Durham University - Classics Society
The Ostraka Undergraduate Journal (ISSN 2977-1773)
Our Guidelines: 2024/25 Publication Cycle
SUBMISSION DEADLINE: 31st December 2024 11:59pm GMT
Durham University’s Ostraka Journal is open to undergraduates from all disciplines, all over the world. Submitting your work for publication is a fantastic opportunity to explore topics of personal interest beyond your degree, and to get published at undergraduate level! Our guidelines, outlined here, have been written with flexibility in mind, but all our authors need to comply with them to ensure The Ostraka Journal runs smoothly.
Please send any queries to our Editor-in-Chief at ostraka.journal@durham.ac.uk! This academic year, our Editor-in-Chief is Ros Watkin (BA Liberal Arts: Classics and Anthropology)
SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
We accept submissions that meet all of the following criteria:
1. The author is currently pursuing an undergraduate degree. This does not include recent graduates or newly-enrolled postgraduates, unless your final year ends between October 2024 and December 2024. Mature undergraduate students may submit work.
2. The submission is either an academic paper, a piece of creative writing, a translation, or an illustration
3 The submission is the author’s own work, with appropriate references to primary and/or secondary literature Submissions caught for plagiarism and/or generative artificial intelligence will be rejected.
4. The submission falls within Classics and Ancient History, as defined below.
5. The submission is written in English, in a style appropriate for the relevant category.
Written work must be submitted in .doc or .docx format. Illustrations must be submitted in png, jpeg/ jpg, or pdf format
You may submit work originally written for your degree, but it must present an argument or creative process that’s independent of the classroom/module in question If you are submitting an excerpt of an academic paper you have already written, it’s advised that you also submit an abstract providing context.
SUBMISSION CATEGORIES
I ACADEMIC PAPERS
You may submit up to two academic papers They must meet the following criteria:
1. They should be 2,000-4,000 words in length (excluding footnotes and bibliography). If your paper falls outside the word limit, please contact our Editor-in-Chief with an abstract before you submit your work. Word counts must be clearly displayed.
2. They must make use of secondary scholarship that is, existing academic work that is not an ancient source or artefact
3 They must employ the Chicago referencing style, with footnotes (not endnotes) and a bibliography The footnotes and bibliography are, to reiterate, not included in the final word count.
II CREATIVE WRITING
You may submit up to three pieces of creative writing. They must meet the following criteria:
1. They must be 20-3,000 words in length. If your piece falls outside the word limit, please contact our Editor-in-Chief with your idea before you submit your work
2 They are ideally accompanied by an additional commentary of 400-2,000 words explaining the creative process behind the submission, but this is not mandatory
3. They aim to engage with primary rather than secondary sources.
III TRANSLATIONS
You may submit up to three translations. They must meet the following criteria:
1. They must be 20-1,000 words in length. If your translation falls outside the word limit, please contact our Editor-in-Chief with your idea before you submit your work
a The word count applies to the translation, not to the source passage
2 They must be accompanied by an additional commentary of 400-2,000 words explaining the creative process behind the submission
3. They engage with an existing passage in an ancient language, and are translated into an English dialect.
a. Your source passage may be in a language that is not Classical Greek or Latin, e.g. Akkadian or ancient Egyptian. If so, we’ll do our best to find someone who can understand the source language and peer-review your work.
b Some ancient languages/scripts are still in usage; if you are unsure whether your source text meets our criteria, please contact our Editor-in-Chief (She really likes linguistics, so don’t stress )
4. They must be submitted alongside the source passage, which must still be in the source language. The source passage must be appropriately cited.
a. Your source passage may be written in neither the Greek nor the Latin script, e.g. cuneiform or Linear B. If so, please provide an additional transliteration (i.e. a phonetic conversion) into English.
