How to Write a Philosophy Paper

How to Write a Philosophy Paper

by
Jeff McLaughlin Ph.D.

University College of the Cariboo

Part Three of a Three Part Series

Part One: Reading | Part Two: Planning | Part Three: Writing | Home

The process of writing a good philosophy paper can begin when you are
evaluating the works of others; that is, you can learn by example.
Unfortunately, for a variety of reasons, not all ‘classics’ are good candidates
for you to follow. What follows here are just a few suggestions on how to
write your own paper. Of course, any requirements or recommendations of
your Professor will take precedence over these instructions.

Your Title
Although the first thing a reader will see is the title of your essay, the choice
of title is perhaps best left for last. This is the case because a title should
give an good indication as to the nature of the work – and you’ll have a
better idea of what this is when the paper has been completed.

Why should the reader read your paper and not someone else’s? Make the
title informative but not too specific – it’s a title, not a wordy thesis
statement. Feel free to personalize the title but don’t make it wildly

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 How to Write a Philosophy Paper

outrageous!

Let’s image that you are writing a paper in Epistemology. One possible title
would be: Truth Problematic? Definitely. ‘Truth’ is far too generic, and a bit
pompous to boot. How about: The Correspondence Theory of Truth. –
Better; but it is still too broad and it doesn’t provide the reader with a sense
of the paper’s purpose. The Correspondence Theory of Truth: A Defense
– This is even better as it gives the reader an indication as to what you’re
examining and hints at what your point of view will be. Of course, it’s not
very sexy but we leave that possibility up to you.

Your opening
Your opening paragraph(s) should set the stage for the rest of the paper.
You are providing your reader with a contextual roadmap of what they can
expect. It provides the reader with some indication as to why the topic is
important, what the general problem is (or has been) and what your general
thesis will be. If you have the space, you may wish to provide a brief glimpse
of the main points you will be making- but be careful, you don’t want to
spend 1/3 of a short essay just explaining what the essay will be about. Just
like your title, you may want to write the first paragraph last. This is due to
the fact that you may not be quite sure what direction the paper will
ultimately take and what the various arguments will be. Thus, instead of
trying to force your paper to comply with the limits that you set out in a poor
opening paragraph, just sketch the start of your paper to begin with and
then jump right into the main text. Of course, the creation of an outline prior
to this (see ‘How to Plan your Paper)will benefit. Once you’ve written the first
draft, then you can go back and tweak the opening paragraph.

Your text
While the opening sentence of each paragraph should be a new idea or an
expansion of a previous one, it must flow naturally from the last sentence of
the previous paragraph. Take care that you don’t jump around from point to
point without warning the reader – otherwise the reader will be lost as to
where you are going and what you are trying to accomplish. Of course, there
are many different approaches to write your essay, and sometimes it just
becomes a matter of what works best for you, the topic and what your
instructor wants. For example, you may want to present the issue, your
views, then the possible objections and your responses; or you may wish to
develop these things all in tandem. That is, present an argument and a
possible objection then resolve the criticism and move on.

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 How to Write a Philosophy Paper

The central sentences of a paragraph will provide details and expand the
claim being made while the final sentence will leave the reader with a strong
sense of what this key point is as well as setting up the next paragraph.
Paragraphs should not be overly long however.

As a general rule, stronger arguments should be reserved for later on in your

paper. Start with the more fragile or the less significant ones first, and then
build up your case. You don’t want to end on a weak note since the last
things you say will be the first things that the reader will remember. Don’t be
afraid to offer an apparent weak point – so long as you are able to recognize
that it is a difficulty and are able to successfully respond to it. For example,
let’s say your claim is that ‘any form of euthanasia is immoral and it should
never be an institutionalized practice because physicians are in the business
of curing people, not killing them’. One objection (and there would be many)
might be the fact that this blanket prohibition means that there will be
people who will be suffering needlessly: “Is it fair to force an elderly woman
who is terminally ill to be in a constant state of pain until her death?” To this
you might reply that not permitting euthanasia doesn’t mean that we should
stop caring for patients. Perhaps a new drug regiment can be put into
practice to ease her pain; perhaps legalization of medicinal marijuana is
needed, and so forth.

