutorial papers. If you have any questions about what is acceptable in any particular course, always ask your tutor or lecturer.

Classics References

Abbreviations of ancient works and of some basic modern works are standardised and can be found at the beginning of the Oxford Classical Dictionary (third edition). Sometimes you will be able to provide book, chapter and line numbers for works, but it will depend on the layout of the source you are using. Providing more information is always better than providing less information about a source; that way your reader can find it if he/she wishes. The bibliographic entry for the above work would appear thus:

Tacitus, Germania, ed. Anderson, J. G. C., 1938, Clarendon Press, Oxford.

A bibliographic entry for an ancient source should include the author's name, the title, the editor, the year of publication, publisher and place of publication.

The History Discipline's Preference for Footnotes or Endnotes, not In-Text Notes

Particularly for historical referencing, footnotes or endnotes are still preferred. Comprehensive citation of sources used in research by means of footnotes and a bibliography is a hallmark of good historical research. Historians deal with vast numbers of primary sources, and often it is not possible to list them within a Harvard in-text style of reference. And sometimes historians use extended footnotes, including comments and extra information. Let me give you two examples from footnotes:

1. There are several examples of under-age Malaitans being recruited, or of under-age recruits known to have been amongst passengers on ships which visited Malaita. For example: In letter 2249 of 1876, IA to CS, 4 September 1876, COL/A25; IA to PMQ, 6 December 1897, GOV/A32, QSA. 2. S.J. Lloyd, Inspector of Police, Brisbane, statement issued 17 October 1894, enclosed in CS to Gov., 20 November 1894, GOV/A27; IA to S to PMQ, 25 February 1897, in CS to Gov., 25 June 1897, GOV/A32, QSA; S.M. Smith private log Sybil 2, 10 November 1896, 9 January 1897; John Cromar, Jock of the Islands: Early Days in the South Seas. The Adventures of John Cromar, Sometime Recruiter and Lately Trader at Marovo, British Solomon Islands Protectorate, Told by Himself, Faber & Faber, London, 1935, pp. 157-9, 200, 214, 274-5; W.T. Wawn private log Para, 8 August 1984.

How could this degree of precision with citations be accomplished without using footnotes? And even if you are willing to clutter your sentences with references in brackets, are you still able to write flowing prose of a high literary standard?

Preparing Bibliographies

An essay must have a bibliography, even if full references have already been included in footnotes or endnotes. The UQ Library Homepage (under Advanced Skills - UseIts "How to: guides) includes short style guides for the AGPS, Chicago, MLA, Harvard, Legal and Vancouver referencing styles. The Library also holds full hard copy versions of these and other style guides.

• The main difference between the presentation of an entry in a bibliography and a reference appearing in a footnote or endnote is that in a bibliography the authors' surnames are placed in alphabetical order.
• Include all books and articles consulted, whether or not you have used actual quotations from them. Generally it is not necessary to include encyclopedias, unless the articles used are particularly significant, or you have quoted from them in your essay.
• Both the AGPS and Chicago systems recommend that the bibliography be recorded in a different manner to the footnotes. Rather than commas, both styles use full stops, after the author's name and after the title. The most obvious difference between the two methods is in the placing of the year of publication, and in the order in which the city and publisher are placed.

Chicago Style:
Franklin, John Hope. 1985. George Washington Williams: A Bibliography. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

AGPS Style:
Franklin, John Hope. George Washington Williams: A Bibliography. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1985.

Plagiarism

Failure to acknowledge your intellectual debts is plagiarism, which is regarded as a serious academic offence and will be severely penalised. Plagiarism consists of presenting another person's words, research, or ideas as if they were your own. This applies to direct quotations (each of which must be placed in quotation marks and have its own reference) but also to the use of facts, interpretations, or approaches you have gained from someone else's work. This could be on a massive scale, such as submitting someone else's essay as your own, or on a small scale, just involving not acknowledging a few sentences you have taken from another source. Plagiarism is a fault into which students can easily fall, and it can be hard for lecturers or tutors to know whether it is due to carelessness, or something worse. Certainly it sometimes looks like an attempt to pass off someone else's ideas as one's own. Even where it is due simply to carelessness, it means you are not being critical enough in your research and careful enough in your making of notes.

