Dr. McDonough likes to gather facts, find patterns in them, and draw insights from the patterns. He became the first person to use a computer to assist in serious literary research on a project he undertook to satisfy his intellectual curiosity about a passage of Homer's Iliad in the original Greek. This was way back in 1957 when computers were thought to be useful only for mathematics and business. Word processing had not come along. This research project won him the Henry Drisler Fellowship at Columbia University (the only one given by the Classics Department). He found the dissertation the easiest part of the doctoral program and the one that was the most fun. It was written up widely in Western Europe and North America.

McDonough has enjoyed helping students and young professionals ever since to plan research, to organize it, to evaluate the soundness of the argumentation, to write and rewrite the English until it is publishable, and, sometimes, to publicize it. He knows the potentials of computers for such research-and their very definite limitations. He gets a strange but very real thrill from starting with a confusing array of data, finding patterns, discarding false hypotheses, generating valid ones, and finally seeing all the pieces start to fall into place. It's like the rare occasion towards the end of a game of solitaire when it becomes clear that one is going to win, or like a jigsaw puzzle when there are only a few pieces left and their location is obvious. The difference is that getting the research project to fit together does not depend on luck and need not be rare.

He also enjoys helping persons with Ph.D.s prepare their dissertation or other research for publication by university presses and trade publishers.

He has edited books on such different subjects as translations from Greek and Latin prose and poetry, Roman history, Catholic schools, Jews and Gentiles in the ancient world, Martin Luther, World War II, the Bible, foreign phrases used in English contexts, and biography. He has also edited a medical dictionary, a historical novel on the First Crusade, and encyclopedia articles. He prefers the Chicago/Turabian style. When he receives a manuscript with great idea but less than ideal presentation of these ideas, he takes great delight in helping the author give form, organization, and polish to the work so as to increase its chances of publication and of getting the author's ideas across effectively to the public.

Thesis and Dissertation Writing Consultant

Editor: Scholarly Journals, Nonfiction, Research Articles

Employment

1998–2002 Co-teacher, doctoral seminar on Biblical Greek, Temple University

1998   Editor, World Dictionary of Foreign Expressions

1996   Editor, A Booke of Days, Stephen J. Rivele (historical novel on First Crusade)

1994   Editor, 2nd edition, Bantam Latin & English Dictionary

1992–1993 Editor, 2nd pocket edition, Stedman's Concise Medical Dictionary

1990–1994 Etymology Editor, Stedman's Medical Dictionary (unabridged, hard-cover)

1976–1988 developed teaching materials for Language of Medicine course

1972   team-taught seminar on Homer and Plato, Haverford College

1965   United States Office of Education, Cooperative Research Project No. 5-8256

1960–1991 Professor, Saint Joseph's University

Editing (some for author, some for publisher)

Thomas F. McDaniel, Deborah and Yael: Women of Power in Early Israel 2nd edition of Deborah Never Sang

1994  E. Michael Jones, Dionysos Rising: The Birth of Cultural Revolution out of the Spirit of Music

1993  Louis Harry Feldman, Jew and Gentile in the Ancient World

1981  Dia Maria Lavrendia Philippides, The Iambic Trimeter of Euripides

1974  Frances Forde Plude, The Flickering Light: What's Happening to Catholic Schools

1973  Margaret Gest (trans.), Horace's Odes

1955  Leo P. McCauley & Anthony A. Stephenson (trans.), Saint Cyril of Jerusalem: Catechetical Lectures for Lent

Education

Ph.D. dissertation: Structural Metrics of the Iliad Columbia University, Boston College

Subjects Taught in Original Language

Homer

Aeschylus

Sophocles

Euripides

Greek comedy

Greek tragedy

Greek and Roman drama

Greek philosophy

Menander

Subjects Taught in English Translations

Mythology

Religion

Ancient history

Slavery

Feminism

Ancient Art

Classical tradition

Medicine (language and history)

English composition

English literature

Urban studies

Related subjects - Personal interests

Medieval studies

Dante and Italian language

Post-Medieval history and art

American history

Bible

Music

Musicology

Russia, China, and Japan

Judaic studies