Your conclusion
Your conclusion should pull the pieces of your paper together for one final
‘send-off’. This is the last chance you have to grab the reader. The
conclusion is used to restate your thesis and main arguments with reference
to the specific concerns of your paper as well as to the general topic. It
should complete what you started in such a fashion that the reader can walk
away gaining some insight into what you were trying to do all along.

Your paper’s characteristics

Let’s assume you are writing a relatively long argumentative paper. When
constructing your paper be sure that:
● The course concepts and presentation of others’ views are clear and

accurate.
● You attempt to be original.

● Any use of others words or ideas directly or indirectly are clearly cited.

(see ‘How to cite your sources’ below).

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 How to Write a Philosophy Paper

● The paper has correct spelling, punctuation, diction and is expressed in

appropriate formal language including gender-neutral terminology.
● The paper is well-organized & you do not digress. This organization is
also made clear to the reader.
● The paper clearly presents the issue it will discuss and selects
appropriate aspects of that issue for discussion.
● The paper is not too broad in attempting to answer ‘every problem’ but
deals with select elements in-depth.
● The arguments are presented clearly, logically and understandably.
● The writer takes a definite position on the issue.
● The paper gives appropriate and cogent reasons for the position taken.
● The paper considers the viewpoints of others.
● The paper gives appropriate reasons for rejecting these views.
● The paper considers reasonable objections to its own positive argument
including any that were presented in class or found in assigned
readings.
● The arguments for rejecting these objections are clear and cogent.

How to Cite Your Sources

MLA Footnotes and Bibliography

Footnotes or endnotes can be used for two different purposes. The first is to
give information regarding the resource you are citing, the second is to use
them for commentary that does not fit in the main body of your paper but is
still relevant and worth stating. For example, in a footnote you might provide
the entire passage that you quoted from or you might make offer a general
remark about the author or the source.

Many instructors permit inclusion of reference citations within the body of

the essay. For example,

Dualists, and even Idealists, would dispute the claim of the

Reductionists since these two schools of thought maintain that the
“mind is not a material thing” (Wilson, 63).

However, I find that in-text citations can interrupt the flow of the essay. If I
am thinking about the author’s argument, inserting references can break the
visual flow of the argument and, accordingly, my concentration. Also, if the

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 How to Write a Philosophy Paper

author whom you are citing has more than one article published in the same
year, this will cause confusion unless you now include part of the title in your
citation (e.g., Wilson, I Know I Left it Somewhere 63). This, in my view, only
makes the distraction more pronounced. Given that I often make use of
footnotes for both commentary and referencing, I prefer to just use
footnotes for everything – but this is merely a personal preference. Please
check with your instructor to see what format he or she expects.

Using footnotes in Modern Language Association style is very easy. There are
only four components: Author, Title, Publication Information, Page. Here are
samples of the commonly used types of sources. Follow each example
exactly (i.e., use underlines, italics, commas etc., in the same way).

FOOTNOTES OR ENDNOTES

BOOK
Jack Wilson. My Mind: I Know I Left it Somewhere around Here. (New York:
Wadsworth Publishing, 2001), p. 210.

ARTICLE IN ANTHOLOGY
Jane Brill. “Drinking Water Concerns”, in Environmental Problems 3rd edition.
eds., Martin Smith and Debra Hans, (Vancouver: Raincoast Sons, 1988), p.
34.

ARTICLE IN JOURNAL
Jason Jones. “Righting Wrongs: Utilitarianism and Capital Punishment” in
Philosophy and Public Issues. Vol. 12, No. 2. (Jan.-Mar. 2003), p. 111.

FURTHER CITATION OF SAME AUTHOR - SAME SOURCE

Wilson. My Mind: I Know I Left it Somewhere around Here p. 212.

CLASS NOTES
Jeff McLaughlin. ‘Philosophy 666 lecture’. January 7, 2004.

ONLINE REFERENCES
Information is the same as above with additional remarks. No page reference
is required. Note: the first date below refers to when the article was posted
or last updated (if known) and the second is when you visited the website.
See the MLA Style site http://www.mla.org/style_faq4 for other details and

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 How to Write a Philosophy Paper

other kinds of online sources.

