Resources

Reading Philosophy

Jim Pryor's Guidelines on Reading Philosophy

Reading Early Modern Philosophy: Historical Context

Further reading can be found in in the bibliography entries in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

Why avoid laptop use in class?

Longhand note-taking is more highly correlated with conceptual learning than laptop note-taking (and this is a philosophy class-- lots of conceptual learning).

Activity on electronics distracts classmates, can negatively affect their learning even if they are not using electronics.

Students with laptops often use a high percentage of class time on nonacademic internet use.

Writing Philosophy

How to write a philosophy paper

A Brief Guide to Writing Philosophy Papers from Harvard's writing center

South Alabama Writing Center: The University's Writing Center in Marx Library is an excellent resource. Even if you consider yourself a good writer, I encourage you to visit. It is open 9-5 Monday through Thursday and 9-4 on Friday. Schedule an appointment here.

Style Guides: APA, Chicago style guide , style chart

More tips on writing philosophy papers listed here

Plagiarism

Plagiarism is not tolerated at the University of South Alabama. All college students need to familiarize themselves with what plagiarism is and what's wrong with it. We will use Turnitin.com for your papers in this course. Turnitin has a very helpful page on plagiarism prevention, as well as a guide to interpreting originality reports in turnitin, here.

This Yale Writing Center website has links to pages about the various forms of plagiarism. You can take a plagiarism quiz to test how well you understand plagiarism and how to avoid it in your own work.