IV ILLUSTRATIONS
You may submit up to two illustrations. They can be made using any artistic medium and have any orientation, and they must meet the following criteria:
1. They must be accompanied by an additional commentary of 400-2,000 words explaining the creative process behind the submission
2 They aim to engage with primary rather than secondary sources
“CLASSICS
AND ANCIENT HISTORY”
Classics and Ancient History is a broad topic, but, historically, it has been narrowly defined. Submissions to The Ostraka Journal do not have to stick to the rigid idea of Classical Greece and Rome. We define the domain of “Classics and Ancient History” as follows:
- the Chalcolithic (c. 2500 BCE) to the Fall of the Roman Empire (476 CE)
- Southern Europe, Northern Africa, the Black Sea, and the Near East However, this is a flexible guideline Discussions of, e g , Mayan Hieroglyphs, the Silk Road, and classical figures in Dante’s Divine Comedy would be considered for publication because they fall under ancient philology, ancient history/trade, and reception studies respectively. If you are unsure whether your idea fits our definition, please contact the Editor-in-Chief with your idea/abstract before publication.
OUR POLICY ON ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
Currently, we accept submissions informed by artificial intelligence However, at The Ostraka Journal, we deeply value independent arguments and intellectual curiosity, so your piece must ultimately be your own work We will reject submissions created using generative artificial intelligence; that is, you must not use artificial intelligence to write your submission for you. Here are some examples of how you may use artificial intelligence:
★ To investigate how artificial intelligence interprets ancient languages/sources.
★ To inform a submission illustrating the different approaches taken by humans and computers within the study of Classics and Ancient History.
★ To inform a submission discussing ancient and/or modern robotics
If you have used artificial intelligence to inform (but not write) your piece, we’d like you to state how you have done so on the submission form partly because we ’ re curious, but mostly to maintain academic integrity. We will reject submissions that are not ultimately the author’s own work, i.e. that plagiarise and/or employ generative artificial intelligence. Please note that you may have complied with our policy on artificial intelligence but your paper might not get published for other reasons.
Q: SHOULD I ANONYMISE MY SUBMISSION?
The submission form will ask for your name, academic contact information, and the name of your academic institution. Nevertheless, our peer-review process relies on the anonymity of pieces, so the document(s) you submit must be anonymised. Please remove any information that may reveal your identity to our peer-review team, including your name, your academic institution, course title(s), and the names of your mentors and peers
If your work is selected for this academic year ’ s publication cycle and you consent to its publication, it will be published with your name (or pen name) and the name of the academic institution you were enrolled in at the time of its submission. Our peer-reviewers will only be able to see these in the published edition of The Ostraka Journal not during the editing process.
Q: HOW MANY SUBMISSIONS CAN I ENTER?
You may submit multiple pieces to each category You may submit up to two academic papers; up to three pieces of creative writing; up to three translations (including commentaries); and up to two illustrations (including commentaries) Please note that if you submit more pieces per category, only the first pieces to fall within the limits will be accepted, unless you contact the Editor-in-Chief to annul one of your previous submissions. We can only publish a limited number of submissions, which are carefully selected by our peer-review team. Submitting multiple pieces of work does not guarantee you will be published; on the other hand, you can be published multiple times in the same issue.
NO SUBMISSION FEE
Submissions to The Ostraka Journal are free of charge Equally, authors will not get paid for any submissions that get published
However, our authors may go on to publish their work elsewhere, and earn money from it, following peer-review and publication in The Ostraka Journal. This must be organised only a er the relevant issue of The Ostraka Journal is published.
Please note that if you submit an academic paper which you have written for The Ostraka Journal as a university assignment in the future, there is a high chance you will be flagged for plagiarism by your academic institution, even if your work is entirely your own We recommend that you produce new or updated arguments in future assignments
CONTACT INFORMATION
Email Address: ostraka journal@durham ac uk
↪ Editor-in-Chief 2024/25: Ros Watkin (Durham University; BA Liberal Arts: Classics and Anthropology) Linktree: https://linktr ee/duostrakajournal