Proper English
Various do's and don'ts
Enjoy creating a paper, not merely as an act of submission to an instructor and to institutional requirements, but primarily as an act of perfecting your own thinking and expressing something in a way that will do good to its readers, including but not limited to the instructor.
Create an expressive (but mature) title for your paper.
Use the first person singular in writing your experience report; use the third person in writing the commentary from the standpoint of the philosopher or tradition we are studying.
If your references in the commentary are to our texts or the teacher's web documents, simply note those as follows: (Kant, 30). If you refer to materials from outside the class, use a footnote including standard bibliographic information. There is no need for a works cited page. The philosophy department standard is Turabian (the simplified Chicago Manual of Style), but I to accept the MLA Style Sheet or another such standard.
Staple the pages together.
Number the pages.
Use a 12 point font and 1 inch margins left and right, top and bottom.
I expect a hard copy. Nevertheless, for some purposes, you'll need to give me a document by e-mail as a docx, .doc, or .rtf file.
For web links (but don’t forget the library), you may go through the American Philosophical Association). Rather than simply going to Google, consider academic sites: http://www.searchedu.com/ (now one of the Google search engines). The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is often helpful.
Do not rely on the dictionary for definitions of important philosophical terms. There are philosophical dictionaries to help you begin. You can, however, learn a lot from an excellent dictionary, however, such as the Oxford English Dictionary. http://dictionary.oed.com/entrance.dtl
Avoid academic dishonesty--cheating and plagiarism.
Do not write your Social Security Number on anything you hand in to me. Don't take four lines at the top of page one for your name, my name, class, and date; put all that on one line.
Don't use plastic covers for papers.
Writing English well
Why does the instructor insist on well-written papers?
The staff at the Writing Commons (4th floor, Main Library:writing@kent.edu) are trained to help you improve your process of writing. One aspect of writing that is easy for to neglect is correctness on the level of spelling, punctuation, and grammar. Having taught English for several years at an international school, I became more aware of the global importance of English as the first language in some powerful countries and as a second language for countless persons in many countries around the world. If we neglect the care of this tool for thinking and communication, we conspire in planetary cultural decline. If we care for the quality of all dimensions of our writing process, we help the planet turn things around in the direction of progress.
Think for a moment why many students graduate with a bachelor's degree without the habit of writing consistently correct English sentences or organizing their ideas in a logical way. U.S. business spends a billion dollars a year (so I read years ago) training people in basics they should have gotten from school. Tuition rises because state subsidies go down partly because legislators are not impressed with what all our investment in education is achieving. This scandal, like every other decline, gets turned around person by person, small group by small group, and this class is one where we turn it around. I growl fiercely about writing because I find that if I do not, I get far more careless writing than otherwise. Having spent years teaching English, I offer help to anyone who needs it. I also reduce grades significantly for poor writing. Writing is communication, bringing good to another person--ultimately, an act of love. The more we rely on machines for communicating, the more important it is to write graciously and well.
Research on the process of learning to write has found that it can be unhelpful to insist on the fine points of grammar and punctuation until other, global skills have been learned. Learning to reason well, to conceive the movement of the paper as a whole, and then to think of a skillful sequence of paragraphs is one good way to begin.
Selected Principles of Grammar, Punctuation, and Style
1. Write complete sentences. A sentence fragment lacks a normal main clause with a subject and a verb—or else introduces a clause with a subordinating conjunction, for example: “Because you are just too tired to do it right.”
2. The number of the verb (singular or plural) must agree the number of the subject.
3. Use a comma to separate main clauses only when they are joined by a pure (coordinating) conjunction. When joined by an adverbial conjunction or not joined at all, use a semicolon between main clauses. There are only four pure conjunctions: and, but, or, nor.
4. Commas follow introductory elements such as adverb clauses, long prepositional phrases, participial and infinitive phrases, transitional expressions, and interjections.
5. Enclose parenthetic expressions between commas (if you do not use parentheses).
6. Do not use a comma (a) to separate subject from verb, (b) to set off a coordinating conjunction, or (c) to separate components of a compound verb.
7. In a series of three or more terms with a single conjunction, use a comma after each term except the last. The number of commas to use is the n umber of items in the series minus one.
8. Use a colon after an independent clause to introduce a list of particular s, an appositive, an amplification, an illustrative quotation, and after the following, as follows, thus, this, and these.
9. Use a dash to set off an abrupt break or interruption, to announce a long appositive, and before a repeated word.
10. Use the apostrophe to indicate the possessive case (except for personal pronouns and whose), to mark omissions in contracted words or numbers in dates, and to form certain plurals.
11. Use quotation marks to set off all direct quotations, inside titles, and words used in a special sense. Commas and periods always precede final quotations marks. Colons and semicolons always follow final quotation marks. Interrogation and exclamation marks may precede or follow final quotations marks according to the sense of the context. Italicize titles of publications. Use quotation marks around other titles.
Style
12. Your style should express your best effort to bring good to your reader in a way that is both responsible and expressive of you as a unique personality. You do not need to try to be different or unique, however, because if your effort is excellent and your approach sincere, your personality will show through. Do not fear to use humor. The use of the first person singular is permissible on these papers.
Here are some common recommendations regarding style that will often be helpful to the beginning writer. Put statements in positive form. Use definite, concrete language. Omit needless words. Write more with nous and verbs than with adjectives and adverbs.