HINTS ON ESSAY WRITING Prof. D.
Jopling
Note: These hints for essay writing are intended for use only in this course. They are not recommended
for use in other courses, as the instructors may have different ideas about what constitutes a well-written
essay. Moreover, these hints are intended only as suggestions, and not as formal requirements. If you
have your own tried-and-true method, and it has been successful, you may wish to stick with it.
Presentation and Content: Content is what counts most. Particular attention is paid to what you say, as
opposed to how you say it. Pay special attention therefore to the arguments you use, the reasons you
employ, and the ideas you develop. Think everything through carefully, and make sure that what you
write is as clear as it can be. Include at the end a bibliography, listing all books or journals you used.
Essays should be typed, double-spaced, and free of spelling and grammatical errors. No special typeface
is needed, so long as it is clearly readable. Please include a cover page with your name, student number,
title of essay, course number, and the date. There is no need for plastic covers, folders, binders, etc.
Opening Paragraph: The opening paragraph should be short, clear, and to the point: no rhetoric, no
beating about the bush with grandiloquent phrases. State the problem you are writing about as clearly as
you can, what you seek to accomplish, and how you are going to reach this goal.
Position Statement: After the opening paragraph, give a more detailed account of your position. Narrow
down the problem you will be discussing; then narrow it down again. Mention the ideas you seek to
explore, challenge, or support; the sub-goals you need to reach beforehand; the method of argument; the
rationale behind what you’re doing; and the particular stand you take on the subject. Combined, the
opening paragraph and the position statement should not amount to more than one to two pages. Once
you have set up your position, stick to it. You will lose marks by including material that is judged to be
irrelevant. As with the editing of books and journal papers in philosophy, it is quite possible that whole
lines, paragraphs, or pages can be struck out as failing to make a plausible and significant contribution to
the stated aims of the essay. Always be on the lookout for ideas or arguments that are running off track.
Main Body: 1. Develop the core ideas and/or arguments. This may include clarifying and refining your
basic ideas, anticipating objections and counter-arguments to your position, demonstrating the pro and
con sides of your position, and so forth. Keep it tightly focussed. 2. You may find it helpful to divide the
main body of the paper into separate sections, according to the central ideas or arguments you said you’d
discuss in the position statement. 3. Don’t use twenty arguments to make a point: use only your best two
or three. 4. Defend each major move you make: don’t make claims that cannot be backed up. 5. Play
fair: if you are criticizing Descartes, for instance, allow him a chance to defend himself in the strongest
possible terms. Don’t make him out to be a strawman.
Conclusion: Your conclusion will be part statement and part summary. State what you believe you have
accomplished, and how the problem you started with has reached some kind of resolution/clarification.
Bear in mind that not all philosophical problems admit of clear resolution or solution.
Style: 1. Trim the fat: do not waffle on in vague fatuous generalities. 2. In order to follow standard
academic practice, avoid using personal pronouns, rhetoric, colloquialisms, excessive jargon, and
contractions (such as “can’t,” “don’t”). 3. Do not plagiarize. To avoid plagiarism, make sure that you
cite in footnotes all quotes which are not your own: give the name of the author, the title of the book or
journal article, the place of publication, the publisher, the year, and the page reference. For example: 0.
Flanagan, Varieties of Moral Personality (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1992) p.123. If
in doubt, quote it and cite it. 4. Avoid making absolutistic claims (“So and so is completely
wrong/mistaken/confused”). 5. Reread the essay carefully before submitting it: how it reads on paper is
very different from how it reads on a computer monitor. Check carefully for spelling and punctuation,
and syntactical and grammatical errors. If possible, have someone else read it and comment on it. 6.
Please type the essay and make sure it is double-spaced.