There is nothing wrong with using the ideas of other writers. Nothing could be written at all if we failed to build on what others have discovered and argued before us. But it is absolutely necessary to make full acknowledgment when we borrow from other writers. This is a matter of honesty. However, if a whole essay, or a substantial part of one, is transcribed straight from other work then no amount of acknowledgment will make the essay a good one. It is fundamental to the Course that students should learn to be critical of everything they read, to think carefully about how far they agree or disagree, and what can be relevant to their own work.

The same applies to "scissors-and-paste". This is where undigested chunks of material are taken from a variety of other authors and scattered alternately and uncritically through one's own work. Scissors-and-paste can be quite a skilful intellectual form of plagiarism, but this does not lessen the offence.

Beware: Your tutors and lecturers have read all the available literature on the topics they are teaching you. If you falsify references, plagiarise or otherwise set out to deceive them, they will know. Also, the Library has computerised checking devices to detect plagiarism, which we can use if we are suspicious. These work on a computer bank of material from texts and also an accumulation of essays from students in the computer memory. It is just not worth the risk of destroying your university career by taking short-cuts. The University of Queensland Library has prepared a publication of plagiarism. There are paper versions in the library, or you can access it on the Web:

Go to: www.library.uq.edu.au

Click on "Advanced Skills" at the bottom of the page.

On the right hand top side of the screen you will see: "UseIts" "How to Guides" click there.
Click on "P" from the list.

Read the "Stopping Plagarism" section.

The University of Queensland's policy on plagiarism is available at: "HUPP 3.40.12 - Plagiarism". The correct link is: (http://www.uq.edu.au/myadvisor)

 

ORIGINAL TEXT Below is a reproduction of the first paragraph at the top on page xix in Kay Saunders and Raymond Evans, "Introduction" in Gender Relations in Australia. Their text quotes from three different sources (Flax, Scott and Gerson and Peiss) and involves much of their own thinking on the topic of gender.

Thus feminist historians, in attempting to study how women have operated within these boundaries, also found themselves studying how men had constructed and defended them. In this way, gender as both a "constituting social relation" and as a "relation of domination" (Flax, 1990:51) emerges as a fundamental aspect of historical analysis. For as Joan W. Scott notes, "we should not be working only on the subjected sex any more than any historian of class can focus entirely on peasants" (Scott, 1986:1054). "Woman" and "man", as gendered identities, are thereby not only social categories imposed on sexed bodies, but socially relational categories, "defined in terms of one another and no understanding of either could be achieved by entirely separate study" (Scott, 1986:1054-6). These categories embody both crucial aspects of difference and of inequality in their asymmetrical interactions with each other and it is essential that both these aspects be afforded serious investigation. That is, the changing focus of inter-relationship itself needs intensive examination, but so too do the constituent elements of femininity and masculinity, as they are socially constructed in a multiplicity of ways and locations, not simply at those cutting edges where the genders meet.
Judith Gerson and Kathy Peiss see gender as:
... defined by socially constructed relationships between women and men, among women, and among men in social groups. Gender is not a rigid or reified analytic category imposed on human experience, but a fluid one whose meaning emerges in specific social contexts as it is created and recreated through human actions (Gerson and Peiss, 1985:317).

There are different degrees of plagiarism and it can be difficult to define. However, some case are so obvious that they stick-out in any essay. Often it is because the prose style of your essay is quite different from the text you have plagiarised, or that the essay-marker is familiar with the text you have plagiarised. If you were to take the above paragraph and re-write it as your own, with minor changes, and remove all reference to the author's they quote, and to the text itself, you would be guilty of mammoth plagiarism.

For Example:

Thus feminist historians, in their attempt to study how women have worked within these boundaries, also found themselves studying how men had constructed and created them. Gender is both a social relation and a relation of domination which emerges as a fundamental part of historical analysis. We should not be working only on the subjected sex any more than any historian of class can focus entirely on peasants. "Women" and "man", as gendered categories are thereby not only social categories imposed on sexed bodies, but categories which are socially related, when defined in terms of one another and when no understanding of either could be achieved by study each as separate from the other category. These categories bring together both crucial aspects of difference and inequality in the way they interact with each other, and it is essential that both these aspects be given serious investigation. Changing the focus of inter-relationships between categories itself needs to be examined with care and detail. This also applies to the essential elements of femininity and masculinity, as they are also socially constructed in many different ways and places, not simply found at the cutting edges where the genders meet. We could then define gender as socially constructed relationships between women and men, those among women, and also among men in social groups. Gender is not a rigid category which is imposed on human experience. It is a fluid category, the meaning of which emerges in specific social contexts, and it is constantly created and recreated through human actions.

