Writing a Philosophy Essay

• Essay cover page
• Essay Deadlines and Penalties
• How to Find Literature
• How to Make Notes or Excerpts
• Writing the Essay
• Some Formal Criteria for Writing an Essay
• Re-Reading | Assessment | Plagiarism | Language
• Common Abbreviations in Notes and References

General

One of the skills you have to learn in Philosophy is to be able to write an essay about a philosophical subject. This is not only an exercise in verbal expression, but an essential way of learning to do Philosophy. Essay writing is an excellent exercise for collecting information relevant to a philosophical problem, for assessing the arguments involved and, last but not least, for presenting a position of your own which yu have to back up by sufficient reasons and good examples. Of course, this skill is not limited to philosophical problems alone. Once you have mastered it, it will be of invaluable help in other areas as well.

Choosing an Essay Title

As a rule, essay titles will be given by the lecturer in the early stages of each course.

Tutorials

Part of the work of tutorials is to give advice and support in the writing of essays, both in collecting information for them and structuring what is written.

How to Find Literature

Usually the lecturer or tutor will recommend books or articles meant to be an introduction into the subject you are going to write about. Finding further literature is mostly dependent on your own initiative. You will find the following sources to be useful aids:

(a) Dictionaries:
e.g. Encyclopaedia of Philosophy edited by Paul Edwards

(b) Histories of Philosophy
e.g. F.C.A. Copleston, A History of Philosophy

(c) Bibliographies
e.g. The Philosopher's Index
Repertoire Bibliographique de la Philosophie (Louvain)

(d) Periodicals
e.g. Philosophical Studies
Mind
Philosophical Quarterly

(e) Monographs/Biographies

You should normally start from general literature about your subject and end up with a special monograph or article, which means starting with dictionaries and consulting periodicals at a later stage. This will give you a better perspective on the complexity of the literature involved.

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How to Make Notes or Excerpts

Do not copy the whole article you are reading in preparation for your essay. Try to find out what the author's main argument is and what are the main reasons which back it up. Try to paraphrase or make excerpts of the central assertions. Examine the views of authors who have a different opinion on the subject and find out why. Again make notes and excerpts. Try to find an answer to the question whether the authors use logically sound arguments, whether they can be agreed with and why. Do they omit distinctions which you regard as necessary for the solution of the problem altogether? Questions of this kind will have to be answered in the preparatory phase of your essay. Making sufficient notes trying to answer these questions will be of great help in the fomulation of the essay itself.

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Writing the Essay

Make sure that you know what your position will be before starting to write the final draft of your essay. One of the main tasks you have to fulfil in writing your essay is to give sufficient backing to your position by reasons and arguments, relying to a great extent on the literature on the subject. You should mention and discuss counter-arguments to your own position as well.

If you take all these considerations into account, one possible structure of an essay could be the following:

The essay should have an introduction explaining the problem and its possible solution. It should have a central part consisting of the discussion of arguments and counter-arguments, partly found in literature and partly built up by yourself. It should have a conclusion giving a short assessment of your result and indicating problems arising from it.

Note: A summary of what you read is not an adequate substitute for an essay; nor is work which ignores the relevant literature. Always make sure to give reasons for assertions you make and do not forget to give examples of what you mean.

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Some Formal Criteria for Writing an Essay

1. Be concise.
The essay should have approximately 2,OOO-3,OOO words. The Extended Essay 5,OOO-8,OOO words.

2. Write legibly on one side of the page; preferably type your essay.
Extended Essay must be typed.

3. Whenever you quote from a book or article, make sure that you give its exact source.
When you quote from a printed work, use inverted commas around the words you quote, and give the author's surname, the year of publication of his/her work, and the page number.

Example:
I should like to deal with some aspects of the "Neopositivist" logic of science and its relation to some of the humanities' "peculiar interests and problems" (Apel l972, p.7).

You need to start a new line and indent only if you are quoting more than a line and a half.

Example:

In his article Apel is claiming to show

"why Neopositivists conceive of "understanding" only as an heuristic auxiliary function in the service of "covering law explanation" and thus cannot account of Hermeneutics, that is the methodology of interpreting the meaning of symbols (texts, works, actions, institutions etc." (l972, p.7)

If you refer again to the same argument, use the term "ibid." for "the same", only if you mean the very same paragraph you have just referred to; otherwise, the page number should be given again.

4. Always indicate, at the end of your essay, all the books and articles you have used. Titles of articles are given in inverted commas; titles of books and periodicals are underlined.

Examples:

K.O. Apel, "Communication and the Foundations of the Humanities", Acta Sociologica, vol. l5, l972, pp. 7-26.

A.R. Louch, Explanation and Human Action, Oxford, Blackwell, l966.

5. Make sure your essay has your name on it, and fasten the pages together securely.

The name of the supervisor should be put at the top of the front page of the essay.

6. Deliver the essay to the supervisor in charge or to the secretary's office in the Department of Philosophy.

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Re-Reading

Put the essay aside for a couple of days and then re-read it aloud. Do change it if you think it needs changing, but do not go on changing it forever.

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Assessment

It is important that you should know how well you have done and where you ought to improve your skills of essay writing. Your supervisor will help you in this matter.

Checklist for Presentation of Essays

Always go through the following checklist for presentation before writing up or typing the final draft of your essay, and again before submitting it:

• Every essay should include the required cover page with the following information:

• Essays should be typed in double-spacing; (if typing is impossible, you may hand write your essay, but be sure your writing is perfectly legible).
• Write on one side of the page only.
• Be sure to include page numbers, inserting them in the top right-hand corner of each page.
• Leave one-inch margins on both right and left-hand sides of each page.
• Do not use plastic covers on your essay: simply staple pages together.
• Proof-read your essay carefully before handing it in.
• Always retain a copy of your essay, in case the copy you hand in is mislaid.

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Plagiarism

Plagiarism means presenting the words of another writer as if they were your own. This is a serious matter, and if it is detected in your essay it may result in an automatic failure mark. The way to avoid plagiarism is very simple: always put quotation marks around someone else's words and credit them to their source. If you also borrow ideas from another writer, say so. In this way you can impress an examiner by showing that you have done some research. You do not always have to appear utterly "original"!

Language

Always avoid the use of language which is sexist, racist, or otherwise offensive.

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Common Abbreviations in Notes and References

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