Guidelines for Writing Philosophy Essays

Writing a philosophy essay provides you with the chance to work out what you think about an important philosophical question. Sometimes, you will already know what you think (at least, you will think that you know). In this case, working on the essay will provide you with the opportunity to reflect on and clarify your thinking - and perhaps to change your mind.

It also provides you with the opportunity to learn about the views of significant philosophers and to develop your own views in critical relation with theirs.

Finally, writing a philosophy essay provides you with the opportunity to present your views in a form appropriate for public discussion. It requires you to provide reasons why others should accept your views; it also means that your views are subject to the critical scrutiny of others.

Research

For 100 and 200 level units, the major research required is reading - carefully and critically - the book, articles, etc., on the reading lists provided. You may if you wish seek other relevant material in the library, but use it very cautiously. If in doubt about its relevance, consult your tutor.

In later undergraduate units, you will be encouraged to undertake independent research and will be given advice as to how to go about it.

Before you start reading, however, you should think carefully about the topic. Make sure you know what it means, and if possible, work out what your own - tentative - views are. If you do not find the recommended books and articles relevant, this may well mean that you have misunderstood the question. Think more about the topic, and talk to fellow students and/or your tutor, before you proceed any further.

It is not necessary to read a lot for most philosophy essays. The Reading Lists for Philosophy Essays are usually a good deal shorter than those of other Humanities and Social Science Subjects. However it is very important to read with care and attention. Try to work out what the author is saying and what his/her reasons are. Take special care to read and consider authors with whom you disagree. Think about how you might criticise their arguments, and how they might respond to your criticisms. But also ask yourself whether an author’s arguments give you reason to reconsider your own position. Think of reading as a way of entering into a dialogue with the author.

Always make notes on your reading. Even scrappy and inadequate notes are useful reminders when you want to recall what you have read.

Writing

Before you start writing, draw up a rough plan of your projected essay, covering all the relevant issues.

As you write, you will find that issues which seemed easy are more difficult than you had thought, and sometimes you will find that you want to change direction, or even your mind, as you write. It is not uncommon to discover that you need to do more reading. So it is very important to leave yourself enough time to do this.

When you have completed your first draft, you need to make sure that you have covered all the issues, and that it develops in a coherent fashion from beginning to end. (Often you will find that you have changed course half way through and that the early material is no longer relevant to your conclusion).

It is important to give yourself enough time to spend a day or two thinking about your first draft, and then to rewrite it for submission.

Your final aim must be to present your views in a way in which they are comprehensible and plausible to your reader. By and large, your marker will be less concerned about the positions you adopt than with your ability to provide reasons for them. (Of course, there are some positions, which are more difficult to support than others.) So, whatever view you argue for, make sure that you have provided reasons why your reader should take it seriously and that you have taken into account possible objections to it (especially those canvassed in the reading list). That you believe it is not a reason for your reader to believe it. Use argument rather than assertion, and reason rather than rhetoric.

Things to bear in mind

  • Give yourself time to think about your essay. Good philosophy cannot be done in hurry or at the last minute.
  • Have a plan, but be flexible about it.
  • Give yourself time to rewrite.
  • Show that you have considered the main alternatives to your position and can criticise them effectively.
  • Show that you have read and understood the views of the main philosophers who have contributed to the debate (ie. those who appear on the reading list).
  • Make sure that you have covered all the required aspects of the essay topic. If there are specific questions asked, make sure that you have answered them all.
  • Avoid pretentiousness. Try to write as simply as is compatible with what you are trying to say. Do not try to impress your reader with inflated language and terminology.
  • Most branches of philosophy have their own technical terms (‘jargon’). Before you use these terms, make sure that you understand them.
  • If possible, do not sit on the fence. Try to argue for a position, though taking into account its problems and the criticisms that have been made of it.
  • Do not assume that your reader already knows what you are talking about. If you are talking about an author or an example, provide enough detail for someone who does not know your source to understand what you are talking about (and incidentally, to show that you know what you are talking about).
  • Quote sparingly. Use quotation to illustrate your argument, not to replace it.
  • Do not simply reproduce your lecture notes. Where you make use of lecture notes, provide a reference. If you use lecture material without acknowledgment, you will be guilty of Plagiarism (see below).

