philosophy of religion

A Brief Guide to Writing Philosophy Essays

General Instructions: One of the things that makes philosophy unique is the fact that because the content of the subject can only be examined and understood through argument, your understanding of the subject can only be through your own writing, and your own arguments. For this reason, all essay questions within this course are meant to do two things: First, they are meant to help me assess your comprehension of the material, and the basic arguments within the particular articles or chapters that have been assigned. Second, they are designed to give you an opportunity to assess the arguments that you have presented, and to form you own opinion about the matter. Answering the question fully will allow you to do this.

Please note, then, that I expect your essays to have not only a thesis statement within the introductory paragraph (see  Writing Thesis Statements  for more on this), but also a bibliography/list of works cited, from which you have derived your material. A failure to provide these two items can affect your grade for the essay. Your thesis statement should answer the evaluative portion of the question. (Note that I am less concerned about whether or not your provide these elements for your reflective journal entry.)

In general, a philosophy essay should reflect a concerted effort to explain and analyze the issue addressed in the question. Answers should be your own answers. Cutting and pasting answers from the text is plagiarism and is NOT ACCEPTABLE, but your answer should make use of the text and not be mere assertion. If you use sources (our texts, or others), identify them, or "cite" them as they say in composition class. This is easy to do, and something you should get used to doing. 

In particular, for philosophy essays in this course, I would like to see the following formatting structure:

1. Your name and the question you are answering at the beginning of the essay.

2. A short opening paragraph that answers the question prompt briefly. You should have at least: a) one sentence in which you discuss the topic and the reasons given for the position that is addressed; and b) you should also have at least one sentence providing an evaluation of the content topic of the question asked, and a reason for your evaluation (the reason for your evaluation can be an answer to the portion of the question prompt that asks: Why or why not?). NOTE: This will be your thesis statement for your essay.

3. In the paragraphs that follow, the body of your essay, both: a) explicate the main content of the opening paragraph, and b) provide a more detailed discussion of the reasons for your evaluation as stated in your thesis statement. This second part should be at least a couple of paragraphs in length.

Your essays should be in third person (he, she, it, they), avoiding as much as possible the first and second person (I, we, you), especially "I feel/think that...."  This is because we hope that points in a philosophy course should be proven in such a way that they are more than a matter of your opinion. Using third person will help keep you honest and keep you from thinking, "Well, what did he expect, I only said I 'felt' it was the case?"

A good essay must first answer the question by sticking to the topic, and not wandering too far afield into other questions or topics that I do not ask or pose. The position taken, which is what the evaluative portion of the question is meant to give you a chance to summarize, must be argued for with either facts or examples or both. Mere assertion (opinion with no visible means of support) cannot receive an A or B grade, and will more than likely not be a C paper either, especially as the semester progresses. I will include constructive feedback for improvement. Revised essays may be resubmitted up to two weeks after the due date of the original. Rewritten essays, if done well, will generally receive at least a one point grade improvement.

You are required to cite your sources of both quoted and paraphrased material either by putting the quoted material in quotation marks and adding an in-text citation, or by following the paraphrased ideas (the author's ideas rephrased in your own words, hence no quotation marks) with an in-text citation. Do this as follows:

Let's assume this sentence is a paraphrase from the text and that it is a statement of the author, I would note the source with the name of the author, which of the texts it is, and the page number (M. Peterson, et al., Reason and Religious Belief, 10); this tells me the author's name and which book by this author, since we are using two books by Peterson, et al. If the paraphrase is from an article by another author and included in the text, the paraphrase and citation would look like this:

Hobbes maintains that the state of nature is like war for everybody (M. Peterson, Reason and Religious Belief, 75).

If I were quoting another philosopher included in Peterson, et al. , I would do as follows:

Kierkegaard maintains that "only in subjectivity is there decisiveness " (Kierkegaard, Postscript, in Peterson et al., Philosophy of Religion, 121).

As a general rule to citing sources in your bibliography, you do not have to cite sources for facts and opinions that are common knowledge; but if you are unsure, it's better to overcite than undercite. If you have any questions, feel free to ask me or consult the book from your English composition class, but remember that all quoted material must have a citation, and so must paraphrased material that is not your own. 

Special Note--Using Wikipedia Wisely: Please note that, for your essays in this course, Wikipedia will NOT be considered an adequate scholarly source for you to utilize or include in your bibliography. However, if a Wikipedia entry refers to other sources, and you draw upon those sources specifically, you may include those sources in its place.