PRIMARY TEXTS

• Plato. “Plato in Twelve Volumes,” Vol. 3 translated by W.R.M. Lamb. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1967.

First, I did like the more modern look of the overall site, which gave me the ability to connect to the text. The text was easy to read; the style of text that was used was newer and thus, more to my liking. However, the ability to only read short sections wasn’t helpful. I disliked that the sections were so short, so that I could only read parts and had to go to the side margin where the sections were labeled, by lines of text in the “Gorgias,” and there was no easy way to “turn the page” per se. I had to click on a link on the side; this was not a good digital version—too hard to read, it was not pleasant. It would take too much time to read through “Gorgias” with such small sections of text and using links to click to the next section; access limited. Overall rate: “Limited,  far from great but somewhat useable.” It would be one I would use if there were no other digital versions available in full text.

• Plato. “Plato’s Gorgias.” Translated by E.M.Cope, Fellow of Trinity College. Deighton, Bell, and Co. LONDON: Bell and Daldy, 1864. Digitized by Google, scanned 2006.

It was a free e-book from Google, but I would like to add that I did like the fact that the sections that were on the page were large enough for me to comfortably read through. When I reached the end of the page (section) then I could hit the arrow tab on the side of the page and “turn the page” to the next part. And, as an added bonus, there was a scrolling icon on the very bottom, so that if I wanted to skip a section, then I could do so. However, overall, I didn’t like the text that was used in the 1864 version. It was hard to read as certain letters and numbers looked awkward. Also, the names of the characters are not written in full so we have “Cal” and “Soc” instead of Callicles and Socrates. I did not care for this style; it made it hard to keep track of changing characters and dialogue. Not my favorite version, but I did like the new tech additions that allow better turning and skipping capabilities. Overall rate: “Pretty good,” a little better than mediocre even with old looking text.