Last updated: January 2, 2010

Classics Section  Major/Minor Programs in Classics at BGSU Romance and Classical Studies Bowling Green State University

Due Date: Fri. April 16. (Anything turned in after 4:30 will start accumulating late points.)

Description: A 5 page paper or equivalent project involving reading and research beyond the required course materials. (Double-spaced, 1 inch margins, 10-12 pt. font. Remember: when double-spacing, do not put space after a paragraph break. Yes, I take points off for this.)

Technical Details: You can give me a hardcopy (or slide it under my office door) or email it to me as an attachment (my address, remember is jmpfund@bgsu.com). In some ways, email is better: it's harder for me to lose your paper and easier for you to prove when you submitted it. If you email me the paper, it should be in some format I can read (.DOC, .RTF, .PDF, .OOD)--don't send me WordPerfect files, Mellel files, .DOCX files etc. Give your document a filename unique to yourself: remember I have 120-150 CLCV students in a given year, so something like "CLCVpaper.doc" is likely to be lost in the shuffle; "yourlastname-MythReview.doc" would be better. 

Necessary Elements: A bibliography of the reading(s) on which your paper is based. It doesn't have to be much (this is a very small project), but whatever you used in writing the paper should be in the bibliography (which should be on a separate page, and doesn't count as one of the 5 pages).

e.g.

Porpoise, Bob Bob the Angry Porpoise's Big Book of Classical Myths (Cetacean Institute Press, 1776)

Schmoe, Joe 14 Amazing True Facts about Myth (Thinbooks Ltd., 2014)

 
Any time you refer to or quote from the work you should cite a page number (or equivalent).

e.g.

"Heracles was always a horrible person with bad table manners," Demeter claimed. "We never should have let him into Olympus." (Porpoise, p. 222.) On the other hand, since Demeter had been known to eat other people's shoulders at dinner (Schmoe, p. 7), her own table manners were not above criticism.

Topics: Anything that relates to the course subject.

Myth papers might compare a Classical myth or hero to a nonclassical one (e.g. Heracles vs. Beowulf, Norse Creation vs. Greek Creation, Classical myth vs. modern "urban legend"), investigate a Classical myth in greater depth (e.g. Medea's story, Heracles' "First Trojan War"), review a movie (book, video game, etc) with myth content. If you do a second review for your final paper, though, you still need to do some reading/research beyond the required course materials. If you would rather not do a paper and want to do something else entirely (e.g. a short piece of mythic fiction; a work of art; an interpretive dance representing the victory of the Epigones over Thebes etc.), run the idea by me first. I'm not necessarily hostile to the idea, but I'll want to ensure it entails a reasonable amount of research.
 

Sources: Anything reasonably scholarly will do. In general, a book which gives you the evidence on which its assertions are based (e.g. citations of primary evidence) is scholarly. If it doesn't, it's not scholarly, even if it was written by a scholar. Encyclopedias, online or offline, usually won't do. Children's books (e.g. D'Aulaire's fine Book of Greek Myths) won't do, unless you are specifically writing about myth in children's literature. When in doubt about a source, consult me (via e-mail, phone or in person). Be especially cautious about internet sources: there is a great deal of misinformation masked as information on the WWW. (There are plenty of excellent sites, too, though.) Do not base your paper on an internet source without consulting me first. ("Is he serious?" you may be asking yourself. If I could show you all the papers I've given failing grades to because of bad internet sources, you wouldn't need to ask.)
 

A Final Warning: Don't plagiarise. I don't mean to sound paranoid, but the issue does come up from time to time. This is an informal writing assignment, but standards of academic honesty still apply. (See BGSU's Academic Honesty standards, including specific definitions and mandated penalties, in a PDF file downloadable at this link.) If you're unsure whether something you're doing constitutes plagiarism ask someone (me, for instance, or someone at the writing center--a great resource whenever you're having trouble with a paper). There's no penalty for asking, whereas the penalties for being caught are fairly severe--ranging from a zero on the assignment to (in extreme cases) suspension or expulsion from the university.