When you submit your written work in CLAS (including papers, essays, presentation scripts, portfolio statements, reports, dissertations, etc.), you should follow the guidance below, which is known as the “house style” for the Classical and Archaeological Studies Department. In other words, we’ve put together everything you need to know about how to format your paper correctly before you submit it. This guidance will help ensure an orderly appearance for the work you submit and is what we consider ‘good practice’.

Note in the Marking Criteria (above), that presentation is a component of your assessment.

If you take modules in other Departments (History, Sociology, Philosophy, Comparative Literature, etc.) check with your module convenor about what their “house style” is.

One of our greatest frustrations as lecturers is student who do not apply appropriate formatting, because presentation is the easiest part of an assignment to get right (see the marking criteria at the top of the page).

Coversheet

All assessments submitted on Turnitin needs to include the CLAS feedback coversheet (at top of page).

If your submission on Turnitin does not include a coversheet, your mark will be withheld until you submit the coversheet to your module convenor.

 

Title Page

All written work should have a title page with the

• Title of the Essay
  • N.B. this should not be the same as the question you have chosen to answer
• The question you have chosen to answer (e.g. 1. How do the Stoics conceive of the soul-body interaction?)
• The module code and name
• Your name
• Date of Submission

Example:

What a Stoic Blush Reveals

Question 1: How do the Stoics conceive of the soul-body interaction?

CLAS 7080: Ancient Philosophy

Sasha Fierce

14 March 2021

 

Footers & Headers

In the footer or header of each page you should include page numbers and your name.

Text in the footer/header should be no larger than 10-point font and does not count in the word count.

(To open the footer/header, double-click at the top of the page in Word. This will allow you to edit the header/footer.  To insert page numbers, go to the ‘Insert’ tab in Microsoft word and choose page numbers.)

 

Spacing

Margins:  All margins (right, left, top and bottom) should be 1″ or 2.54cm.

Main Text: Use double-spacing between lines in the main text. You need to leave enough space to ensure that comments can be legibly added during marking.

Footnotes: Can be single-spaced in 10-point font.

Long Quotations: Block text quotes are for passages you are quoting that are longer than 3 lines. Block Text Quotes can be single-spaced, but needs to be in the same font as your main text and should never be in italics (unless you are including a word in Latin or transliterated Greek (i.e. Greek spelled in the standard English vocabulary rather than Greek characters, like phantasia or agon). For example, the opening lines of Homer’s Iliad (tr. Fagles) below is in ‘block text’ format relative to this paragraph and the next:

Rage—Goddess, sing the rage of Peleus’ son Achilles,
Murderous, doomed, that cost the Achaeans countless losses,
Hurling down to the House of Death so many sturdy souls,
Great fighters’ souls, but made their bodies carrion,
Feasts for the dogs and birds,
And the will of Zeus was moving toward its end.

These ‘block quotes’ should be indented from the margin, as above. To create block text, you can change the ‘style’ menu in Word or use the ‘tab’ function to indent. (N.B. do not use Word’s standard ‘quote’ formatting – it is wrong).

When using block quote for poetry, as above, you should maintain line breaks as in the original.

 

Font

Main Text: Use 12-point font.

Footnotes: Use no less than 10-point font.

Font Types: Please use Calibri, Times New Roman, or Arial fonts. They provide the best readability and are professional standards.

 

Word Length

Each assignment in the module will have its own designated word length. You have 10% leeway on the word count (so 10% of a 2000-word essay is 200 words), meaning you can go over or under your word count by 10% without penalty. If you go over or under 10%, you mark may be lowered to reflect the inappropriate length of your submission.

Word length DOES NOT include headers/footers, picture captions, table captions, bibliography or appendices.

Word length DOES include footnotes.

 

Grammar, Spelling and Punctuation

Use complete sentences and correct word usage.

Capitalization: If you are generically citing a specific book in a work, capitalize both elements (Book Eighteen or Book 18 or Book XVIII); generic references, such as “several books in the Iliad,” should not be capitalized.

