Since most of you have never taken a philosophy exam before, here’re some hints about what I’m looking for and how to study. Some of them only apply to take-home exams, others only apply to in-class exams. Many of them are also sound practices for doing writing exams in any class ―philosophy or otherwise.
There are many good guides to writing philosophy papers out there on
the internet —e.g., James Pryor's excellent
page— this one is geared toward students in my courses. I hope
others may find these comments useful, but you should check with your
professor about the items with a (*) below about their policies and
preferences.
General
- Do not plagiarize. The University's policy on academic integrity and this page are very useful for getting clear about what exactly constitutes plagiarism. Of course, if you have ANY questions, please ask me.
- Write multiple drafts of your paper. It's best to do so over as long a period as possible so that you can take long breaks between drafts and come back to them anew. You’ll often find that things which looked obvious before no longer do; similarly for things that looked hopelessly complex.
- Read your paper aloud to yourself (or your cat/roommate if they’ll sit still long enough). This will greatly improve the style and clarity of your writing.
- Even better, have someone else read the paper to you. If you can't coerce a friend or family member and your pet can't talk, try having your computer do it with speech synthesizer software.
- Have your professor read drafts of your paper; the more drafts you can write and show them, the better your paper is likely to be (*)
- If you are giving someone else’s argument or position, make sure you present it as an argument with all the relevant steps. Do not simply report what others think. This is the philosopher’s equivalent of the 'show not tell' dictum that you learned in Junior High English.
- A trick Seana Shiffrin taught me which I find very useful: In drafts of your paper, give each paragraph a heading which summarizes the point of that paragraph in a couple of words. This will help you organize the paper and help you make sure each paragraph is tightly focused. Remove the headings in the final draft.
- Anytime you see words like 'always', 'only', 'sole', or even 'the x' which indicate that the author is making a universal claim, be very suspicious. These claims are false if there is just one counterexample. Thus when you are writing, any time you use these terms, make sure you mean it. Many times an argument can be saved by replacing 'always' with 'often' or 'most'. Keep a sharp eye out for these when you are proofreading.
- Always remember your audience: An exam or essay is never for you. You are always writing for someone else. Their needs completely determine what you should include and what you should leave out. (This is part of the advice to murder your darlings.)
- For every main point in your argument you should (1) tell the reader what you're going to do; (2) do it; (3) then tell them what you did. (My adviser Larry Temkin used to tell me 'Adam, if it's good enough for god, it's good enough for you' because in Genesis most things have the form (1) The Lord said it shall be x; (2) x was so; (3) the Lord saw that x was good.)
- What you say is how you say it. [Unfortunately, I don't remember who I got this from] This means that it doesn't matter if you meant to say x. Unless your reader can understand that you mean x, you have not said x.
Methodology
- To really argue well against a philosophical position, you need to get inside of it and really feel its pull and why others find it so plausible. [Gavin Lawrence taught me this.].
- Always present your opponent’s position in the light which makes it as strong as possible. In fact, the best philosophers often set out their opponent’s views in stronger and clearer terms than their opponents themselves do.
Topics
- The narrower the focus of your paper, the better it will be. Often this may require that you bully a topic a bit (see below) (*)
- Do not try to solve every philosophical question under the sun in your paper. This applies especially to undergraduate term papers. Yes, things are related and your view on some issue in (e.g.) normative ethics may reflect or even depend on some metaethical position. This is what footnotes are for: you can acknowledge other commitments your position may entail, without being tempted to huge digressions or scattershot comments on too wide a range of issues.
- It is almost always okay to bully essay topics. If the topic says ‘Discuss x, y, and z’, it is okay to really focus in on x and talk about y and z only as much as necessary to illuminate x. Something along the lines of ‘There are several issues here, including x, y, and z. In this paper, I will focus on carefully setting out and attacking x. This will necessitate setting aside many interesting and important questions surrounding y and z, except as they intersect with our discussion of x.’ is almost always nice to hear in an introduction —provided you actually do a good job in discussing x. (*)
Content
- It is often helpful to have a very short introduction to the answer and a brief outline of how the discussion will proceed. This rarely will take more than 3-4 short sentences.
