Writing Skills

Types of assessment Formative Summative Formative assessment is not-for-credit; your final mark for the module will rest solely on your summative assessment. Typically, your formative essay will be 1500 words on Level 4 modules. Summative Summative assessment is assessment for credit. It determines your final degree class. By and large, it will rest on either a two-hour examination in May/June (or January in the solitary case of 4AANA003 Elementary Logic), or two essays on some modules in later years.

Elements of a good paper A philosophy paper consists of the rational defense of some claim. It’s always a good idea to state a clear thesis early in the paper. A good philosophy paper is modest and makes a small point; but it makes that point clearly and straightforwardly, and it offers good reasons in support of it. In your paper, you might: Criticize a specific argument; Show that certain arguments for the thesis are no good; Defend the argument or thesis against someone else’s criticism; Offer reasons to believe the thesis; Offer counter-examples to the thesis; Argue that certain philosophers are committed to the thesis by their other views, though they do not come out and explicitly endorse the thesis; Discuss what consequences the thesis would have, if it were true; Revise the thesis, in the light of some objection.

Stages of writing Discuss the issues with others Write an outline: state your thesis, try to identify the central argument that you’ll discuss, force yourself to focus your discussion on that particular argument. Write a draft: use simple prose, explain what the technical terms mean, use illustrative examples, and signpost throughout. Edit: read the draft aloud, ask yourself whether the body is well- structured, what role each paragraph plays in furthering the discussion, and whether the material there is necessary and sufficient for defending your thesis.

Common Problems I Lacks a clear thesis. Exs: This is a paper about Mackie’s error theory. I believe that names are not devices of direct reference. I will show that utilitarianism is not the best moral theory. The thesis should state your position ((a) doesn’t), it should identify a reason for thinking the position is correct ((b) and (c) don’t do that), and the position should be one that can be defended in the space provided ((c) doesn’t do that). Better: In this paper, I shall argue Mackie’s argument from moral disagreement does not support his anti-realist views. To show that names are not devices of direct reference, I shall argue that only the descriptivist can solve Frege’s Puzzle. To show that the utilitarian view is mistaken, I shall argue that there is a morally significant difference between doing and allowing.

Common Problems II Discussion is too broad. We often find that people try to discuss everything from the readings. We want you to focus on the points that matter and leave out the extraneous parts. Remember, you won’t be asked to summarize a reading or a collection of readings, but to discuss some position or some specific argument for that position. You should show that you can provide a discussion that is rich in details. You should avoid a superficial overview of a debate. On politics exams, for example, students may be asked to discuss the strongest argument for, say, the Difference Principle. What is required is one argument for the Difference Principle and a detailed explanation and assessment of that argument (e.g., What is the argument’s structure? What role does the Original Position play? Are there any steps missing?). NOT a thumbnail sketch of three or four arguments that Rawls discusses.

Common Problems III Forgets the imagined audience In the bad old days, I had a student submit an exam that said something like this, “In class, you presented an objection to Nozick’s Wilt Chamberlain argument. You drew a diagram on the board. [There was a drawing with some arrows and circles.] You could probably explain it better than I can.” Probably. Remember that the goal is not to remind the reader (a professor or a GTA) of some interesting idea or argument but to explain the interesting idea or argument as if you were the professor or GTA trying to explain things to an audience of university students with no prior introduction to the material. Your imagined audience is clever and will read about as carefully as you do, but it is not well-versed on the material.

Common problems IV Student doesn’t explain things in his or her own words. This covers a myriad of sins: Quoting texts without explaining their meaning or acknowledging sources; Using technical language without explaining its meaning; Failing to provide illustrative examples when introducing subtle distinctions. Writing like a philosophical sociopath (e.g., using clever turns of phrase to mask or conceal the darkness within where the understanding should be).

Common Problems V Doesn’t answer the question. ‘Nuff said.

Discipline You cannot improve as a writer without practice and you have to be a passable writer to get somewhere in philosophy. My advice: Spend an hour each day writing. Start a blog and use it to write about philosophy. Pick a piece of philosophical writing (assigned, perhaps), try to identify an argument, offer a reconstruction of that argument, explain the crucial moves, and identify objections to the premises. Read it aloud to yourself to see how it works from the inside. The standard you should use to assess this writing—if I presented this to my peers, would I clearly explain the issue to them.