Guidelines on Writing a Philosophy Paper

Philosophical writing is different from the writing you'll be asked to do in other courses. Most of the strategies described below will also serve you well when writing for other courses, but don't automatically assume that they all will. Nor should you assume that every writing guideline you've been given by other teachers is important when you're writing a philosophy paper. Some of those guidelines are routinely violated in good philosophical prose (e.g., see the guidelines on grammar, below). Contents What Does One Do in a Philosophy Paper? A philosophy paper consists of the reasoned defense of some claim Your paper must offer an argument. Three Stages of Writing 1. The early stages of writing a philosophy paper include everything you do before you sit down and write your first draft. Discuss the issues with others As I said above, your papers are supposed to demonstrate that you understand and can think critically about the material we discuss in class. Make an outline Start Work Early

Guidelines on Reading Philosophy It will be difficult for you to make sense of some of the articles we'll be reading. This is partly because they discuss abstract ideas that you're not accustomed to thinking about. They may also use technical vocabulary which is new to you. Sometimes it won't be obvious what the overall argument of the paper is supposed to be. The prose may be complicated, and you may need to pick the article apart sentence by sentence. Contents Skim the Article to Find its Conclusion and Get a Sense of its Structure A good way to begin when you're trying to read a difficult article is to first skim the article to identify what the author's main conclusion is. When you're skimming the article, try also to get a general sense of what's going on in each part of the discussion. The articles we read won't always have a straightforward structure. This is the conclusion I want you to accept. The conclusion I want you to accept is A. Articles can be complex in other ways, too. and so on.

The Best Resources On Teaching & Learning Critical Thinking In The Classroom Teaching and learning critical thinking in the classroom will be the topic of my next Education Week Teacher column (contribute your ideas there, please), so I wanted to develop a “The Best…” list with supporting materials. I put out a call on Twitter and Google Plus for people to make suggestions, but unfortunately didn’t do a great job of keeping track who made the suggestions. I apologize if I did not credit you for your suggestion. I’ll keep much better track the next time I put out a similar request. I hope readers will contribute additional suggestions. You might also be interested in: The Best Sites For Cooperative Learning Ideas The Best Resources For Helping Teachers Use Bloom’s Taxonomy In The Classroom The Best Sites For Students To Create & Participate In Online Debates The Best Tools To Help Develop Global Media Literacy Here are my picks, and the picks from my Personal Learning Network, for The Best Resources On Teaching & Learning Critical Thinking In The Classroom: Related

Free Course: A Survey of Shakespeare's Plays This is a course on Shakespeare's career, given at Brandeis University in the spring of 2010, by William Flesch. It covers several representative plays from all four genres: comedy, tragedy, history, and romance. We consider both the similarities and differences among those genres, and how his more and more radical experimentations in genre reflect his developing thought, about theater, about time, about life, over the course of his career. In terms of texts, any complete Shakespeare will suffice, including this free version online from MIT. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19: The Winter's Tale, part 1: Things Dying: Audio 20. Support Open Culture We're hoping to rely on our loyal readers rather than erratic ads.

Early Modern Texts Plagiarism Checker - the most accurate and absolutely FREE! Try now! A Time Travel Website — Exploring the paradoxes of time travel Encyclopedia Britannica AITopics About a little thing called 750 Words Teach Philosophy 101 > Home Talking Philosophy | The Philosophers' Magazine Blog 1000-Word Philosophy | Philosophy, One Thousand Words at a Time