ADVICE FOR WRITING PAPERS
- follow the directions for any assignment carefully; this means,
sometimes, going back and rereading them even while you are working on
the assignment
- give your paper an interesting, informative title
- write a good introduction and conclusion; the introduction should
introduce the topic in an interesting way that grips the reader and
makes him or her want to read on, and it should give the reader an idea
about how you will develop your ideas, and what sort of conclusion you
are going to reach; write the introduction last, or rewrite it at the
end when you know what your paper is actually about; the conclusion
should pull the various strands of the paper together, indicate topics
that need more work or questions that have not been addressed;
introduction and conclusion are like bookends to a paper: they hold it
together
- watch for the ‘flow’ or ‘logic’ of the
paper; the sequence of points you address should not be random but
‘follow’ one another
- if you use connective terms like ‘next’,
‘then’, ‘now’, and so on, be sure that the
reader knows why you are moving on, and to what; these terms should
reflect a logical connection within the discussion, not just your
psychological state of mind
- do not pile up ideas too fast, or too densely; that is, make sure
you address points adequately before moving on; don’t just drop
names or terms in order to sound learned (intelligent b.s. remains
b.s.)
- tailor your paragraphs to the subject matter, and don’t
stuff them full of too many ideas; each paragraph should have its own
topic, which is addressed therein; on the other hand, don’t
reduce your paragraphs to itsy-bitsy size either, as you often find it
in journalistic or newspaper writing; the latter is done partly for
reasons of layout, and because it’s hard to read long paragraphs
in small, newspaper print; paragraphs that are too long will lose the
reader, who gets exhausted, while paragraphs that are too short
fragment the discussion and also make it hard to follow the overall
development of ideas
- don’t address the reader (i.e., the professor) directly:
don’t say “you” as if you were speaking to another
person
- do not use contractions: i.e. write “do not” rather
than “don’t” and so on
- avoid colloquial terms where possible: e.g., say
‘afraid’ or ‘frightened’, rather than
‘scared’; this is often a matter of feel
- keep your tenses uniform: don’t switch back and forth from
present to past and present, etc., unless there is a specific reason to
do this
- don’t overuse or misuse quotations by letting them do your
talking for you; that is, don’t just string together a series of
quotations from others, with a bit of connective talk in between; you
are the author doing the talking, not the person whose work you are
discussing
- quotations that are four lines or more should use block-format
style with equal indents from each side
- avoid the use of “dictionaries” to make philosophical
points; for instance, don’t start by saying “according to
Merriam-Webster”; all-purpose dictionaries are not written by
philosophers, and there is no reason to think that they get a
philosophical concept right; instead of a general dictionary, why not
consult your authors (i.e., Blackburn, George, etc.) directly?
- don’t confuse positions that an author (e.g., Blackburn)
discusses or criticizes with those that he him- or herself holds; this
sometimes happens when people do not read the material carefully enough
- take notes in class to ‘catch’ ideas as they go by
(not only when written on the board, but when spoken by the professor
and/or other students); some of the best papers are by people who are
attentive in this sort of way, noting thoughts and arguments that
become useful later on; just because a class does not have a formal
structure and consist of Powerpoint slides does not mean that nothing
is happening; that approach can easily make learning too passive; be an
active learner with questions in your mind, and gather insights
wherever you find them
- go over your paper at the end, check for grammar, check for
spelling; use the built-in spell-checker in Word or Open Office –
ask somebody how to do this is you don’t know already