How to Write Philosophy

The following provides some basic writing-related instruction for students who take my writing-intensive philosophy courses. It includes instruction on basic skills (e.g., using metadisource, arguing, etc.), simple writing assignments for testing writing skills, templates for writing certain kinds of philosophy essays, and full-length paper assignments.

Skills

Here is the order in which the lessons are intended to be completed:

  1. How to Quote
  2. How to Cite
  3. How to Argue
  4. How to Use Metadiscourse
  5. How to Clarify
  6. How to Write with Style
  7. Removing Fluff
  8. Write an Essay with a Template

Short Assignments

  1. Citing and Quoting
  2. Clarifying an Idea - TBA
  3. Metadiscourse - TBA
  4. Presenting an Argument - TBA
  5. Improving style - TBA

Paper Assignments

  1. Passage Interpretation Paper (PIP)
  2. Simple Essay
  3. Developmental Paper
  4. Secondary Source Summary (SSS)
  5. Essay Proposal

Templates

You can find template files in the templates folder.

For Instructors

For testing purposes, I use quizzes in an LMS by converting plaintext questions into QTI using the invaluable text2qti. If you want the questions, contact me!