The following is the introduction of Daisy Dixon's article

Dixon, D. (2022). Artistic (Counter) Speech. The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 80(4), 409-419.

I think it has an excellent introduction. Here, I try to spell out why I think the introduction exemplifies good writing. Overall I think this intro effectively tells us a) what the paper is about; b) what the stakes are (i.e. why it's worth our time); and c) what it proposes to do (and why the proposal is cool).

Original text in blockquote. My own opinions in plain paragraphs.

In 1778, Spiridione Roma’s The East Offering its Riches to Britannia was installed in the East India Company’s London headquarters. The painting is an allegory for Britain’s commercial domination over Asia during the Company’s control. As well as reflecting the enshrined racism in the Company, the painting was propaganda used to express the false notion that extracted wealth was going to Britain as a whole, and that the Company’s relationship with India was “consensual and benevolent” without coercion or violence (Procter 2020, 56–8).

An example is good. It helps to tell us what the paper is roughly about. Here it suggests that this painting does something, namely, serves as propaganda that perpetuates problematic ideas. So the paper is probably about art that appears to be morally shady,

In 1970, Allen Jones exhibited Hatstand, Table, and Chair; sculptures of women wearing fetish clothing posed as furniture. The pieces were met with angry protests; viewers accused them of objectifying women. Regardless of the artist’s intentions, the installation became part of a familiar artistic narrative where women are historically reduced to passive, servile objects in painting and sculpture (Eaton 2012).

Another example is good. It suggests that the first one isn't an isolated incident. It also emphasises something interesting: the intention doesn't determine the message or content.

And in 2019, London National Gallery’s Paul Gauguin Portraits opened with a debate to address the ethical concerns about the artist and his work. When in the South Pacific—where he created some of his best-known paintings—Gauguin sexually abused girls as young as thirteen. Importantly, it is difficult not to see his sexualized attitude toward his child brides in his portraits of them, such as Spirit of the Dead Watching (1892).1 This work depicts one of his adolescent wives who, according to the artist, was lying in fear one night when he arrived home (Dorra 2007).

Three is probably the maximum number of examples (of this length) in introductions. (If examples are extremely short, probably one can invoke more. But one must make sure that short examples can get readers on board.) One may start wondering, of course, why don't the first two examples suffice. I think two examples already suffice, but this third one adds something more, so it deserves to be here. It is about something that happen really recently. And something famous. And something people may have conflicting intuitions about. Consider how this example may be received by the public. On one hand, people might think "can we leave art alone?" or "is cancel culture going wild?" or "can't we just focus on the art?" But on the other hand, the behaviour and the content are both pretty pretty bad. It sets up a tension, a problem that needs to be resolved. It helps us believe that this paper deserves to exist. If the paper were to only have one example, keep this one.

These cases, among many more, show that far from being innocuous objects in museums and white cubes, artworks do and say things. In particular, it has been argued that artworks—visual ones—can be speech acts.2 They can do things like assert, protest, and subordinate. These are things we normally do with words. If artworks can perform speech acts, then presumably they can do harmful acts, like those in hate speech; racist, misogynistic, or homophobic language, for example. Recognizing artistic speech reveals a distinctive potential harm toward marginalized groups.

An immediate explanation is necessary. Examples only go so far, and by themselves serve neither as explanations nor arguments. Spell things out. I also want to highlight that in this paragraph, the first terminology is introduced. "Speech acts." What are speech acts? It's probably impossible to explain this concept wholly in the introduction, but "...they can do things like..." gives us a good starting point to understand what speech acts are. The introduction of this concept helps us to understand that art can do (problematic) things.

Some have begun exploring how we can mitigate such harms in art through counterspeech. For example, spray painting “Black Lives Matter” (BLM) on Confederate monuments can “challenge derogatory messages of black inferiority … by making vivid the fact that the Confederacy was founded upon slavery” (Lai 2020, 608). Indeed, we may even have a duty to do this to such political symbols (ibid).

This paragraph goes a bit further. It tells us what people have actually been doing. Protests have done this and that. And theorists have talked about this very issue. I personally think it's nice to highlight previous literature, but it isn't always necessary. It really depends on how long the introduction should be (and this needs to be compared to how long the rest of the paper is), and how much relevant literature there is. One particular note. I've been told that sometimes journal (associate) editors look for literature review paragraphs for potential reviewers, but this doesn't always happen.