Acceptable Use of the Saunders and Evans' Text The best thing to do is err on the generous side. The first rule of essay-writing is to be honest in acknowledging your sources, and even the influences of other authors on the sources you have used:

In their Introduction to Gender Relations in Australia, Kay Saunders and Raymond Evans discuss how feminist historians have had to consider the wider construction of social relations rather than just confining study to the place of women in society. Using arguments developed by J. Flax, Joan W. Scott, Judith Gerson and Kathy Peiss, Saunders and Evans argue that women's and men's gender identities are best considered as "socially relational categories": These categories embody both crucial aspects of difference and of inequality in their asymmetrical interactions with each other and it is essential that both these aspects be afforded serious investigation. ¹

They conclude that the constituent elements of femininity and masculinity are "socially constructed in a multiplicity or ways and locations, not simply at those cutting edges where genders meet".

2. Kay Saunders and Raymond Evans. "Introduction". In Gender Relations in Australia: domination and negotiation (Kay Saunders and Raymond Evans, eds). Sydney: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1992, p. xix.

Preparing for Examinations

The layout of exams varies widely. The types of questions you may meet include:

• Multiple-choice questions. These are usually part of a diagnostic test.
• Definitions. You will be asked to define technical terms or words from the ancient world, e.g. quaestor, deme, Horus.
• Short-answer questions. Your answer is normally expected to be one to two paragraphs in length. This is where your basic knowledge of people, places, dates, events, causes and consequences is put to the test.
• Gobbets (extracts from ancient sources). You will be expected to provide a short written commentary on the extract. See the next section for a detailed guide on how to answer these.
• Essay questions (usually 40 minutes writing-time, but this will vary from course to course). You will be expected to structure your essay in the same way as one that is prepared outside of exam conditions, but you will not have to provide exact references. Nevertheless, it is vital that you can write about specific pieces of ancient evidence to back up your argument.

Past papers are available from the library. Many are accessible online:

http://www.library.uq.edu.au/exams/

Past papers will often give you an indication of the general layout of your exam, the sort of topics you may expect, and the overall level of difficulty. It is a good idea to set yourself questions from past papers as a part of your exam preparation, but do not attempt to find a pattern in the questions asked from year to year, as you could be caught out on the day!

When you are writing your answers during an exam, please try to write neatly and legibly. Your exam cannot be marked if it cannot be read. Make sure your name is on your question paper and answer booklet. Answer the questions in the answer booklet provided, not on the question paper (unless otherwise directed). Number your answers carefully and clearly and make sure they correspond to the question you are answering! Make sure you allocate your time in an examination according to the 'value' of each question.

Gobbets in Classics

A gobbet is a piece of evidence from the ancient world for which you will be asked to provide an historical commentary. Gobbets can be an extract from a literary text, an inscription, a coin, a piece of artwork, a diagram of a building or a map.

In answering a gobbet question on a literary text, you must include the following information (there is a slight variation for archaeological sources):

1. AUTHOR: What is the title of the work, and who wrote it? (Consider their biases, their skills, their sources, and the genre of the work). When was it written?

2. PURPOSE OF WORK:

• What is the intended audience?
• Is it to inform, to entertain, to argue a case?
• Consider the propaganda value

3. CONTEXT: What are the incidents or series of incidents to which the text relates?

4. HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE: This should be the main part of your answer and should address why this particular text is an important piece of historical evidence. Be sure to read the passage closely and focus on the text at hand.

Important Points:

1. Make sure you keep to the set extract - do not go into great detail about other portions of the work (except briefly in the context of PURPOSE).
2. Keep your answer to the point - be brief and concise.
3. Parts 1-3 should be short and succinct - you should spend most of the time on 4. Your job is to interpret the evidence and discuss the implications.

