WR 2: Presocratic ‘Science’ & Using Chicago Style

WR 2: Presocratic ‘Science’ & Using Chicago Style
Each Weekly Response (WR) is designed to do achieve two general goals. One is to demonstrate your understanding of the content of the week’s course materials (lecture, readings and/or films). The second is to build a series of skills to support the research project and information literacy. For example, the first two WRs are ‘Intellectual Scavenger Hunts’, which are designed to enhance your research skills. Refer to the instructions in the rubric provided. Read the instructions very carefully and address each of the sections below.

Intellectual Scavenger Hunt: Using the materials below, conduct a ‘Scavenger Hunt’ for scholarly readings to replace, challenge, or support the ones I have chosen. Here are the instructions:

Part I – The Preparation:
Please view Lecture 2 on ‘The Presocratics,’

Also use the following readings as needed:
– Hesiod, Theogony, in The Works of Hesiod (Cambridge : Chadwyck-Healey, 1992.) The Theogony is at the bottom of the eBook contents list. (Read enough to understand Hesiod’s style and the works importance for the history of science.)
– T. E. Rihll, “Teaching and Learning in Classical Athens,” Greece & Rome , Second Series, Vol. 50, No. 2 (Oct., 2003), pp. 168-190.

Part II – The Search:
1) Select three keywords from the above materials to do a single search for one new scholarly source.
2) Search for three of these keywords or keyword phrases using the ‘Summon’ Drexel Library database: Summon: https://www.library.drexel.edu/

***You are looking for one scholarly source–one written by a professional historian, so be careful what you choose. [You can determine if a scholar wrote it by doing a Google search on the person, or finding their institutional affiliation in the book or essay you have located.]

MY EXAMPLE: ***To select the key words to search you might use topics such as ‘transmigration of souls’ and the names of people ‘Anaximenes’ (Presocratics Lecture); geographic locations such as the Akademy (Rihill, pp. 174-176), or objects such as ‘Klepsydra’ (Lecture).

Once you have a selection of these, conduct a search on them in Summons. Then report on what you have found. You are looking for scholarly sources–those written by a professional historian, so be careful what you choose. You can determine if a scholar wrote it by doing a Google search on the person, or finding their institutional affiliation in the book or essay you have located.

Part III – The Report:

a) Write your name and the date at the top of the essay,
b) List the three keywords or keyword phrases and where you found them (Rihill, Ackert Lecture, Hesiod)
c) List the new source you found doing the intellectual scavenger hunt.
d) Once you have one good scholarly essay or book, or a primary source (you can limit your reading to a chapter in this book), then address the question/prompts below. NOTE: You can use the prompts as you think best; follow your interests and the sources you are using. In a 300-500 word essay discuss:

1) How does your new source help us to understand the Presocratic philosophers developed a new (or now) understanding of nature and ‘natural philosophy’?
2) How did the approach to the study of nature differ from that seen in Hesiod’s Theogony?
3) Did these scholars develop a new method to support that understand? If so, what was it?
4) How and where did the philosophers teach their ideas (Rihill)?

Part IV – Bibliography and Citations:

I will be grading on these aspects of the assignment. Please include in-text citations in your essay using Footnotes. Add a Bibliography (alphabetically by author last name) listing all the sources you have used in the Chicago Manual of Style. See the guides below.

Using Chicago Style Formatting
Historians generally use Chicago Style for the references. So that our Magazine will have a consistent style, we will be using this for our essays. This WR 2 is designed to help you practice this.
Each quote or use of a source requires a footnote. If you discuss what an author of your source says, then put a footnote at the end of that section. Generally, each paragraph has at least one footnote.
The footnotes are placed after the period of the sentence you are citing.

https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/home.html – Here you can find the Chicago Manual of Style at the link below. It offers some free guides, but you will need to purchase full access if you want (the is not required for the course).

Here are some useful pages in the Chicago Manual:
– “Notes and Bibliography:” https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_citationguide/citation-guide-1.html

– “For Students” (Refer to the Chicago part): https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/help-tools/Resources-for-Students.html

– Instructions for inserting Footnote in Word (you may need to find the one that relates to your version) can be found online, such as here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGfbbCsZi6Q