General advice on writing a philosophy paper

The thesis should something sufficiently interesting, about which reasonable people could differ, and which can be defended. "In this paper, I will show that two plus two is four" is obviously true and not worth writing about. "In this paper, I will prove that Colorado Springs has a tropical climate" is impossible to prove. Don't set your sights either too high or too low.

Not everything you assume to be true is actually self-evidently true. A lot of what happens in philosophy is learning about one's own assumptions and how to defend those, or to get rid of the ones that are indefensible. You might think it's impossible for anyone to disagree with the statement that "There are no true liberals left in American politics; even Clinton and Gore are basically Republicans," but not everyone will be like-minded.

If, halfway through, you can't figure out what the sentence you're writing has to do with the thesis, stop and try to figure out how it links. If it doesn't at all, it probably doesn't need to be there. If it does but you need to explain why, add the explanation.

Transitions are important; they lead the reader through your argument. Transitional words, though, should only be used for actual transitions. Obvious problems are using words like "therefore" and "thus" followed by a statement which has nothing to do with what came before it.

Texts have to be interpreted, which means you need to quote passages to support your interpretation. The following are not appropriate uses of text as they stand. (Nor are the appropriate citations.)

• The Bible says be nice to people.
• Kierkegaard says that Abraham is important (Kierkegaard).
• Nietzsche says "Kierkegaard is tiresome" (Nietzsche, 20-150).
• Marx loves capitalism. As he says, it involves "amazing wealth" (Marx, 241).
• Plato's dialogue is about love (class notes).
• Plato believes in a theory of forms (Plato Introduction, 2).
• Descartes believes in dualism (www.randomhack.com/descartes/bs.html).

Evidence for a claim can be of varying types. A lot of the work in evaluating arguments rests in deciding how to evaluate evidence.

• A reference to an authority is not necessarily the best evidence. One must consider he authority's credentials, and whether there is reasonable disagreement among experts. Arguments from authority are not valid, but they can be good arguments nonetheless.
• Ad hominems are logical fallacies: "Marx said it, and he's stupid, therefore it's false" is not a good argument. There are many other logical fallacies you should avoid as well; you should become familiar with them.
• "I think" is not evidence in itself. "I think it is going to rain tomorrow" is not a better reason to bring out an umbrella than "it is going to rain tomorrow." Generally, since it is your paper, I will assume that statements you assert are things you think are true.

Avoid useless generalities: "In today's modern complex society," "throughout time people have struggled with political questions," etc. They waste space and make you sound like someone who doesn't have enough to say. You're also probably not qualified to say things like "philosophers have always struggled with the question of…" How many philosophers have you read?

Avoid making absolutist, overly general claims. Any argument whose conclusion is "therefore Plato is totally wrong" is probably a bad argument. Remember that most issues worth talking about are not simple.

Most issues worth talking about also aren't cut and dried: the "other side" probably does have something worth taking into consideration. The best reasoning is that which understands and anticipates opposing arguments, and takes them into account.

With respect to vocabulary, there are a number of points:

• Keep your writing simple, but not simplistic. Only use big words and jargon if you must; otherwise use simple, easy-to-understand language.
• Don't use a variety of different words to refer to the same idea or problem just because you don't want to sound repetitive. You should worry more about precision and less about beauty.
• Philosophers often give words precise, technical meanings that are not used in that precise or technical way in ordinary conversation. You should know if a word is being used in this way in anything you read; and you should only use these words in your writing if you fully understand them and can use them correctly.
• In addition, you may want to give a term a precise meaning that is different from its colloquial meaning in your paper. It is fine to do this as long as you carefully explain the definition you're using, and use the term consistently with this definition throughout your paper.
• Some philosophers also have a habit of giving the same technical word a slightly different meaning than others do. Thus, while there is no need to explain terms like "valid" or "necessary" in your paper, you do need to explain what you mean by "physicalism" or "sense data."

Always follow the guidelines for quotations and citations.

A coherent argument is difficult to sustain over many pages. I recommend having someone else read your paper for clarity, cohesiveness, etc., before you hand it in.

Proofreading your paper is not the same as running spell-check. Spell-check won't catch common mistakes like:

• Using "their" for "there" or vice versa
• Using "it's" for "its" or vice versa
• Writing "based off" when the appropriate clause is "based on"
• Writing "centered around" when the appropriate clause is "centered on"
• Mismatching the subject of the sentence with the possessives: "One should do their own work" should be "One should do his or her own work."
• Misspelling an author's name

Do not use rhetorical questions or slang in your writing. They diminish the clarity of your paper by making the reader guess at your meaning.