by Zachary Moore
Haworth and the Wolfish Lover
Marina Haworth teaches art history at NHCC and has contributed to a textbook available in our library: Themes in Greek Society and Culture. In 2018, Haworth published a paper for Archiméde, a French journal dedicated to archaeology and ancient history. Her paper was titled “The Wolfish Lover: The Dog as a Comic Metaphor in Homoerotic Symposium Pottery.” I asked Haworth about her experience writing and publishing this paper to better understand how to get involved in the world of academic research. (To read her paper, go to halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr and search for it by title.)
What is academic writing?
Academic writing is how scholars of various fields contribute to a growing pool of knowledge. Scholars publish new findings, fresh perspectives on old ones, and revisions to obsolete ideas. It is collaborative, with each paper relying on the work of peer reviewers, editors, and the author(s). Unlike popular writing, academic writing is written to an audience already knowledgeable in its field. In Haworth’s case, she wrote a paper to be presented verbally at a conference attended by her peers in the fields of classical studies and archaeology.
How do I publish?
Marina Haworth’s paper started with an invitation and an idea. The Archaeological Institute of America (AIA) and the Society for Classical Studies (SCS) were holding a joint conference, and a colleague invited her to be a speaker. The speakers were instructed to submit an academic paper to be published by the event and prepare an accompanying lecture to present for attendees. The topic: homoerotica in classical sources.
One doesn’t need an invitation to participate in academic writing. Hundreds of academic journals exist — the University of Minnesota alone publishes 10 different journals. Among them is Future Anterior, a journal focused on historic preservation, which features a call for submissions with specific guidelines on its website.
Once a paper is accepted, the peer review process begins. According to Haworth, it is common for a first draft to be returned with a daunting number of revisions, recommendations, and prompts. Through the revision process, a submission is improved over several drafts until it is publication-ready.
Where do I start?
Once an author has chosen a topic to focus their paper on, the research process begins. The first step is to brush up on relevant existing literature. This assures that they don’t write anything that has already been written and catches them up on current discussions about the topic. In Haworth’s paper, she notes that little had been written about dogs in early classical art, and the existing discourse interpreted them matter-of-factly, rather than metaphorically as she would argue for.
Existing literature is only the beginning of an academic author’s reading. Once caught up, they must gather a body of supporting evidence for their own claim. This means curating sources the author is already familiar with and finding new ones to supplement them. A vast collection of citations is crucial for academic writing. While the body of the text tells the reader what you know, the citations tell them how you know. Furthermore, proper citation assures that authors are given credit for their contribution to the field. In “Wolfish Lover,” Haworth includes 91 citations in just under 13 pages of text. Her bibliography alone tacks on 2.5 pages to the paper.
How does an author find so many citations? One good way, Haworth suggests, is going to an academic library, opening a relevant book, and looking at its citations. If any of them are relevant to the author’s topic, grab that book or paper, read the relevant portion, and check out its citations. In short, you gather a body of evidence for a paper in much the same way you waste three hours on Wikipedia.
What obstacles exist?
One challenge for an aspiring research writer is the feedback. Perhaps more than any other form of writing, academic publishing relies on criticism from peers and editors. Haworth said that the amount of notes given on a first draft can be overwhelming. Like many other parts of the research process, revising drafts requires incredible patience and enthusiasm for the topic.
Giving proper credit can be a tricky task as well. There is a vast collection of published material to comb through, and it’s easy to miss something that should have been cited. This is another way that research journals benefit from an abundance of eyes in the editing process. For the purpose of attributing proper credit, four eyes are better than two, and ten are better than four.
ConclusionJournal
Northern Light journal exists in part to make academic publishing more accessible to undergraduate students. We hope that his feature has shed some light on the process of putting together a paper and shown that it doesn’t have to be intimidating. If there is a field of knowledge that you would like to contribute to, we hope you’ll make a submission for Northern Light in 2020.