Submission

Keep a copy of every piece of written work that you submit.

Every essay must have a title page (usually supplied with the essay topics or available from the Philosophy Office) and a bibliography.

Legible and neat handwritten essays are acceptable. Needless to say typed or printed essays are preferable (though use good quality print, large fonts and reasonable spacing between lines).

Leave a wide margin.

Plagiarism

The Oxford English Dictionary (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971; republished 1987) defines ‘Plagiarism’ as

[T]he wrongful appropriation or purloining, and publication as one’s own, of the ideas, or the expression of the ideas (literary, artistic, musical, mechanical, etc.) of another.

If in writing an essay, you present material taken - either directly of indirectly - from the work of someone else and do not acknowledge this, you will be guilty of plagiarism.

Deliberate plagiarism is dishonest. It is a form of cheating and will be heavily penalised. Normally, when an essay is found to contain deliberate plagiarism it is given no marks without the opportunity to resubmit. If there is evidence of systematic plagiarism, more severe disciplinary action will be taken.

Inadvertent plagiarism is more common. Often students do not realise that they have to acknowledge material they have taken from others or do not know how to do so. However, even inadvertent plagiarism allows the plagiarist an advantage over fellow students. It also shows that a student does not know how to go about writing academic essays. It will always be heavily penalised.

The only way to avoid plagiarism is to acknowledge your sources. See the section on REFERENCING for information on how to do this. A statement of the Divisional policy on plagiarism is available from the Philosophy Office.

Discussing and comparing your work with that of other students is an excellent idea. However, the warning against plagiarism operates here as well. Do not copy the work of other students, or present their ideas as your own. (It is perfectly legitimate to acknowledge insights gained from friends.)

There are borderline cases. Since most of philosophical thinking involves coming to term with the ideas of others, it sometimes hard to draw a line separating what you have gained from others and what you have contributed yourself. You must use your common sense, but if in doubt, err on the side of caution and acknowledge the influence and its source.

Referencing

The main point of referencing is satisfy the requirement of academic honesty and courtesy to the author of the ideas you are using (see PLAGIARISM above). It is also necessary to make it easy for your reader to locate and check your sources.

There are various conventional ways of doing this, and some disciplines show a marked preference for one convention over others. In philosophy, there is no one established convention. If you have had to learn a method of citation for some other discipline, then you are welcome to use it in philosophy.

The main thing is to learn one method and stick to it. Do not try to make up your own.

If you have not already adopted a referencing convention, then you could use the following one which is widely used in the humanities.

Indicate direct quotation in one of two ways:

For relatively short passage, use quotation marks.

For longer passages (eg. the quotation from The Oxford English Dictionary above), display the quote in an indented and separate paragraph. Do not use quotation marks. Provide the source of the passage in an endnote or footnote.

For paraphrased material, or where your arguments draw on the work of another, you should cite the source in the same way.

At the end of the quotation or paraphrased material, put a number (superscript preferably, otherwise in brackets) after the relevant text. Usually this will be at the end of the sentence (after the full stop).

This number will refer to an endnote or a footnote. Use whichever suits you (but not both). Most word processing programmes make this easy.

In the first reference to a particular work, give full details.

There are different conventions as to how this should be done for monographs (ie. books on a single theme, usually - though not always - single authored); for chapters in edited collections; and for journal articles.

The following notes illustrate the relevant conventions:

1. Robyn Ferrell, Passion in Theory: Conceptions of Freud and Lacan (London and NY: Routledge, 1996); see p. 44.

2. Ross Poole, ‘Modernity, Rationality and "the Masculine",’ in Terry Threadgold and Anne Cranny Francis (eds), Feminine, Masculine and Representation (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1990); see p.57.

3. Nicholas H Smith, ‘Contingency and Self-Identity: Taylor’s Hermeneutics vs. Rorty’s Postmodernism,’ Theory, Culture and Society Vol. 12 (1996), pp. 110-25; see pp. 121-2.

Please follow these examples precisely (down to punctuation marks, their position, etc.). You may however use underlining instead of Italics.

