Thinking and Writing About Philosophy

by Bedau, Hugo

• ISBN13: 9780312100827
• ISBN10: 0312100825
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1996-03-01
• Publisher: BEDFORD

Table of Contents

To the Instructor: Helping Your Students Improve Their Writing

iii

To the Student: Why Improving Your Writing Matters---to You

vi

First You Write

1

(3)

A Socratic Exercise

1

(1)

Some Important Features of Writing Philosophy

2

(2)

Writing to Understand Reading

4

(43)

Reading Versus Skimming

4

(1)

Rewriting What You Have Read: Four Assignments

4

(29)

Writing a Summary

5

(1)

Some Guidelines for Writing an Effective Summary

6

(1)

Summarizing an Extract from David Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion

6

(3)

The Summary

Noab Kriegel

9

(2)

Writing an Abstract

11

(1)

Some Guidelines for Writing an Effective Abstract

12

(1)

Writing an Abstract of Jennifer Trusted's ``The Concept of Freedom''

13

(6)

The Abstract

19

(2)

Iva Zoric

Extracting an Author's Thesis

21

(2)

Some Guidelines for Extracting an Author's Thesis

23

(1)

Extracting the Thesis from Bertrand Russell's ``Three Essentials for a Stable World''

23

(3)

Extracting a Thesis from Friedrich Nietzsche's The Genealogy of Morals

26

(3)

Extracting the Thesis from Edmund Gettier's ``Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?''

29

(4)

Outlining an Essay

33

(14)

A Sample Outline

34

(1)

Some Guidelines for Writing an Effective Outline

35

(1)

Writing an Outline of Marilyn Frye's ``Sexism''

36

(8)

The Outline

44

(3)

Tina Lee

Evaluating Argumentative Prose

47

(20)

Argument Versus Disputation And Persuasion

48

(1)

Argument In Detail

49

(1)

Formulating and Evaluating a Definition

50

(4)

Constructing a Definition Based on Ernest Nagel's ``A Defense of Atheism''

51

(2)

A Student's Definition

53

(1)

Evaluating an Argument By Analogy

54

(5)

Some Guidelines for Evaluating an Analogy

55

(1)

Evaluating an Argument by Analogy in Judith Jarvis Thomson's ``A Defense of Abortion''

55

(2)

The Essay: ``Thomson's Plugged-in Violinist and the Problem of Abortion,''

57

(2)

Steven Calcote

Evaluating a Formal Argument

59

(8)

Some Guidelines for Evaluating a Formal Argument

60

(2)

A Checklist for Evaluating Arguments

62

(1)

Evaluating an Argument in Morton G. White's What Is and What Ought to Be Done

63

(1)

The Essay: ``An Antiabortion Argument Evaluated,''

63

(4)

David Hoberman

Putting It All Together: The Philosophical Essay

67

(32)

Getting Started

67

(1)

The Eight-Step Sequence

68

(31)

Writing an Essay on a Definition and a Counterexample in Plato's Republic

71

(2)

Guidelines for Preliminary Notes

73

(3)

The Essay: ``Cephalus's Self-Contradiction,''

76

(2)

Stacey Schmidt

Writing an Essay on Divergent Views of Criteria and Evidence

78

(1)

The First Text: Rene Descartes, Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting the Reason

79

(2)

The Second Text: Alan M. Turing, ``Computing Machinery and Intelligence''

81

(12)

The Essay: ``Can Machines Think? Turing vs. Descartes,''

93

(6)

Ellen Wheeler

Drafting and Revising the Philosophical Essay

99

(38)

Drafting

99

(11)

Using an Outline to Help Construct Your Paper

99

(1)

The Opening Paragraph

100

(2)

Introducing the Topic

102

(1)

Stating Your Thesis

102

(1)

Sketching Your Argument

102

(1)

Putting First Things Last

103

(1)

Paragraph Structure

103

(1)

The Logic of the Paragraph

104

(3)

The Closing a Title

107

(1)

Choosing a Title

108

(2)

Revising

110

(27)

Writing Is Rewriting

110

(2)

Reviewing Your Paper for Word Choice

112

(1)

Avoiding Sexist Language

112

(2)

Using Latin Terms Correctly

114

(2)

Commonly Confused Words

116

(3)

Reviewing Your Paper for Grammar and Punctuation

119

(1)

Grammar

119

(3)

Punctuation

122

(2)

Revising Papers in Response to Others' Comments

124

(1)

Peer Review

124

(1)

Instructor Comments

125

(1)

A Student's First Draft with Instructor Comments: ``Jennifer Trusted's Concept of Freedom and Its Bearing on the Dispute between Determinists and Liberatians,''

126

(4)

Peter's L. Miller III

Miller's Revised Essay

130

(2)

Manuscript Preparation and Format

132

(3)

A Final Checklist

135

(2)

Integrating Quotations and Citing Sources

137

(15)

Integrating Quotations

137

(4)

Why Quote in the First Place?

137

(1)

Pitfalls to Avoid in Quoting

137

(1)

Lead-ins

138

(1)

Insertions

139

(1)

Deletions

139

(1)

Alterations

139

(1)

Emphasis

140

(1)

Long Quotations

140

(1)

Avoiding Plagiarism

141

(3)

Citing and Documenting Sources

144

(8)

Numbered Footnotes or Endnotes

145

(1)

In-text Citation

146

(1)

Multiple Sources

146

(2)

Preparing Your Bibliography

148

(2)

A Sample Bibliography

150

(1)

A Student's Bibliography: ``A Bibliography on the Nature of Human Consciousness,''

151

(1)

Eugene Leach

Using Library Resources

152

(9)

Philosophical Dictionaries

153

(1)

Encyclopedias, Book Series, and Specialized References

154

(4)

Journals

158

(3)

Index

161