- Avoid sweeping or bombastic claims in the introduction and conclusion. Just launch into the issues at hand. The reader knows that the issue is important, that philosophers have been talking about it for a long time, that there are different opinions, et cetera. These sort of claims are unnecessary and often silly (I once read a paper that began ‘Since the dawn of time philosophers have discussed whether computers can think.’ I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.)
- Both you and the person grading the exam can recognized bullshit. Since the length of the exam is not strictly enforced, there is no reason to try to pad your answers. Moreover, as in real life, it’s irritating to be bullshitted. The grader knows you’re doing it and will not like it.
- When you’re answering a question that discusses an objection, never end the answer with a non-committal claims like ‘but others disagree’ or ‘who knows what’s right’ et cetera. If a view faces a powerful objection, we must treat the view as false until/unless we can give a response. Therefore, you should not speculate that there might be an answer unless you have one in mind. Of course, if you do have an answer in mind, you should give it (even if it’s pretty rough). Coming up with your own responses usually makes an answer very good.
- It is often helpful to have a very short introduction to the answer and a brief outline of how the discussion will proceed. This rarely will take more than 3-4 short sentences.
- Avoid sweeping or bombastic claims in the introduction and conclusion. Just launch into the issues at hand. The reader knows that the issue is important, that philosophers have been talking about it for a long time, that there are different opinions, et cetera. These sort of claims are unnecessary and often silly (I once read a paper that began 'Since the dawn of time philosophers have discussed whether computers can think.' I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.)
- Both you and the person grading the exam can recognized bullshit. Since the length of the exam is not strictly enforced, there is no reason to try to pad your answers. Moreover, as in real life, it's irritating to be bullshitted. The grader knows you're doing it and will not like it.
- When you're answering a question that discusses an objection, never end the answer with a non-committal claims like 'but others disagree' or 'who knows what's right' et cetera. If a view faces a powerful objection, we must treat the view as false until/unless we can give a response. Therefore, you should not speculate that there might be an answer unless you have one in mind. Of course, if you do have an answer in mind, you should give it (even if it's pretty rough). Coming up with your own responses usually makes an answer very good.
Style
- Passive voice is to be avoided at all times.
- To avoid passive voice go through your paper and look for all forms of 'to be.' Quick quiz: Has passive voice been seen anywhere on this page?
- Your answers should be in essay format. Do not simply give a numbered outline or list of premises. I want you to explain them and say how they fit together. (It’s ok to have a list or outline, as long as its just there to augment your explanation).
- Just write the question number at the beginning of the answer. There is no need to write out the prompt. That unnecessarily takes up time and space.
- Clarity is one of the main virtues in philosophy. The cleaner and clearer your answers are, the better they will be.
- The more examples you give the better. It’s especially good if you’ve come up with them on your own. Philosophy is hard and can be abstract. Concrete examples thus make all the difference.
- Even if they don’t explicitly say so, all exam questions should always be read as involving ‘why or why not?’, ‘explain’, and/or ‘give examples’ at every step in the answer.
- ‘Argue not report’ is the philosopher’s version of ‘Show not tell’. You should present the arguments and objections in your own voice. Try to convince your reader. Here’s an example:
- Question: Explain one of the main lines of argument for Descartes’ conclusion that cats are better than dogs in the Meditations. Give Hume’s objection to this argument. How might Descartes respond to this argument?
- Bad answer: In the Meditations, Descartes argues that cats are far superior to dogs. First he says that we have pets to entertain us in our homes. He says that cats are better because they jump around and chase things. But he says that dogs don’t do that. Dogs only bark and slobber. Therefore, cats are better. Hume’s objection is that slobber is endearing and good. Descartes could respond that cats sometimes slobber too and that they only slobber at good times.
- Answers like this which merely report don’t draw the connections between the concepts and claims under discussion. This answer just makes a list of claims but doesn’t say why they lead us to the conclusion. It is also very thin. That often happens because its hard to see what’s important and relevant when you’re just paraphrasing someone else. This is usually less of a problem when you make the argument in your own voice and are trying to convince your reader. Contrast it with this
- Better answer: In the Meditations, Descartes claims that cats are far superior to dogs. There are many virtues that a pet can have. Cats are better than dogs on almost all of them. I’ll sketch just one aspect of Descartes’ argument here.