If you refer to material contained in lectures, do so as follows:

4. Catriona Mackenzie, Lecture on Morality, Authenticity and the Absurd, Macquarie University, 14 April, 1998.

In subsequent references, cut out the publication details, name of collection, journal details, etc., and if you like, give an abbreviated version of the title.

Thus:

5. Ferrell, Passion in Theory, p. 83.

6. Poole, ‘Modernity, Rationality and "the Masculine",’ p. 59.

7. Smith, ‘Contingency and Self-Identity,’ p. 123.

8. Mackenzie, Lecture 14 April 1998.


Unless you delight in pedantry, avoid Latin abbreviations such as ibid., op.cit., loc.cit., etc.

At the end of the essay, provide a bibliography containing all and only those works you have referred to in the body of the essay. Do not include work you should have used, but have not.

The bibliography will reproduce the information contained in the first reference, with the following boring differences:

  • The surname will now come first, followed by the given name(s) - reversing the order in the notes.
  • There will be no brackets around the publication details for monographs and collections (these were in brackets in the notes).
  • The list will be in alphabetical order.

Thus:

Bibliography

Ferrell, Robyn, Passion in Theory: Conceptions of Freud and Lacan, London and NY: Routledge, 1996

Benedict, Ruth, ‘A Defence of Moral Relativism,’ in Philosophy, Morality and Society: Selected Readings, Sydney: Macquarie University, 1998

Poole, Ross, ‘Modernity, Rationality and "the Masculine",’ in Terry Threadgold and Anne Cranny Francis (eds), Feminine, Masculine and Representation, Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1990.

Smith, Nicholas H, ‘Contingency and Self-Identity: Taylor’s Hermeneutics vs. Rorty’s Postmodernism,’ Theory, Culture and Society Vol. 12 (1996), pp.110-25.

Note that reference to material provided in Course Readings (‘Bricks’) proceeds as if these were edited collections (though without a reference to editors).

If you have problems not covered by these examples, use your common sense. If this fails, consult your tutor. In the last resort - or if you find this kind of thing interesting - consult one of the various Style Manuals which are available in bookshops or the Macquarie Library, eg. The Chicago Manual of Style (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993).

When you get your essay back

The essay will have been given a numerical mark (eg. 13/20). If you want to know how this will count towards your final grade (HD, D, C, P etc.), you should know that the HD/D borderline is drawn at 85; the D/C borderline at 75; 65+ is a credit; 50+ is a pass; 45 - 49 is a pass conceded and below 44 is a fail, which we hope you won't need to know about.

You should also receive a paragraph or so of detailed comments, plus marginal annotations. These should point out the strengths and weakness of the essay, and give you advice as to how your essay might be improved. Bear in mind, however, the limits of what can be said in a few lines. Often there will also be general discussion of the essays in tutorials, and you should raise problems there. But you should also see your marker for individual discussion if you need more advice, or have problems with the marking.

If you think you have been misunderstood, the problem is almost certainly that you have not made yourself clear. However, if you have genuine problems with the grade given or the comments made, and you cannot resolve these with your tutor, see some other member of the philosophy staff or the Head of Department. (The Philosophy Code of Practice has more detail about what you should do in the case of complaints.)

Other advice on writing essays

These notes are intended to help you write philosophy essays. Macquarie University also provides a number of excellent services intended to help students with academic writing in general.

For example there are brief Writing Skills courses. These are usually held in May/June and August. These are designed for Australian and English speaking students. Enquiries to Sue Spinks, Department of Linguistics, C5A 531, phone 9850 8770.

There are also credit and non-credit courses on English for Academic Purposes for students of non-English speaking backgrounds. Enquiries to Alan Jones (located in W3A 409; telephone 9850 9664; or email: ajones@ling.mq.edu.au), or to Lorraine Sorrell (W3A 411; telephone 9850 9936; or email: lsorrell@ling.mq.edu.au).

There is also a Writing Skills Advisory Service which offers individual help. Appointments can be made by contacting the Centre for Open Education in Building X5B (ph. 9850 7470).

 

Department of Philosophy
Macquarie University

last updated 1/3/07