ALL Titles, Names, Cities, Regions, and Countries should be capitalized. For example:

In Aeneid 1.37, Vergil emphasises the ferocity of Juno’s anger with a bilingual pun that sonically recollects the first word of the Iliad (Levitan 1993, p. 14).

Italicization: ALL titles of works  should be italicized wherever they appear in your essay. For example:

In Aeneid 1.37, Vergil emphasises the ferocity of Juno’s anger with a bilingual pun that sonically recollects the first word of the Iliad (Levitan 1993, p. 14).

Make sure you have edited/proofread for typos, etc. Microsoft Word spelling and grammar checker is now very sophisticated, and we expect you to use these tools before submission to ensure your grammar and spelling are correct.

DO NOT abbreviate ordinary words (so no ‘isn’t, don’t, can’t, etc.).

For help on how to improve your own writing style (paragraph formation, introductions, conclusions, organisation etc.) see further guidance or visit SLAS and sign up for a workshop or a 1-to-1 meeting with a writing consultant. They will help you improve and refine your writing in AMAZING ways.

 

Referencing

You may choose to use either

Turabian/Chicago Style (footnotes) click here for helpful tips on how to format your papers and cite your sources

or

Harvard Style (author-date) click here for a thorough general guide to citing and creating an author-date bibliography

Regardless of what you choose, you must remain consistent in your use of a particular style.

Many lecturers in CLAS prefer Turabian/Chicago Style formatting, because nearly every journal or book in our field uses it. Easily among the great frustrations for your lecturers is incorrect or inconsistent referencing. If you learn to do this well early on, you and your lecturers will benefit enormously.

Act with Academic Integrity. If you are ever in doubt about whether you should cite a source, CITE THE SOURCE to avoid plagiarism. 

How to Cite Ancient Greek and Latin (Primary) Sources

Referencing ancient authors presents specific problems and cannot be done in the normal ‘author-date’ fashion (this is why many lecturers prefer the Chicago/Turabian Style to Harvard Style).
If you are using Turabian/Chicago Style, we expect you to give the ancient references in your footnotes.

If you are using Harvard Style, we expect you to include the reference in your text, usually in parentheses.

The numbers that identify the various parts of ancient works, including books, sections, and lines generally remain the same in all editions, whether in the original language or in translation.

For ALL ancient sources, you should use the specialized, precise method set out here: 

[Author], [Title] [Book/Section.(Poem, if applicable)].[Line #s cited] 

Homer, Iliad 18.141–143

Sophocles, Antigone 904–922

Horace, Odes 4.1.1–4.

Vergil, Aeneid 2.250-252

 

If an author wrote only one work, you may omit the name of the work: 

Herodotus 9.1 = Herodotus, Histories 9.1

Thucydides 8.44.4 = Thucydides, The History of the Peloponnesian War 8.44.4

Livy 5.49-50 = Livy, The History of Rome 5.49-50

 

Some authors have special numbering systems: 

• Plato is always cited by “Stephanus numbers” (the first printed edition)

Plato, Protagoras 309c

Plato, Republic 360e–361b

• Aristotle is always cited by “Bekker numbers” (the standard complete works)

Aristotle, Poetics, 1447a8

Aristotle, Metaphysics, XI.9, 1065b5–15

• Presocratic Philosophers are always cited by their “DK” number (the standard critical edition by Diels and Kranz, Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker):

[Author], DK[Chapter number] [Section Letter A = Testimony or B= Fragment].[Fragment Number]. [Line #s cited]

Heraclitus, DK 22 B22

Democritus, DK 68 A1.5-8

Xenophanes, DK 21 A12.2

In your Bibliography, you must include the details of the edition/translation of the ancient source you are using. For example:

Chicago Style Bibliography: Propertius. Elegies. Edited and translated by G. P. Goold. Loeb Classical Library 18. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1990.

Harvard Style Bibliography: Propertius. (1990). Elegies. Ed. and Trans. Goold, G. P. Loeb Classical Library 18. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

You may, if you wish, separate these Primary Sources from your Secondary Literature in your bibliography.