In this article, I broaden the notion of what I call ‘artistic counterspeech’ and identify aesthetic and curatorial strategies to disarm sexist and racist artworks. I propose that aesthetic spotlighting and aesthetic blocking can undo the work’s harmful content. I then show how these strategies can, under certain conditions, lead to what I call ‘metaphysical destruction’ of the artwork—destroying hateful art without physically destroying it. My account forms an important contribution to understanding the nature and mileage of counterspeech that utilizes aesthetic expression.

This is arguably the most important paragraph in the introduction. For very short essays, everything can be omitted but this paragraph. It tells us what this paper does. This gives us information particularly about why we may want to read this paper. It also tells us what contribution the article makes to the debate. It builds upon this notion called "counterspeech" introduced in the previous paragraph. It proposes this thing called "artistic counterspeech" that does pretty nice things: "disarm[ing] sexist and racist artwork." There are then a few terminologies. "aesthetic spotlighting" and "aesthetic blocking." These two are not explained, but I personally think they are clear-enough-ish. But remember there's always a risk that some readers won't get on board immediately. So one always has to weigh between clarity and length in an introduction (and everywhere else in any paper FWIW). Up to this point, I think the paper is fine and interesting, but then this concept appeared: "metaphysical destruction of [an] artwork" that "destroy[s] hateful art without physically destroying it." This sounds contradictory at first glance, but it also gives me the anticipation that if this concept can be spelled out coherently, it would be a good one and would make the paper really worth reading.

Section I argues that visual artworks can perform speech acts. Some might consider this controversial, and I do not exhaustively defend it here, but I do provide support for it. Section II extends this account to hate speech. After raising issues with censorship, Section III outlines artistic counterspeech, comprised of aesthetic spotlighting and blocking, and destruction.

This is the "road map" paragraph. I am a huge fan of signposting. But people love it or hate it.

I compiled these through my so far not overly long career as a lecturer. I learned to evaluate an assignment based on writing, structure, argumentation, interpretation, and originality when I worked for Professor Katie Steele as a tutor for her PPE Integration course. This is how I group the common mistakes.

Writing: 

• Long sentences, typically, anything over three lines should raise an alarm bell. 

• Incomplete sentences, either by cutting things down or simply “I’ll come back later and finish this sentence/paragraph," can be easily avoided. 

  • Try to use technical support, e.g. Grammarly (free version). 

  • The baseline is MS Word though, if there are word-detectable mistakes, then a serious problem you have. 

• Take a very quick glance before submitting: are there any unresolved comments or track changes? 

• There is no need to praise the authors. 

• Cite consistently.

Structure: 

• Where’s the topic sentence? 

  • “I shall/will argue that should appear somewhere in the first few paragraphs, where P stands for a definite position. 

  • It doesn’t have to be “I shall/will argue that...” It can be something that does the same work.

  • This should definitely occur early in the introduction. If I finish the introduction but can't figure out what you want to argue for, the marks will be significantly lowered.

• A more general point is that you should give readers some expectations, sign-posting if you would like to call it that. Let them know why you are writing the things you are writing in any particular location.

• Irrelevant paragraphs/sentences 

  • Providing background information is sometimes good, but not here. Make sure everything is relevant to P; furthermore, if P can be made without a particular paragraph/sentence, then the paragraph/sentence shouldn’t be written 

• Word limit. 

  • If you wrote 30% more, you didn’t read the requirement. 

  • If you wrote exactly 10% more, well, make sure nothing went wrong in writing, especially due to cutting sentences or paragraphs. 

Arguments: 

• Examples, unless they generalise, don’t suffice for arguments 

• Counterexamples are good though, as they show that something may not generalise 

• "I argue that…” must lead to an actual argument 

• “I agree that P” “P is true” etc. don’t add anything to “P." 

• Providing empirical evidence that something is wrong is great. 

• Universal objections, e.g. appealing to subjectivism, relativism, or nihilism are bad. Generally, if something hits your opponents as hard as their opponents, then you are not giving reason to favour one over another. 

