I'm looking for competence. I'm not looking for an original contribution to scholarship. I'm not looking for original anything. Keep it unoriginal.
Most people want government officials to do the normal stuff competently. They're not looking for fresh ideas; they're looking for people who can be counted on to do normal things well. Secure the border. Prosecute criminals. Remove the trash. Don't give us surprises, just competence.
Teachers are looking for the same thing when it comes to a student research paper. When you're in a PhD program, or you're a working scholar with an academic job, then by all means write what you think is an original contribution to our body of knowledge and submit that paper to a journal that will evaluate its significance. But as a first-year grad student, or as an undergrad, just do the normal stuff well. What I'm saying is I don't really care so much about the content of your paper—it can be super boring, and probably should be—as long as it makes sense and it looks like you've treated an actual issue that people discuss (you haven't made something up, or made a mountain out of a molehill) and you seem to have represented people's views fairly.
Interact with good scholarship, represent it correctly in your writing, engage with it in good faith, push back on it in sensible ways. The point of the research paper is to teach you how to do research, and the first step is learning what sources to engage.
The first thing I'm going to do when opening your research paper is run through the footnotes. I'm looking both at whether you know the formatting for a footnote and at the sources you cite. Don't shirk the footnotes. It's probably the most important part of the paper.
By the way, this remains true for me as a working scholar. When I'm writing an academic paper, and I make an assertion in that paper, I know I often need to substantiate that assertion with a citation—but the problem is what to cite? I want to find not just another scholarly source that makes the same assertion, but the best scholarly source to cite for that particular assertion. The "best" in this case is (often) going to be recent (because a recent publication will probably review the works of other scholars in an up-to-date fashion) and is going to have a discussion of the assertion, with nuance. It sometimes takes days or weeks to figure out what is the best scholarly source to cite.
If you're writing a research paper in a course on the book of Genesis (or whatever biblical book), I'd like to see some of the standard Genesis commentaries cited in the footnotes. The commentary section of a library is ideally where you would begin, just pulling books off the shelf and seeing what they say. I recognize that we live in a different world, and a lot of my students do not actually step inside a physical library. You use databases. But, the same rules apply. Start with the commentaries. You won't be able to go to the commentary section of the library, but don't skip the step of looking through some of the major commentaries. Don't go straight to the journal articles, even if they are easier for you to find in a database. You should cite journal articles, but you should also realize that they're not made for you (the student), they're made for me (the professional scholar). The commentaries are made for you (and me).
By the way, the Anchor Bible Dictionary (ABD) is also made for you (and me). You should probably cite it in every biblical studies research paper you write.
Avoid secondary citations. If you're going to tell me that Josephus says such-and-such, I want to see a citation of Josephus, not a citation of some modern book that has told you what Josephus says. If you're going to tell me what Barth said, same thing: cite Barth, not some scholar summarizing Barth (or, maybe, cite both, but definitely don't neglect to cite Barth himself). That means you've got to find Barth, or Josephus, and read them yourself, at least the relevant section of their work that you want to cite, to make sure they say what you're attributing to them.
And, by the way, cite the best editions. For Josephus, in your case (a student), that is the Loeb Classical Library (LCL). (Don't know what that is? It's time to learn.) Do not cite Whiston. When you cite Philo, again, use the LCL, not Yonge. You should follow similar guidelines for all ancient literature (or medieval literature, etc.). If you're going to cite an English translation of the Septuagint, use NETS, not Brenton. If you need help here, ask me.
Why should you not cite Whiston? The main thing is that Whiston is really old, eighteenth century. I know, you think he published his translation of Josephus in 2005, or whatever, but that's a reprint date. Look up William Whiston at wikipedia. He was an interesting guy, a lot of weird ideas, a brilliant fellow worth knowing about. But you'll see that he was most definitely not publishing books in the 21st century. Don't cite his translation of Josephus; cite the LCL.
Watch out for those reprint dates. They are a pet-peeve of mine. I always like to see the original publication date.
Your footnotes should look right. Put the commas in the correct spot. Include the relevant information. You don't think this is important? Well, I do. Figure out the proper way to cite an article in a book. Yes, there's a proper way. It's different from the proper way of citing a journal article. Our school uses the SBL Handbook of Style, so make your footnotes look like what they tell you in there.
Research papers are not that hard. Yes, they take time, but all you have to do is follow a few rules. (1) Figure out an obvious (not obscure) thing to research. (2) Read relevant biblical commentaries. (3) Read relevant articles in the ABD. At this point, you should know the major issues and the major arguments. (4) It's time to follow up on ancient sources (read them in the original, or a translation, but not a modern summary). (5) Find some relevant journal articles. By the way, there's no reason to use obscure journals. Just stick with the best journals, usually published by a major academic publishing house. (6) Write your paper, summarizing your findings, indicating what you think is the best solution, or at least the direction you lean. Have a one-paragraph introduction, then the body of the paper, then a one-paragraph conclusion. Deviate from this formula once you've practiced it. In other words, don't deviate from this formula while you're my student. It's practice time.
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