 

How to Cite Modern Scholarship (Secondary) Sources

In general, you need to follow the guidance set out in the links provided above for Turabian/Chicago Style and Harvard Style.

Abbreviations

If you use abbreviations in your text, you should spell out the entire title in the first instance with the abbreviation in parentheses in the first occurrence (see example below).

Ancient texts have standard abbreviations from which you should not deviate. To find these, look at the list of abbreviations in the front pages of the Oxford Classical Dictionary (OCD) [you must be logged into your kent.ac.uk SSO to access this], the Oxford Latin Dictionary (OLD), or the Greek-English Lexicon (typically referred to as the LSJ after its editors, Liddell, Scott, and Jones).

There are some special collections that your lecturers may also tell you about that have standard abbreviations. You should use these as instructed.

Standard abbreviations for some resources are also listed next to the titles in the CLAS Resource Guide.

 

For abbreviations in Dissertations, see additional details below.

 

Images

Images can be placed in the text or at the back of the document.

Each Image will have a caption under it.

The first image you discuss and place in the text is figure 1. The numbers continue from there.

For example:

Fig. 1. Map of Ancient Athens, Greece c. 430 BC. Wikimedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_Athens#/media/File:Map_ancient_athens.png

 

If you put an image in the text, you MUST refer to it in your text. For example:

‘Athens was a small city in the fifth century (Fig. 1)’ or

‘As can be seen in figure one, Athens was a small city in the fifth century’.

In your bibliography, you need to cite your figure information as you would any other source.

See below for further details regarding images in Dissertations.

 

The only place where this does not have to happen is on the cover of the Dissertation, though you are still expected to provide a reference to the image in your bibliography or at the bottom of the page.

 

Tables

If you include a table in your written work, you must discuss it in the text.

For example: ‘Table 1 below demonstrates the anomaly that occurs in the site formation at Avebury, where flint scrapers date to different time periods’ or ‘Anomalies occur in the site formation at Avebury (Table 1), where flint scrapers date to different time periods’.

 

Tables are listed according to which one you discuss and show first. Incorporate your table in the text at or near the point where you first mention it. You may need to move your paragraphs around to fit it on a single page. See any relevant book for an example.

 

You should number and provide a title for your table. If you did not create the table, or got the data for the table you created from someone else, you must cite the place where you found it in the bibliography, just as you would when referencing a text.

 For Example:

Table 1. List of Flints Sherds from Neolithic Avebury (From Cleal 2010: 15, Table 10)

Flint Type	Location	Date
Flake	Under stone 1	5,000 BC
Scraper	By stone 1	5,000 BC
Scraper	Under Stone 10	4,500 BC

 

 

Special Instructions for Dissertations/Theses

For long pieces of work you will use many of the standard formatting suggestions above, but some further guidance is provided below about the order in which the frontmatter (the pages leading up to your actual text) should be formatted (in this respect a monograph can be a good model).

Some variations may be necessary depending on the material you are studying. In such cases, ask your supervisor for advice.

 

Frontmatter

Page 1. Title page. Dissertations should include a Title, your name, one of the following statements and the date of submission.

Undergraduate Dissertation: “A dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the Bachelor of Arts degree in [your Programme of Study] at the University of Kent”

MA Dissertation: “A dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the Masters of Arts degree in [your Programme of Study] at the University of Kent”

PhD Thesis: “A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Classical and Archaeological Studies at the University of Kent”

 

For example:

Understanding in Heraclitus

Charles Brown

 

A dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the

Bachelor of Arts in Classical Studies at the

University of Kent

Page 2. Abstract. This brief (100-150 word) summary of your Dissertation/Thesis should be the last thing you write. Although you may submit a version early on in your studies, it should be significantly updated to reflect the final version of your submitted work.

 

Page 3. Table of Contents. A List of chapter/sections with page numbers in the right margin.

