Penn Professors on Writing in Classical studies

Dr. Peter Struck

About the Professor

Dr. Struck received his A.B. at the University of Michigan and his M.A. (Divinity) and Ph.D. (Comparative Literature) from the University of Chicago. He is an Associate Professor in the Department of Classical Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, and he directs the Benjamin Franklin Scholars Program. His research interests are Greek and Roman Literary criticism and theory, philosophy, history of ideas, and Greek myth.

Information from Peter Struck's Homepage


Writing Tips

When writing papers, students should divide their time into four areas:

  1. Developing the thesis and figuring out the topic.
  2. Finding all relevant evidence.
  3. Organizing the evidence well and constructing a logical, explicit argument.
  4. Style, word-choice, and grammar.

Important Criteria for Student Writing

Professor Struck finds the following criteria extremely important:

  1. Clearly Explaining Ideas
  2. Showing a thoughtful interaction with the text
  3. Having explicit argumentation
  4. Reasoning and Evidence
  5. Organization

Peronal Writing Process

  1. Discovering a topic is central to writing something of merit. Professor Struck says, “I have to discover something. The discovery stage for me is when you land on something strange, provocative, something weird. To find your thesis, you really have to find something you’re interested in. You can write bad papers on topics you’re not interested in, but very rarely will you write a good paper on something you’re not interested in.”
  2. When reading for a paper topic, students should look for what strikes them as intuitively right, and then they should go back to search for evidence. Be cautious, though. As students re-read, they will encounter a lot of revision of their original intuition and interpretation. Sifting through evidence will help them redefine their topics.
  3. After finishing a paper, Professor struck sends out his papers to colleagues whom he can trust to give constructive criticism.

Links

Back to Writing in the Discipline

Other professors in Classics: Professor Ker



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