Interpretation: 

• Read carefully. Huge penalty for misrepresenting something as the exact opposite.

• Note what the author(s) are doing. 

  • Everything/always or such universal statements can be overthrown by counterexamples.

  • Sometimes or such existential statements can’t be so overthrown. 

    • For example, if someone argues that it’s possible that regulations enhance freedom, giving an example that a regulation doesn’t enhance freedom doesn’t undermine their point. 

    • Consider the following: “I will show that drinking water is sometimes bad for your health.” (It may be because one has a heart failure, so drinking too much stresses your heart function.) You shouldn’t try to say to me: “but drinking a certain amount of water is good for the average healthy adult.” That misses the point. 

  • Rarely does anyone really say that they propose to fix everything; more likely they propose something that will be helpful. So don’t be disappointed if the problem isn’t completely solved; and don’t blame the author(s) for not solving everything. 

    • One example is inheritance tax. Daniel Halliday, for example, says that IHT may help to lessen the concentration of financial capital, that may in turn lessen the concentration of non-financial capital. It misses the mark if you say “but having IHT doesn’t eliminate all inequalities.” 

• If you find a too easy target, something may have gone wrong. It’s possible that you’re objection to something the author doesn’t hold. 

  • One example: there may be a threshold for IHT. If this is the case, then saying that the poor would be significantly affected by IHT may be the wrong direction to go. 

  • This would be a typical strawperson argument.

  • I think calling it the Scarecrow argument would be more interesting, but no one says this.

Originality: 

• Repeating what the author(s) say doesn’t strengthen what they say. 

• Repeating a response piece or what was discussed in the lecture videos isn’t very original.

• Generally, ask yourself: what would a person who has read the assigned reading learn from what you’ve written? It should be more than whether you agree or disagree. Aim at the following feeling: “oh now I feel stronger or less confident about what was provided in the assigned reading.”

So you need to write "slowly." It's important to properly explain. Especially in the context of assignment writing, we, as people who are paid to check whether you understand what was taught, seek evidence of your understanding. Check the following passage, where I've written something on what students often write. Suppose you face the assignment question: 

"what is the overdemandingness objection of classical utilitarianism?"

Assuming that we have already established what classical utilitarianism is - otherwise you will have to first establish this in writing - you may find out that the person next to you writes something like:

Classical utilitarianism would demand that an agent can't go to the gym. On the way to the gym, they might meet a local charity. They would have to donate to the charity, and thus would be unable to go to the gym.

You, as a typical student, know that the above is insufficient. Why? Because the above answer doesn't tell us why classical utilitarianism would prohibit you from going to the gym. You would probably write something better, something like this:

Classical utilitarianism may face the objection that it is overly demanding. Imagine this scenario: an agent would like to pay for a gym membership.  Going to the gym would benefit their health. It would also give them opportunities to meet friends and develop meaningful relationships. This appears to be something the agent is morally permitted to do. However, according to classical utilitarianism, this is not the case. 

If you end here, you still haven’t demonstrated that you have clearly grasped why you are required to make the sacrifice. This is just a verdict after all. It is, of course, better than what the person who sat next to you wrote. You have vaguely spelled out that what you were demanded to sacrifice is morally relevant. You know you will need to write a bit more.

...How can this be?

Accordingly, classical utilitarianism would evaluate this action by comparing it with possible alternatives. Would buying a gym membership maximise overall happiness? No, it would not. This is because there are alternative options. The most salient alternative here would be donating to an effective charity. The money, through effective charity, would be spent on those most in need. Perhaps there’s someone who would die of starvation, and the food that could be bought would prevent starvation. Truely, the happiness that results from going to the gym must be counted. But compared to the suffering prevented by donation, that is, death by starvation, the benefit of going to the gym is easily overweighed. So in this particular instance, classical utilitarianism would prohibit buying the gym membership, but demand donating to charity. This already seems somewhat implausible. 

If you finish here, you would have nicely demonstrated some basic understanding. You have, after all, demonstrated the ability to give not only a specific example, but what classical utilitarianism generally looks like: we need to compare the outcomes of different possible actions, and when one brings about more utility, we are required to do it. Yet, this is still insufficient for the purpose of a decent essay. You should push the point further to fend off the potential retort “forgoing the gym isn’t pleasant, but it’s a one off, and the sacrifice is real but not huge thus not overly demanding.” Identifying and responding to challenges will further demonstrate your knowledge. See the following.