For example:

Table of Contents

Abstract Contents Acknowledgements List of Figures List of Tables List of Abbreviations Chapter 1: Introduction Chapter 2: [Title] Chapter 3: [Title] Chapter 4: [Title] Chapter 5: [Title] Chapter 6: Conclusion Bibliography Appendices [if necessary]

2 3 4 5 6 7 8 18 28 38 48 58 68 72

Page 4. Acknowledgements. A brief statement thanking those who have helped your formulate your ideas (often your supervisor, informal advisors, people you may have worked with on fieldwork or in a museum, classmates, friends) and who have supported you through your work on this project (family, friends, partner). Look in any monograph for examples.

 

Page 5. List of Figures. A list of images will be placed on a separate page after your Table of Contents (see a book). If you include figures in your document, you should provide a list of them and their page numbers here. ALL images should be incorporated into the main text and fully referenced in the bibliography.

For example:

List of Figures

Fig. 1 A Map of Athens 430 BCE Fig. 2 An 18th-century painting of the Athenian Acropolis Fig. 3 A plan of the Athenian Acropolis Fig. 4 A photo of the west side of the Parthenon

24 47 52 53

Page 6. List of Tables. You need to put a list of tables on a separate page EITHER after the list of images, if you are using them, OR after the Table of Contents. If you include tables in your document, you should provide a list of them and their page numbers here. ALL tables should be incorporated into the main text and fully referenced in the bibliography. You do not need to cite the sources for your tables in this list, but it should be included in the main text and bibliography.

For example:

List of Tables

Table 1. List of Flint Sherds from Neolithic Avebury Table 2. List of Animal Bones from Neolithic Avebury Table 3. List of Organic Materials from Neolithic Avebury

22 44 52

 

Page 7. List of Abbreviations. If you use abbreviations, you need to list them out for your reader after the Lists of Figures or Tables (if you have them) or after the Table of Contents. Simply list the abbreviation and then give the full reference (see examples below). In general you should include abbreviations of academic journals, books, databases, dictionaries, etc. ALL ABBREVIATIONS should be in ALPHABETICAL ORDER.

For abbreviations of ancient texts you should use the standard abbreviations found in the Oxford Classical Dictionary, Oxford Latin Dictionary or Greek-English Lexicon. You must, nevertheless, indicate that you are using these abbreviations (see example below).

For Example:

List of Abbreviations

All abbreviations of ancient texts are those used in the Oxford Classical Dictionary. All other abbreviations used in the dissertation/thesis are listed here.

AJA      American Journal of Archaeology

CIL       Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum

CQ       Classical Quarterly

LSJ       The Greek-English Lexicon

OCD     Oxford Classical Dictionary

OLD     Oxford Latin Dictionary

 

Page 8. Chapter 1: Introduction. Chapters or Sections are divided like a book and it is helpful to number these and include a title for each chapter at the top of the page. The last Chapter or Section of your work is the Conclusion.

 

Backmatter

At the back of your dissertation or thesis you should include what is called ‘backmatter’. This always includes your Bibliography and may include appendices, if you have them.

Bibliography. There are a number of bibliographic database generators to choose from these dates (Mendeley, Zotero, RefWorks (use your kent.ac.uk address to use the library subscription). Choose one and use it to organise, collate and format your bibliography for a large project.

The advantage of using a database like this for a large project is that once you’ve entered the details of the publications you’re using, the programme can format the bibliography for you so that it is consistent throughout.

You will still need to proofread your bibliography, making sure that it matches the source material EXACTLY. This is the time for you to be as precise and detailed in your work as possible. All title, names dates, places of publication and page numbers need to reflect the original in every respect.

 

Appendices. An appendix is a section at the end of a dissertation or thesis that contains supplementary information. An appendix may contain raw data, figures, tables, or other additional information that supports the arguments of your dissertation but that do not belong in the main body. N.B. You should not include any figures, tables, or arguments in your appendices that you rely on directly in your main text. If this happens, you should move those figures/tables/information into the body of your work.

It can be either a long appendix or split into several smaller appendices.

Each appendix should have its own title and identification letters (e.g. Appendix A, Appendix B etc.) and the numbering for any tables or figures in the appendices should begin again at the beginning of each new appendix.