Rent 9780534516826 | Doing Philosophy : A Guide to the Writing of Philosophy Papers

Summary Table of Contents

Clear and concise, this brief text is designed to assist students with no previous formal background in writing philosophy papers. Contents include topic selection, outlines, and drafts, proper and improper quotation, argument development and evaluation, principles of good writing, style and logic.

Preface

Contents

iii

Methods of Proceeding

(8)

Introductory

(... MORE

Selecting a topic

(1)

The irrelevance of most library research

(2)

Resolving controversies

(1)

Appreciating philosophers of an earlier period

(1)

The outline

(1)

Preparation of the final draft

(1)

Writing blocks

(2)

Rules of the Game

(8)

Plagiarism as a legal wrong (violation of another person's property right)

(1)

Plagiarism as a moral wrong (cheating and lying)

(1)

Quotation, attribution, and acknowledgement

(2)

Alternative formats for notes

(2)

Acceptable abbreviations in the notes

(3)

Criteria for Grading Student Papers

(5)

Clarity

(1)

Presence of argument

(1)

Cogency of argument

(1)

Originality, subtlety, imaginativeness

(1)

Degree of difficulty

(1)

Ordering the criteria

(2)

General Principles of Good Writing

(9)

Clarity again

(1)

Simplicity

(2)

Economy

(1)

Padding

(1)

Repetitiveness

(1)

Redundancy

(1)

Misplaced emphasis

(1)

Pretentiousness and fancy words

(2)

A miscellany of further judgments

(2)

Mistakes of Grammar

(26)

Grammatical and nongrammatical errors

(1)

Criteria of correct grammar

(3)

A sampler of grammatical rules and their problems

(20)

The vanishing apostrophe

(2)

Ain't misbehavin'

(1)

Between or among?

(1)

Conjunctions as first words

(1)

Ungrammatical danglers

(1)

The problem of ``sexist pronouns'': some proposed solutions

(3)

Double negatives

(1)

Different from or different than?

(1)

Which or that?

(3)

Prepositions as last words

(2)

Split infinitives

(1)

Who (or whoever) or whom (or whomever)?

(4)

Summary

(3)

Some Common Mistakes in Diction

(10)

Diction and grammar

(1)

Linguistic correctness and controversy

(1)

Constantly changing usage

(1)

Linguistic liberals and conservatives

(1)

Sample mistakes in diction

(7)

``Criteria'' for ``criterion''

(1)

``Disinterested'' for ``uninterested''

(1)

``Enormity'' for ``enormousness''

(1)

``Fortuitously'' for ``fortunately''

(1)

``Infer'' for ``imply''

(1)

``Refute'' for ``rebut''

(1)

``Irony'' for ``coincidence''

(3)

Stylistic Infelicities

(14)

The concept of style

(1)

Prose writing as a source of pleasure

(2)

The paragraph

(3)

Motion metaphors

(3)

Smoothing the flow

(1)

Conspicuous over-use of favorite words

(1)

Forget adornment and eloquence

(1)

Types of poor writing style

(3)

Logic and Language

(8)

Correct and incorrect reasoning

(1)

Deductive and inductive reasoning

(1)

Sentences and propositions

(1)

Arguments

(1)

Premises as unproved ``assumptions''

(1)

Logical necessity versus psychological certainty

(1)

Necessity and contingency

(1)

Three types of impossibility

(4)

Basic Deductive Logic: Some Fragments

(16)

Possible truth value combinations

(1)

Validity and soundness

(1)

Definition of truth-functional connectives

(3)

Necessary and sufficient conditions

(1)

Valid deductive argument forms: a sampler

(10)

Logic Without Necessity

105

(8)

Some informal fallacies

105

(2)

Some inductive inferences, good and bad

107

(1)

Begging the question

108

(1)

Analogical reasoning

109

(1)

A sampler of fallacies

110

(3)

Varieties of Philosophy Papers

113

(1)

Rules of Strategy

113

(1)

Manageable philosophical tasks

113

(1)

Modest partial reasons

114

(1)

Interpretation

114

(1)

Generalization and counterexample

115

(1)

Definition

116

(1)

Other categories of philosophical papers

117

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