Yet, the story doesn’t end here. Whenever our protagonist considers doing something for themselves, they will always have to consider the outcomes of possible alternatives. Can subscribing to streaming service to watch Andor season 1 and 2, enjoying that meal that is beyond being barely nutritious, or purchasing a mechanical keyboard, possibly generate more happiness compared to preventing easily preventable starvation? No! After all, there’s always another innocent person who will die of starvation unless saved. So in each scenario, our protagonist would be demanded by classical utilitarianism to forgo their own quality of life and help someone else. This would occur again and again until the point where our protagonist is as miserable as anyone else. Basically, classical utilitarianism would demand the total sacrifice of anything enjoyable, making life nasty, brutish, but insufferably long. And this is clearly way too demanding.

This would complete a “classical utilitarianism is too demanding” objection. What happens now is whether you can engage with this objection by, for example, considering how a classical utilitarian would respond to this. It can, for example, be “yes, this is totally the case; anyone who thinks otherwise clearly hasn’t taken the suffering of others seriously enough, or “no, classical utilitarianism wouldn’t arrive at this conclusion. This is a clear misunderstanding, for [insert a fancy argument here].” And if you do this, you can develop your paper into something even better.)

I encourage you to see the difference. Not just how many words are typed, but whether you have a) asserted what the problem is, b) demonstrated some understanding of the theory, c) spelled out its implications and showed that it is implausible, d) further developed how implausible if we further spell out the implications. Particularly note that in my second paragraph, I have spelled out the different outcomes of the options. As comparing options is core to classical utilitarianism, it is imperative that you do so in order to demonstrate that you understand how the utility calculus is performed.

To summarise, try to

• give a verdict or a statement that explains the thing in question

• use an example to start the explanation

• generalise a bit to reach your final verdict

• if required, consider how to respond to the issue, and further develop

This is just what I think. Remember that each marker has their own standards. If, again, the assignment requires you to answer the question:

"what is the overdemandingness objection of classical utilitarianism?"

And suppose this is what I receive:

Classical utilitarianism would demand that an agent can't go to the gym. On the way to the gym, they might meet a local charity. They would have to donate to the charity, and thus would be unable to go to the gym.

I think this ought (all things considered) to be a clear failure. That being said, given grade inflation and the financial pressure universities face, you will probably get a bare pass if everything you write is of this quality. (Notice the is-ought gap.) (On the UK grade scale, this would probably get you a 3.) Now consider:

Classical utilitarianism may face the objection that it is overly demanding. Imagine this scenario: an agent would like to pay for a gym membership.  Going to the gym would benefit their health. It would also give them opportunities to meet friends and develop meaningful relationships. This appears to be something the agent is morally permitted to do. However, according to classical utilitarianism, this is not the case. 

This, on the other hand, is something that will give you a clear pass.  It really isn't great. It might get you to the next grade level though. (That is to say, probably a the higher end of a 3 or the lower end of a 2/2.) But getting to one level above bare pass still isn't great. To get more, you will have to write something like this:

...How can this be?

Accordingly, classical utilitarianism would evaluate this action by comparing it with possible alternatives. Would buying a gym membership maximise overall happiness? No, it would not. This is because there are alternative options. The most salient alternative here would be donating to an effective charity. The money, through effective charity, would be spent on those most in need. Perhaps there’s someone who would die of starvation, and the food that could be bought would prevent starvation. Truely, the happiness that results from going to the gym must be counted. But compared to the suffering prevented by donation, that is, death by starvation, the benefit of going to the gym is easily overweighed. So in this particular instance, classical utilitarianism would prohibit buying the gym membership, but demand donating to charity. This already seems somewhat implausible. 

I think if you get to something above, you have written well. That being said, there is still some distance from being rather decent. (It is probably on the lower end of a 2/1.) As mentioned in the previous iteration, there are way too obvious objections that haven't been cleared out. The following, I believe, is something that will get you near the threshold of getting to the highest grade level. (That is, 1.)

