08-21-2009, 05:20 PM
I am writing a paper on the Battle of Cannae right now. The minimum requirement for sources is 3 primary and 6 secondary sources. I am at a bit of a loss here. I can easily gather the required sources, hell I can hit double the requirement with my personal library.
But here is my dilemma.
What am I supposed to use the primary sources for in my paper? My professor has already told me that my "opinion" means nothing unless I can back it up with a scholared source. Unfortunately, as far as I understand them you cannot take primary sources at face value. Polybius and Livy give wildly contradictory information at times and as I uderstand it primary sources are used as a starting ground from which you make interpretations. I am not allowed to make interpretations. Do I write a paper where I quote a primary source, then quote a secondary source that interprets that primary source for me? Gee, sounds like a rather mind-numbing dont learn how to think or interpret on your own kind of paper. Or I could use the primary sources and pull out the most basic of information from them that everyone accepts as accurate. But then what does that accomplish?
Since I cannot think on my own in my paper there is nothing from Polybius or Livy that I can pull out that I could not more easily find in Goldsworthy or Bagnall since both wrote books on the Punic Wars and their primary sources were the two I just mentioned. In effect I am going to write a paper with 12 to 14 sources when in fact I could pick 2 or 3 of those sources and find everything in them. If I wanted to be efficient everything I pull from Polybius, Livy, Bagnall, Matyszak, and a few other books could easily come Goldsworthy.
Seems to me like my paper will have useless primary sources and a bloated secondary source list because of the requirements for the paper. Has anyone else hit this problem when writing and how do you solve it to your own satisfaction?
But here is my dilemma.
What am I supposed to use the primary sources for in my paper? My professor has already told me that my "opinion" means nothing unless I can back it up with a scholared source. Unfortunately, as far as I understand them you cannot take primary sources at face value. Polybius and Livy give wildly contradictory information at times and as I uderstand it primary sources are used as a starting ground from which you make interpretations. I am not allowed to make interpretations. Do I write a paper where I quote a primary source, then quote a secondary source that interprets that primary source for me? Gee, sounds like a rather mind-numbing dont learn how to think or interpret on your own kind of paper. Or I could use the primary sources and pull out the most basic of information from them that everyone accepts as accurate. But then what does that accomplish?
Since I cannot think on my own in my paper there is nothing from Polybius or Livy that I can pull out that I could not more easily find in Goldsworthy or Bagnall since both wrote books on the Punic Wars and their primary sources were the two I just mentioned. In effect I am going to write a paper with 12 to 14 sources when in fact I could pick 2 or 3 of those sources and find everything in them. If I wanted to be efficient everything I pull from Polybius, Livy, Bagnall, Matyszak, and a few other books could easily come Goldsworthy.
Seems to me like my paper will have useless primary sources and a bloated secondary source list because of the requirements for the paper. Has anyone else hit this problem when writing and how do you solve it to your own satisfaction?
Timothy Hanna
