To a certain extent, you can learn how to
write philosophy by reading philosophy. Read enough, and you’ll eventually
“catch on” to what’s being done and how to do it. But if you need to write a
paper for class, you might not have enough time to learn by immersion in this
way; you might need, or want, some instruction about how to write philosophy
papers right now.
Because writing is such complex and
individual process, it’s difficult to give one-size-fits all writing advice.
Nonetheless, a few pointers can be given and this advice can go a long way
toward eliminating much of the frustration and anxiety. We’ll start by looking
at some characteristics of a good philosophy paper. This will give help to
understand how we can produce one.
This
is probably the most basic requirement. Plagiarism is intentionally or
unintentionally representing somebody else’s ideas as one’s own, and should be avoided
at all costs. You may, of course, appeal to the ideas of others, if you
acknowledge doing so and site your sources appropriately.
2) A philosophy paper should have a clear purpose.
Your readers should always have a clear
understanding of what you’re going to do in your paper.
There are four general kinds of philosophy papers,
and each has it’s own type of objective.
1. Expositive writing
consists of summarizing or setting out a position, an article, an argument, or
the ideas of a given philosopher, in your own words, in order to help your
reader to understand material that is otherwise obscure or hard to follow.
2. Comparative writing
compares two or more positions or arguments, discussing their connections, what
they have in common and how they differ.
3. Evaluative writing assesses the merit, or
relative merit, of one or more positions or arguments.
4. Constructive writing defends a point of its
own. It takes up a question, presents a conclusion, and defends it with an
argument.
Usually this will involve an
analysis and evaluation of particularly relevant and influential work in order
to elucidate or advance your own position, and it will often involve a response
to actual or potential objections.
3) A paper should be well organized.
Your paper as a whole, and
each part of your paper, should work to fulfill the purpose of the paper. It
should take up each task in the order most helpful to meeting that objective
and finish one thing before starting another.
4) A paper should flow.
Ensure
that your paper flows nicely from one point to the next. Avoid sudden jerks.
Use smooth transitions.
Organizational cues,
including section headings, transitions, subject-changes, and summaries of what
will be or has been done, can help your reader to follow your paper.
If there is more than one
argument, ensure that your readers understand how the arguments are related to
each other (e.g. one argument might be your own position, another argument
might be a possible objection, a third argument might be a response to that
objection, etc.)
5) A paper should be clear.
Make
sure that you really understand what you’re saying and that an average member
of your audience could be expected to understand it, too. When it doubt about
your audience, the positions and arguments should be stated in such a way that
they would be understood by a reasonably intelligent reader who is unfamiliar
with the material.
If you are going to set out an
argument (either your own or another person’s) make certain to include all of
the important ideas and ensure that the connections between the ideas are as
clear as possible.
It really helps to read your work out
loud and ask yourself “If I were someone else, would I understand this?” It
also helps to provide your reader with guiding questions, definitions of
specialized terminology, descriptions of positions, and important distinctions.
6) A paper should be complete.
Think slowly. Don’t jump to conclusions. Flesh out all
ideas and arguments in sufficient detail and ensure that you adequately defend
claims that need defending.
Sometimes,
specific examples can help to flesh out and support general claims.
7) A philosophy paper should be
focused.
Try not to include irrelevant or inessential material,
unrelated the attainment of the paper’s purpose. If
you aren’t going to discuss an argument, for example, don’t spend time setting
it out.
8) A philosophy paper should be
substantively correct.
Attribute positions to the right person and
represent those positions correctly. Always try to avoid speculating about an
author’s motivations because motivations are difficult to establish and are
usually irrelevant to the merits of an author’s case.
Ensure that your
own reasoning avoids serious errors of fact or logic. If you aren’t sure that
your interpretation is correct, or that your argument is sound, admit it.
Note actual or
possible objections to your position, interpretation or argument. If you admit
possible problems, and discuss them intelligently, they don’t really count as
mistakes.
9) A philosophy paper should be
mechanically correct,
adhering to the rules of style and usage.
10) Ideally, a philosophy paper
should be creative,
asking new questions, answering old questions in new ways, seeing new things,
seeing old things in new ways, or making an original point.
Of course, it’s one thing to know what makes a good paper; it’s quite another
thing to write one. So let’s take a look at the writing process itself.
How to Go about Writing a
Paper
As
we’ve seen, a good paper should have a clear purpose, so the first thing you
should do is find a paper topic, something to write about. (If you’re taking a
class, your professor might give you a paper topic, particularly if you’re
relatively new to philosophy.)
Once
you have a something to write about, it’s very tempting to start writing
the paper. But be patient!
Take
some time to defend the position to yourself. Construct an argument to support
your position. Consider how someone might object to your position or argument
and think about how you might respond to those objections.
And
- as horrible as this might be to contemplate - remember that you might be
unable to set out a good argument for your position and you might be unable to
respond to an objection you envision. If this happens, you’ll need to
seriously consider the possibility that your position is mistaken and, if you
decide that it is, you’ll need to change your position and write a different
paper. That’s okay. It’s more important to be right than stubborn.
3) Organize your Paper
Once you’ve decided upon the position you want to defend,
and decided upon how you want to defend it, determine what background
information your readers will need. This will give you a basic list of things
you want to say, and you can start to think about the order in which you want
to say them.
Four
basic rules here are:
i) Plan to present your
material in an order that will be easy for your readers to follow.
ii) Plan to present one
point at a time.
iii) Plan to develop each
point in sufficient detail, and
iv) Plan to finish one thing
before starting another.
4) Write your Paper
By
the time you start to write your paper, you should know what position you want
to defend, how you want to defend it, and the order in which you want to do
things. All of this should put you in a pretty good position to fill out your
outline with narrative. I typically start at the beginning of the paper and
write to the end at this point. And don’t worry! You aren’t expected to come up
with finished product yet, because after you’ve written your paper, you will
review it.
5) Review your Paper
This
is a very important step! When you have good first draft of your paper,
compare it with the Characteristics of a Good Philosophy Paper.
6) Revise your Paper
After you’ve reviewed your paper in light of
the characteristics of a good philosophy paper, you can make the necessary
changes.
If you wish, you can then repeat the process,
reviewing your paper again, making more revisions, reviewing your paper again,
making still more revisions, and so on, until eventually you call yourself
done.
Let’s take a moment to put this advice into practice.