Yet, the story doesn’t end here. Whenever our protagonist considers doing something for themselves, they will always have to consider the outcomes of possible alternatives. Can subscribing to streaming service to watch Andor seasons 1 and 2, enjoying that meal that is beyond being barely nutritious, or purchasing a mechanical keyboard, possibly generate more happiness compared to preventing easily preventable starvation? No! After all, there’s always another innocent person who will die of starvation unless saved. So in each scenario, our protagonist would be demanded by classical utilitarianism to forgo their own quality of life and help someone else. This would occur again and again until the point where our protagonist is as miserable as anyone else. Basically, classical utilitarianism would demand the total sacrifice of anything enjoyable, making life nasty, brutish, but insufferably long. And this is clearly way too demanding.

This is where the fun begins. (This is probably getting to the higher end of a UK 2/1.) What would get you to the highest grade level depends on what you do from now on. You are expected to demonstrate your own philosophical prowess. My recommendation in this example, as stated above, is that you will need to consider whether this is a successful objection to classical utilitarianism. You will need to consider whether classical utilitarianism can respond to this objection. The answer can be "yes," and one option would be to provide an error theory of why people would think this objection is a good one. Alternatively, the answer can be "no, classical utilitarianism wouldn't arrive at this conclusion, because [insert your fancy argument]." Depending on how good the stuff you write after your "yes" or "no" turns out to be, you may or may not get to the highest grade level. (On UK grade scale, 1.) 

A few things. 

• How good your grades turn out really depends on what you write after the "yes" or "no."

• There are many other factors that can move the final marks up or down. 

  • If, for example, the writing is so bad that I will have to read it more than twice, the marks will be lowered. 

  • If there are false attributions to philosophers or philosophical positions, marks will be significantly lowered.

  • If there is anything that makes me consider sending an email to the academic integrity officer, the marks will most likely fall; but a lot depends on the details.

  • We all make grammatical mistakes. But try not to do it too often.

  • If you write in a way that makes reading enjoyable, educational, exciting, etc., grades will probably go up; that being said, I'm not exactly sure they ought to go up. I just haven't had a clear thought on whether this just reflects biases.

• Remember grade inflation.  As far as graduate admissions go, a 3 or a 2/2 can and probably will be read as an institutional certification that you lack any knowledge of the subject matter whatsoever. That being said, a great writing sample will most likely render any blemishes on the transcript moot. On the other hand, I don't think non-academic jobs care though. 

• Grad students are expected to reliably and consistently arrive at the point where they can start demonstrating their philosophical prowess on a wide enough range of topics. 

  • By "wide enough" I refer to enough units of coursework to complete a masters program. (And if the program gives you enough flexibility, you can completely avoid the subfields that just don't resonate with you.)

  • This is also to say, grad students are expected to work hard to develop exceptional writing skills.

  • Getting here is sort of the threshold where one can start doing real philosophical work.

    • This is not unsimilar to reaching the highest level in the World of Warcraft. You will need to have reached the highest level to meaningfully participate in the game: to join raids or participate in arenas/battlegrounds. 

    • For those who have not played WOW, the idea is simple. The groundwork must be well established with good writing, before any philosophical advancement can be made. We strive to prepare grad students to become independent philosophers who can advance philosophical developments.

  • For grad school, we sort of evaluate things that are beyond the mere threshold.

    • Not meeting the threshold will make grad school intolerable.

1. check whether you have deleted all track changes and comments.

2. make sure that the meta data doesn’t contain someone else’s name, otherwise it would look extremely suspicious.

3. do a grammar check. My preference is grammarly, but I think using chatGPT for grammar check is also ok. Don’t allow chatGPT to rewrite things for you though.

4. double check whether there are incomplete sentences. This happens most often when you try to squeeze into the exact word limit

5. make sure that citations are all well fixed. "(should we cite the crappy Gabor paper here?)" "Cite Tim" should not occur in the final product.

6. make sure that you upload the correct document.

1. here's for Mac Keynote

2. here's for PPT

 I am not very good at making slides, but here's my effort. Feel free to reuse without acknowledgement. All the photos were taken during my phd candidature at the ANU. Most photos were taken in Canberra. All of them are from Australia.