Roman Civilization

CMS 206 /History 206

Formal Paper Requirements

These requirements relate to the form of your paper. They are non-negotiable. The failure to satisfy any formal requirement will result in the loss of ten [10] points from your paper grade for each failure. Thus, a paper with 100 points without a title will receive no more than 90 points (A-); a paper without a title and without page numbers will receive no more than 80 points (B-).

• Your paper must have a title that relates to the content of the paper. Thus, a paper with the title "Roman Civ Paper," or "Paper," does not satisfy this requirements. Conversely, a paper with a title like "The Circus Maximus," will satisfy the requirement. I have found personally, that spending time thinking of a good title actually helps you formulate and refine your thesis. Thus, a title like "Spectator Sport: The experience of the audience in the Circus Maximus," is significantly better than "The Circus Maximus."
  
  
• Your paper must have page numbers. I would prefer that they be typed, but I will accept handwritten. Because I provide comments on papers, I need page numbers (e.g., the comment. "this section repeats the argument you made on page 3," is more difficult for me to make if you don't have page numbers.)
  
  
• Length: Your paper must be seven to ten [7-10] pages long with a word count between 2100 and 3000 words (excluding footnotes). Don't bother messing with font type and size. Do a word count on your text and put the word count on your cover page. Note, I penalize excessive brevity and excessive length equally. If you can only come up with five pages, you need to reformulate your thesis. If you can only say what you have to say in 12 pages you either need a) to edit some more; or b) reformulate your thesis.
  
  
• Your paper must have a Bibliography page, which contains the name and citation of the primary evidence and secondary scholarship you have read in preparing your paper. Include material which you read, but chose not to include in your paper. For example, you might read 10 letters of Cicero or 5 articles about him, but only quote two letters and 2 articles in your paper. I still want to see everything you've read.
  
  
  • A bibliographical entry for primary evidence should include the name of the author and text you are citing.
  • A citation entry for primary evidence should include the author's name, work and the page of the work to which you refer or which you quote.
  • A bibliographical entry for secondary scholarship should include the name of the author, title of the book or article, name, year and volume number of the journal in which articles appear as well as the first and last page of the article [e.g., J. Bigshot, A New Light on Arpinum, 93 Journal of Roman Studies (1983) 27-54], place and year of publication for books [e.g., J. Bigshot, Ciceronian Studies (Oxford, 1993)].
  • A citation entry for secondary scholarship should include all the information included in the bibliographical entry, as well as the page your cite refers to. [e.g. J. Bigshot, A New Light on Arpinum, 93 Journal of Roman Studies (1983) 27-54, p. 42.
  • The Bates College Statement on Plagiarism contains excellent information about citation format. You should refer to it and ask me about any questions you have about citation form which the Statement doesn't answer. Other good books to consider are Kate L. Turabian. A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations (University of Chicago Press) [this is what I used in college] and University of Chicago Press. A Manual of Style [this is what I used in grad school - either is great, Turabian is easier to use than the Chicago Manual].

  
  

• Your paper must have a cover page which contains the following information:
  • Your name.
  • The paper's title.
  • The paper's word count.

Unless I have overwhelming evidence to the contrary, I will assume that your failure to conform to the formal paper requirements indicates that you don't care about your paper. Since I do give care about it, this would be a rather unfortunate assumption for me to have when grading your paper. Remember: Cover Page, Page Numbers, Title, Bibliography, Your Name, Word Count.