For archaeological evidence, you should follow a similar scheme:

1) CREATOR: Identify the piece. Who created/built it? (It could be a specific artisan, a political regime, or even a race of people.) When was it created/built?

2) PURPOSE OF WORK:
i.       What is the intended audience?
ii.      Is it to inform? (i.e., inscriptions, coins?)
iii.     Does it have entertainment/aesthetic value?
iv.     Does it have propaganda value?

3) CONTEXT: Does the artwork/coin/inscription etc. commemorate a specific occasion?

4) HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE: This should be the main part of your answer and focus on interpreting the archaeological evidence as a source for the ancient world.

 

This is the sort of source analysis you should be able to provide by the end of the semester.

Extract: The Difficulties Facing a 'New Man'

'I am well aware of the heavy responsibility which this great honour lays upon me. To prepare for war without exhausting the public treasury, to press into military service men whom you are anxious not to offend, to direct everything at home and abroad, and to do all this in the midst of jealousy, obstruction, and intrigue, is a harder task than people imagine. Furthermore my political opponents, if they make a mistake, can rely for protection on their ancient lineage, the resources of their relatives and marriage connections, and their numerous dependants. My hopes rest only on myself, and I must sustain them by courage and uprightness; for I have nothing else to trust in.'

Analysis: Author and Purpose

This extract comes from the Jugurthine War (chapter 85), a history of Rome's war against Jugurtha, a king of Numidia in north Africa, which took place between 112-106 BC. The Jugurthine War was written by Sallust over 60 years later, in approximately 40 BC. Sallust was a Senator who fought on Caesar's side in the Civil War against Pompey and the Roman nobility but later fell from grace and retired to write history. His sympathies in general lay with the opponents of the nobles, the descendants of senatorial families who in Sallust's view were both inept and corrupt.

A number of histories of the period were available to Sallust, but most of them were either written by nobles or designed to undermine the achievements of the great popular hero of the day, the general Gaius Marius. Like Sallust himself, Marius was a 'new man' (homo novus), i.e. a man who lacked senatorial ancestors, and again like Sallust, Marius was a victim of noble slanders and obstruction. In the wake of Julius Caesar's death on 15 March (the Ides of March) 44 BC, i.e. at a time when nobles were struggling to regain power at Rome, Sallust seems to have selected an episode from Roman history which would allow him to do two things: i) illustrate noble corruption and immorality; and ii) show a 'new man' being attacked by unscrupulous nobles. There must be an element of self-justification in this, i.e. he seems to have written history at least partly with an eye to explaining his own career. On the other hand, he should not be underestimated as a mere apologist for himself, for Caesar, or for the populares (political leaders who appealed to the populus, the Roman people, for support against noble domination of the state). Sallust was well aware of the shortcomings of Marius and other new men. His fundamental message is really that civil war developed at Rome because of immoral behaviour and corruption on the part of its leaders; he is not simply criticising one class of Roman statesmen (the nobles).

Sallust was writing for an elite audience, mainly in Rome and Italy. These were people who could read Latin and who were in governing positions in their cities and towns. He did not see the writing of history as an objective undertaking. He had a point of view and was determined to persuade his audience that he was right. His message was a political one - against the corrupt nobility, against wider corruption, against those who brought about his own demise. There is an element of entertainment in it but the basic political and personal purposes are fairly clear.

Historical Setting

The extract purports to be the text of a speech delivered by Marius when he was elected against great odds to the consulship of 107 BC. His election was the result of voter dissatisfaction after a succession of noble generals had proved incapable of defeating the formidable Numidian forces, especially Jugurtha's fine light cavalry. The speech is undoubtedly the product of Sallust's literary imagination but it illustrates the kinds of arguments which were used by the new men against their noble adversaries. The real Marius may well have employed some of these arguments during his campaigning.

Historical significance (i): Textual Analysis

the heavy responsibility which this great honour lays upon me: Sallust's Marius emphasizes the difficulties he is facing at this time. The 'great honour' is of course the consulship, which he held by vote of the Roman people in 107 BC. Note that his attitude is one of responsibility, implying that he does not take the honour for granted - perhaps as the nobles, accustomed to such honours, were doing.