One reason we have pets is for sheer entertainment within the home. While cats chase moving objects and acrobatically leap into the air after small insects, dog entertainment usually involves only barking and slobber.
Now, as Hume pointed out, it is true that slobbering can be endearing in some circumstances. We sometimes do enjoy watching a dog work itself into a slobbery mess upon our return.
But dogs normally lack the ability to identify when slobber is appropriate and welcome. Cats, on the other hand, are much more discriminating. For example, my cat only slobbers when she is enraptured in a great petting. This is appropriate because it helps evince her joy and affection for me ―it shows that I am special to her. I have yet to meet a dog that won’t slobber indiscriminately on any stranger who gives it the smallest pat on the head.
Therefore, the fact that part of a dog’s primary form of entertainment is indeed sometimes welcome cannot show that dogs are more entertaining than cats. Since the ability to entertain is one thing that makes for a good pet, we should therefore conclude with Descartes that cats are superior to dogs as pets.
- Better answer: In the Meditations, Descartes claims that cats are far superior to dogs. There are many virtues that a pet can have. Cats are better than dogs on almost all of them. I’ll sketch just one aspect of Descartes’ argument here.
- This answer is much better. Among other things, it explains the connection between entertainment and pet-value. It describes the different behaviors at issue. And it sets out why Hume would bring up the fact that slobber can be endearing. It also it uses an original example to show that Hume’s point is of very limited importance.
- Question: Explain one of the main lines of argument for Descartes’ conclusion that cats are better than dogs in the Meditations. Give Hume’s objection to this argument. How might Descartes respond to this argument?
- Do spelling and grammar matter? Of course. Spelling and grammar matter anytime you write anything. While I never directly take off points for errors, spelling and grammatical errors detract from the answer’s clarity. Moreover, they just make it look sloppy. If it doesn’t look like you care, it will be very hard to get a good grade. You should at least spell-check everything and check for homonym errors (e.g. ‘their’ instead of ‘there’). Then read it slowly out loud. You will hear most of the grammatical errors.
Detail/length
- Your answers should be exactly as long as they need to be to fully answer the question. Some people can do that very concisely. Others take much more space. In general most answers on in-class exams tend to be around four or five bluebook pages (single sided).On take-home exams, the page requirement I give you is a guide to the amount of content/level of detail that I’m expecting. The length of the exam by itself does not affect the grade. Only what you write matters.
- Also, it is true that the more detail you give, the better your answer will be. Thus longer answers do tend to be better than shorter answers. But that doesn’t mean you should throw everything you happen to know into the answer; and it certainly doesn’t mean you should add a bunch of fluff to make it longer. Either of those will make the answer much worse.
- Many exam questions look longer than they actually are. Notice that each one has several ‘explain x’ or ‘discuss x’. I’m giving you a list of exactly what I want you to say in your answer. Thus make sure you address each of these points. When you study, you might want to list out each point and write an answer to each one, before sticking them together into an answer.
For example, if I say: ‘Discuss x. Then explain y and z.’ To study, you might make a list:
- Discuss x
Blah blah blah
Explain y
Blah blah blah
Explain z
Blah blah blah
Once you’ve got that, it’ll be easy to put it in an essay format.
Studying
Talk to me. Classes and exams are not an adversarial sort of thing. I want you to do well. Thus I’ll try my best to help you. If you have questions about the content, if you’re unsure whether you’re explaining something correctly, or if you’re not clear about what I’m looking for, ask me. Come to my office hours, make an appointment, send an email, or direct a carrier pigeon my way. Seriously.
There is no substitute for working through philosophical issues with other people. Very often something that seems clear and complete in your head will turn out to be full of holes when you try to explain it to someone else. While everyone learns differently, when I was an undergraduate, I found the best way to prepare was to try to teach the answer to a friend, family member, captive, or pet. That helps in at least two ways. First, a good answer essentially teaches the topic to yourself (a really good answer does it in a brand-new way). Second, just forcing yourself to talk through an answer out loud often helps reveal exactly what you don’t understand or are confused about. Its even better if you have someone who will ask questions and challenge your claims.
Good luck. Though, if you come to class and put some effort into the exam, you won’t need it.
Comments/ suggestions appreciated.
© Adam Swenson 2006-8