How Do You Write A Philosophy Paper (For Beginners)?
• Become familiar with the material, as well as somewhat familiar with your own view before writing on it. Can you state your thesis and can you give reasons in support of it? • Diagram your argument by writing out reasons and connecting them to the thesis with arrows which represent the support relation. • Example: Suppose the thesis is that there is no free will and a reason you offer in support of it is that we are governed by the laws of physics. The diagram will have an arrow running from “We are governed by the laws of physics” to the thesis “There is no free will”. There, of course, may be other reasons in support of the thesis but let’s keep it simple. • Play the role of self-critic. Is each reason independently plausible or is there room for someone to raise doubts about it? Also (looking at the arrows), would each reason provide strong support for the thesis or is this support not so strong? • Write objections in red ink. An objection to the plausibility of a reason will have