To prepare for war without exhausting the public treasury: Some of his opponents were probably worried that the popular champion would take drain the treasury in order to ensure his success in Africa against Jugurtha. Marius calms their fears in responsible fashion.

to press into military service men whom you are anxious not to offend: Marius needed a large army, given the huge territory ruled by Jugurtha. Ancient sources stress that there was a recruitment problem into the Roman army at this time and that those who were eligible according to the traditional property qualification were being called up repeatedly. Marius dealt with this dilemma by enrolling the capite censi ('head counts') in the legions, i.e. men who did not possess the traditional amount of land but who were nonetheless willing to fight under his leadership.

to direct everything at home and abroad, and to do all this in the midst of jealousy, obstruction, and intrigue: The words 'to direct everything at home and abroad' indicates the huge scope of the consul's power of command (his imperium). In this case, however, the new man must deal with the jealousy and resentment of the obstructionist nobles, who, it is implied, are 'intriguing' against him. Each of the points in this sentence speaks to the new man's almost overwhelming responsibility.

my political opponents, if they make a mistake, can rely for protection on their ancient lineage: A new man cannot even make a mistake, for unlike the nobles, he is unable to call upon the achievements and service of his ancestors on behalf of the Roman state. He is unable to use the argument that his family had a proud history of honour and service at the highest levels and that he was therefore owed gratitude from the Roman people as a result.

the resources of their relatives and marriage connections, and their numerous dependants: The nobility was heavily intermarried, so that it might seem to some that the various noble families formed an impenetrable class. Although the Sallustian perception might have been very powerful, Keith Hopkins has shown that in fact the nobility was quite changeable and fluid in terms of its families and marriage links with outsiders. Marius also alludes to the great wealth and many clients ('numerous dependants') who could be called upon to vote for noble candidates when they stood for office at Rome. Although scholars now argue that such clients were not sufficient to control the results of elections, there were nevertheless many citizens who were tied in various ways to the nobility or continued to be impressed by the name, wealth and public records of the nobility. To such citizens the new men were disrespectful upstarts.

My hopes rest only on myself: The new men, it seems, had to emphasize their personal qualities and ask to be compared against the present generation of nobles who were merely the inept and corrupt heirs of a fine name and tradition.

courage and uprightness: Note the qualities that Sallust requires from an ideal new man, and note especially that 'uprightness' is a moral quality. He must be good, honest, and stand against corruption. Sallust's 'Marius', his literary creation, is claiming that the nobles are corrupt whereas he is upright. Sallust seems to have known, however, that the historical Marius was susceptible to corruption too. This was what produced the civil wars of the first century BC.

for I have nothing else to trust in: The final sentence gives the impression that new men had to stand alone against the combined and overwhelming resources of the nobility as a whole.

Historical Significance (ii)

[An extract is only significant in relation to the historical question one is trying to answer. Here the text gives a fair amount of information about the arguments used by new men at election time. The question might, therefore, be: 'What did Sallust think were the major difficulties facing a new man?' or 'What were the qualities of Sallust's ideal new man?']

It is simply not true that new men stood alone and unaided against overwhelming difficulties and that their success was the result of their superior virtue: men like Marius were wealthy and well connected through the various strata of Roman society. Marius, for instance, married the aunt of Julius Caesar, whose family was patrician. Yet Sallust's picture of the seemingly upright new man standing alone and successful in the midst of a corrupt environment illustrates his ideal very well: Rome's leaders should be men of virtue rather than vice; corrupt leaders bring on failure and civil war. Taken in the context of the portrayal of Marius elsewhere in the work, however, our extract becomes an ultimate illustration of corruption because it shows the corrupt Marius becoming successful on a platform of anti-corruption. Sallust shows his own cherished ideal being inverted, even perverted.

Tutorial Reading Reviews in History

Sometimes assessment in the History Discipline may be related to critiques of Tutorial Readings. You may be asked to present for assessment a reading analysis in prose, in a few hundred words. You might be assessed on:

• Your analysis of the sources used
• The quality of your understanding and interpretation
• The interaction of your empirical knowledge and critical judgement
• The interaction of your reading of the article or chapter with theoretical writings
• Some indication that the Reading has stimulated you to search for other sources in the library

Here is an example of this type of assessment:

Dennis Altman, "Introduction: Thinking about Sex and Politics", in Global Sex, Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 2001, pp. 1-9.