Jeff McLaughlin. “How to Do Philosophy”. home page, May 1999, Visited: 12

June 2002. <http://www.jeffmclaughlin.ca>.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Put the author’s last name first and keep the information the same as above
(but drop the parentheses and page references).

Church, Jessica. Neurology and Personal Awareness. Chicago: New Press,

1993.

Some final remarks:

1. Reference numbers are sequentially ordered: 1,2,3,4,5,6 etc. Numbers

[1]
are also superscript (small numbers placed above the text line) All
MS Word programs do this automatically.

2. Long quotes must be separated from the body of your text, indented
and single spaced. Quote marks are not used in this case and the
passage is followed with a citation number. For example:

In the summer of the last year of the great War, men and women back home
started to

return to their normal lives. Yet the world was not the same place as it had
been.

According to the New York Times journalist Jackson Smith:

Although many women began to return to their previous lives as

homemakers, the few men who were starting to return from the front
lines in Europe and the Pacific where discovering that the jobs that they
had left years ago had in fact left them. Women had replaced men on
the assembly lines and in the factories when there was a shortage of

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able bodies during the war. These same women were found to be
extremely capable workers and the economic situation in North America
[2]
had changed forever.

3. If you wish to delete some of the quoted text because it is irrelevant

use three dots … to signify that text is deleted. For example,

The original source:

She listed many household appliances including hot water tanks,
dishwashers, clothes dryers, television sets that were considered expensive.

Your quotation:
“She listed many household appliances …that were considered expensive.”

4. If you need to add/change a word (to clarify the meaning of the

sentence) or capitalize or remove capitalization from the quote, use
square brackets []. For example,

“[The child] listed many household appliances …that were considered

expensive.

5. In the following case, the original sentence started with ‘She’ but it is
now part of a new sentence:

Even though Sarah was still quite young, “[s]he [was able to list] many
household appliances …that were considered expensive.

6. Please remember that e.g., (an abbreviation of the latin ‘exempli

gratia’) is used when you wish to give examples and i.e., (an
abbreviation of the latin ‘id est’)is used when you wish to rephrase or
clarify the meaning of a term in other words. For example,

“There are many expensive (i.e., cost over $400.00) household appliances,
(e.g., television sets and dishwashers)”.

7. Never use ‘I feel’ when you really mean to write: ‘I think’ or ‘I believe’.
‘I feel happy’ is fine, but ‘I feel that truth is a correspondence of how
the world really is, with what the person is claiming’ suggests that you

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have an intuition or a ‘gut-reaction’ about what truth is. You are not
going to persuade anyone to accept your views based upon what YOU
feel. Besides, feelings are just sensations…

8. In fact, try to avoid using ‘I think’ entirely since first person usage is
often redundant. If you write: ‘I think abortion is wrong’, this provides
no more information to the reader than stating ‘Abortion is wrong’. The
reader already knows that you think abortion is wrong, because you’re
the author of the essay! There’s no need to remind them of this fact.
Moreover, dropping ‘I think’ provides a subtle benefit to your claim. You
are trying to persuade someone that abortion is wrong, not just that
you believe that it is wrong. To do to the latter is to open yourself up to
the obvious rebuttal that ‘what you write may lead you to believe
abortion is wrong, but it sure doesn’t convince me.’

9. Be sure to keep the paper as close to the prescribed length as possible.

Part of the exercise is to see if you can speak intelligently about the
topic within the limit set out. If the paper is too short, you will be
almost guaranteed that the topic will not be dealt with appropriately. If
the paper is too long, then it is not as concise as it should be. Both of
these extremes are subject to penalties.

10. Use common sense when putting your presentation together. Buy a
stapler tomorrow if you don’t own one. Don’t use that lined or that
personalized paper covered in roses that you found in a drawer because
‘that’s all you had left’. Don’t use odd coloured ink or strange margins
or font settings. Not being professional about how your work looks
indicates how much you care or don’t care about what you are doing.

[1]
Text citation.
[2]
Text citation.
End of Part Three of a Three Part Series
Part One: Reading | Part Two: Planning | Part Three: Writing | Home

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