PHIL1300, 2008-10-07
Step by Step
Writing a philosophy essay is not the same as writing essays in other fields. It takes a lot of time to write a good essay. These steps show you how to start with an assigned question, build a thesis and an outline, then write and rewrite your essay until it answers the question clearly and completely.
Read the essay question.
Reread the essay question. You have to understand what your goal is before you can start writing your essay.
Take a position. Write a draft thesis statement which expresses the position you want to take in a single sentence. Reread the relevant course texts and look for reasons which either support or undermine your thesis.
Write an outline. Decide what reasons you need to give to convince your reader of the thesis. Try explaining the whole thing to a friend. Ask her what was convincing and what was not. Drop the parts that don't work, and add new parts that do work.
Write a rough draft. Put your outline away and try to follow it from memory as you write. Don't try to write formally! Explain yourself in your own words, like you explained your outline to your friend.
Rewrite your outline. Take each paragraph in your rough draft and summarize it in a single sentence. See if this list of sentences matches your outline. Drop irrelevant paragraphs; add important paragraphs you missed; and use what you've learned in writing your rough draft to improve your outline.
Rewrite your essay. This time try to write more formally, without being fancy.
Reread your essay. Did you answer the assignment question? Watch for sentences that could be clearer, and for sloppy mistakes. Some people find that reading their essays out loud helps them catch grammatical errors and awkward phrases.
Things to Do
Do show that you understand the material. Include the authors' key points, and leave out anything irrelevant. Go back to the assignment question whenever you are in doubt.
Do present an argument. Take a position in your thesis statement and give reasons to support your position. The most convincing arguments build on common ground that you and your audience share.
Do organize your essay as clearly as possible. Lay out your plan in the introduction. Follow your plan step by step in the body. Tie everything together in the conclusion. Outlining helps organization.
Do express your ideas as clearly as possible. Your audience should never have to wonder what your position is, and why you hold it. Any other student at your level should be able to read and understand your essay. Your audience will be more impressed by clarity than by fancy words and phrases.
Do use a clear and consistent writing style. Eliminate useless phrases like “the fact that" and “it is clear that". Beware of run-on sentences and the passive voice.
Do follow the formatting rules. Be creative in your content, not in your formatting.
Do be charitable to the authors we're reading. They are very smart people. The odds are that, if you see a simple mistake, it's probably a mistake in your interpretation. Reread the text three or more times to be sure.
Do include the following on the copy you hand in:
Your name.
Your student number.
The course number (hint: PHIL1300E).
Your Instructor
The date
Things Not to Do
Don't blindly follow the five paragraph essay" format you were taught in high-school. Yes, it's a reasonable starting point. Yes, you should have an introduction and a conclusion. But use as many paragraphs as you need, and make sure each paragraph makes one clear point.
Don't use words or phrases you don't understand. You'll probably use them incorrectly.
Don't strain to use the third person. If the views you are expressing are your own, use the first person rather than the passive voice.
Don't think that you can solve any of these issues conclusively in five pages. There are reasons on both sides of these important philosophical debates, which is one reason that they are still important after hundreds of years. Take a position and defend it, but don't pretend that your answer is the last word.
Don't keep your reader in suspense. Your introduction should say exactly what you are going to conclude and why. The body of your essay spells out the details. The conclusion ties it all together.
Don't try to imitate the writing styles of the authors we've read in this course. Your audience lives in the 21st century, not the 14th.
Don't exceed the given length requirements. If your essay is too long, then you are probably trying to fit too much in to it: simplify. If your essay is too short, then you are probably not answering the question as completely as you should: make sure that you didn't miss something in the assignment question.