science

L'Année philologique

L'Année philologique is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand L'Année philologique rather than just read about it. In short: L'Année philologique (The Philological Year) is an index to scholarly work in fields related to the language, literature, history and culture of Ancient Greece and Rome. It is the standard bibliographical tool for research in classical studies.

Key takeaways

L'Année philologique belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect L'Année philologique to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of L'Année philologique from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

L'Année philologique (The Philological Year) is an index to scholarly work in fields related to the language, literature, history and culture of Ancient Greece and Rome. It is the standard bibliographical tool for research in classical studies. Published in print annually since 1928, with the first volume covering the years 1924–1926, it is now also available online by institutional or individual subscription. As of June 2014, the electronic version (APh Online) covers volume years 1924 through 2011. The editorial staff gathers each year's additions from 1,500 periodicals, with an additional 500 articles from collections.

Overview L'Année philologique aims to be the most comprehensive international resource for Ancient Greece and Rome. Entries on journal articles are often accompanied by a very brief abstract that may be in a language other than that of the original. Abstracts are most often in French, English, German, Italian, or Spanish. No abstracts for books are provided, but entries on books include a listing of published reviews. Indexing often lags publication by two or three years. Because L'Année philologique is an index, not a collection, searches find terms only within the bibliographical entry, not the full text of the article (the "full text" search option refers to the contents of L'Année philologique). The electronic edition offers a variety of search parameters, with some idiosyncrasies. Since September 2018, the database is available for library subscription via the commercial publisher Brepols Publishers. Between 2013 and 2018, access was provided by another publisher, EBSCO. L'Année philologique is published by the Société Internationale de Bibliographie Classique with support from the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) of France and several other institutions. Editorial offices are located in Chapel Hill, North Carolina; Heidelberg, Germany; Lausanne, Switzerland; Genoa, Italy; and Grenada, Spain. It was founded in Paris by the Latinist Jules Marouzeau (1878–1964), Professor at the Sorbonne. In 1928 Juliette Ernst joined the editorial team of the magazine, of which she was a member until 1990, and from 1964 she was the editor-in-chief. To fill the gap between L'Année philologique and earlier bibliographies, Marouzeau arranged for the publication of a series of volumes in the same format:

J. Marouzeau, Dix années de bibliographie classique : bibliographie critique et analytique de l'Antiquité gréco-latine pour la période 1914–1924 (2 vols). Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1927–1928. S. Lambrino, Bibliographie de l'Antiquité classique 1896–1914. Première partie, Auteurs et Textes. Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1951.

See also List of academic databases and search engines Lustrum (journal)

Notes

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with L'Année philologique

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what L'Année philologique claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to L'Année philologique before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about L'Année philologique ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of L'Année philologique

In research: L'Année philologique appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses L'Année philologique in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: L'Année philologique is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Bibliographic databases and indexes, Classical philology, Classics publications, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for L'Année philologique outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study L'Année philologique in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what L'Année philologique means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain L'Année philologique out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is L'Année philologique in simple terms?

Why does L'Année philologique matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study L'Année philologique?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on L'Année philologique.