Participation

Provide a log of your weekly posts and compose a reflective, critical evaluation of your engagement with the unit's topics in your weekly posts. Reflective evaluation: 1000 words; log of posts: no limit (just download and submit your posts, including your responses to other people's posts). 

Weekly discussions in the forum are intended to allow for detailed analysis of relevant topics and sources. Make sure to read through the texts set for each week that are specified in that week's section on the iLearn site. You also have a list of questions for each week. Your engagement in the discussions is important. Online contributions must be made by Sunday at midnight in the week of the topic.

Suggested secondary readings are in the Leganto link. These readings will be from modern scholarly work on that topic and will give you some context for the primary sources chosen and questions presented. They will help you to better understand that week's topic and will make you better prepared for the discussions. They are also meant to serve as the basis for your research if you decide to write a Paper on that topic.

Keep a diary of your participation in tutorials each week. Submit the diary (there is no word limit but is expected to be a log of your contributions with dates) with a reflection on your contribution to the unit and what you have learned from it (1500 word maximum for this component). 

The assessment must be submitted via Turnitin on the unit’s iLearn website by 11.55pm on Sunday of Week 12.

Annotated Bibliography with Research Plan. 

You will submit an annotated bibliography of modern works on your chosen topic together with a brief outline of your proposed essay topic. 

For the annotated bibliography you should provide a few sentences describing and evaluating the contents of each bibliographical item. It is recommended that you aim to find ca. 10–15 bibliographical items. (Please note that the citation of the bibliographical item itself isn’t included in the word count.) For more information about your Annotated Bibliography and research plan for your essay, you are strongly recommended to read the Task Outlines provided in the ilearn.

The choice of items for your bibliography and the nature of your research plan may be discussed with your unit convenor. The topic must be related to the themes of the unit, but you may go outside the specific topics set for weekly discussion.

The assessment must be submitted via Turnitin on the unit’s iLearn website by 11.55pm on Sunday of Week 7.

Essay:

Choose a topic introduced in the seminars and formulate an appropriate question. You should choose this question in consultation with the unit convenor. You must include a bibliography of works cited with your essay: the research topic and an annotated bibliography should be prepared for submission at the end of week 7. Your essay should be 3000 words in length (footnotes and bibliography are not included in this word count), based firmly upon the ancient evidence, and should show an understanding of historiography: the critical analysis of historical writing.

In your essay you should draw upon the approaches to the ancient sources discussed in the unit, and offer critical response to those approaches. The ancient evidence you discuss may be sources other than those addressed specifically in the seminars (please discuss this with the unit convenor if you want to go outside the topics covered).

The Major Essay should be formatted as carefully as possible, as though it were to be submitted to a journal for consideration. Producing well proofed, grammatical, and error free copy is an essential skill for postgraduate work, academic publication, and valued in the workplace. 10% of the total available marks for the essay will be devoted to the style, grammar, referencing, structure, and presentation of the bibliography. A style guide is provided in the ilearn.

An Essay Rubric with a breakdown of the essay marks is available in the ilearn. Please familiarise yourself with the rubric and the supplementary materials given there on theoretical engagement, the analysis of evidence, and the difference between narrative description and argument.

The assessment must be submitted via Turnitin on the unit’s iLearn website by 11.55pm on Sunday of Week 13.

Note on length for submissions: 

Markers will stop reading assignments which are more than 10% over the specified word length. If you submit an assignment which are under 10% of the prescribed word length, you may be asked to resubmit.

Late Assessment Submission Penalty  [Macquarie University Policy]

Unless a Special Consideration request has been submitted and approved, a 5% penalty (of the total possible mark) will be applied each day a written assessment is not submitted, up until the 7th day (including weekends). After the 7th day, a mark of ‘0’ (zero) will be awarded even if the assessment is submitted. Submission time for all written assessments is set at 11.55pm. A 1-hour grace period is provided to students who experience a technical issue.    

This late penalty will apply to non-timed sensitive assessment (incl essays, reports, posters, portfolios, journals, recordings etc). Late submission of time sensitive tasks (such as tests/exams, performance assessments/presentations, scheduled practical assessments/labs etc) will only be addressed by the unit convenor in a Special consideration application. Special Consideration outcome may result in a new question or topic.

Recommended readings for the unit are detailed on the ilearn page. Modern scholarship is available through the library (Leganto link).

The weekly seminar topics are detailed on the ilearn page for this unit.