Altman's article is concerned with globalisation and the way it relates to the construction of sex, gender and sexuality. Some scholars argue that these notions are fixed and constant, resisting fluxes in time and space, so that as moral, religious and bureaucratic factors change, "only the pleasures of the body endure" (p.2). But what are these bodily pleasures and can they be excised from the other ways in which human beings experience the world? Altman rightly argues that these pleasures are themselves subjective and different people experience erogenous pleasures differently depending on the political, social and economic forces that frame their life. Drawing on examples from South Korean marriage to the Berdache in traditional Northern American society, to war and ethnic cleansing in Bosnia, Altman posits that sex and gender are inextricably linked and that meanings given to these terms are more often than not male centric, tempered by institutional violence. Discourses of religion and consumerism also affect the ways in which categories of sexuality and gender are organized and structured.

Concepts raised by Altman such as hegemonic masculinity, enhance the historian's understanding of how these structures and meanings are produced and reproduced privileging affluent, white, heterosexual men. The nature of this masculinity can shift, so that at different times, different groups are disadvantaged and excluded, while other groups benefit from the dominant hegemony. Power interests within the masculine sphere, just like the discourses that shape the meaning of sexuality, are always competing, challenging and mutually undermining or reinforcing each other. The benefit of using this kind of conceptualisation is that it allows a broader analysis of the different power structures that shape dominant meanings of sexuality and gender. Not all women for example, experience the world in the same way, just as not all men are privileged by hegemonic masculinity.

The thrust of the argument presented here is that while we live in an increasingly global world, structures and meanings are not universal. The 'global world' is simply another period and place as much nineteenth century Britain. Researchers need to be cognisant that our current terms and meanings are as much a by-product or our recent history as they are of current scholarship.

Writing a Book Review

The main purpose of a book review is not informational, but analytic and persuasive. The reviewer, in analysing the book's content, purpose, argument and the context within which it was written, makes and overall judgement of the book's worth.

Components of a Book Review

Head your book review with the author's name, the title of the book, and the publication details

Eg. George Chauncey, Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World. New York: Basic Book, 1994.

Introduction

The introduction, like your conclusion, is in a position of emphasis and will usually set the tone of the review to follow. It should include a general description of the book, including the book's subject and purpose (i.e. at the outset you need to give the reader an indication of what the book is about). Here you may also wish to include a general statement about the topicality of the work or its significance, and a statement about the author if relevant.

Description of the book's content

Include a brief description of the book's content. Note that it should not be an extensive summary, as the bulk of the review should be devoted to analysis of the book's argument. Present a brief outline of the book, including the general topic, its chronological scope, major emphases and which, if any, aspects of the topic have been ignored by the author. This may be a discrete section or you may choose to interweave this information with your analysis.

Analysis and evaluation of the book

Clearly identify the author's purpose, argument and methodology. Refer to specific portions of the book to illustrate your conclusions and selectively use quotations. As you do so, provide an evaluation of these aspects of the book. How convincing was the author's argument? How well was their thesis/theses argued? What were strengths and weaknesses of their argument? Was the author's argument clearly stated or was it difficult for the reader to extract? Did the author achieve their purpose (either explicit or implicit) in writing this book? Was the book methodologically sophisticated and how did their choice of methodology influence their conclusions?

Concluding statement

Finish with a concluding statement that clearly states you overall assessment of the book.

While these are essential components of a book review, to some extent what you include will depend on the book you are reviewing. Other things which may be relevant are: Information about, but not a biography of, the author. Biographical information should be relevant to the subject of the review and enhance the reader's understanding of the work under discussion.

A comment on how the book is structured

A comment on the author's writing style

Preliminary mechanical steps

Read the book carefully
Note effective passages for quoting
Note your impressions as you read
Allow yourself time to assimilate what you have read
Keep in mind the need for achieving a single impression which must be made clear to the reader

Questions to ask yourself:

Does my review clearly set out who the author is, what the book is about, and what I think about the worth of the book?

Is my review well organised with a clear identifiable structure?

Have I represented the book's purpose and argument fairly and accurately?

Have I presented evidence form the book to back up statements I have made about the author, his/her purpose and about the research and argument of the book?

Have I presented a balanced argument about the value of the book for its audience?