Essay writing guide

Start your essay with an introduction and end with a conclusion.

1. Introduction The introduction should say what the question is that you are addressing, how (in general terms) you are addressing it, and what (in general terms) you are going to conclude. The introduction doesnt need to be the first part of the essay that you write; you may find it easier to begin by writing the main body of the essay, then the conclusion, and then to write the introduction last.

2. Main body of the essay The main body of the text can be roughly divided into a section of exposition and a section of criticism.

2.1. Exposition Start by explaining the philosophical problem or argument that is the topic of your essay. For example, take the essay question about identity. The question was formulated in a way such that it encourages you to answer in a way that begins with exposition and then moves on to critique (you may find that many of the questions are structured like this in the earlier part of your BA). The first part of the question asks you to explain the difference between the Identity of Indiscernibles and the Indiscernibility of Identicals. This part of the essay should be a clear and accurate illustration of both principles and how they differ. This is your exposition a kind of presentation of the problem, or some important approach to a problem. In this case, your exposition is of what some philosophers (beginning with Leibniz) have thought about identity: enquiring into the nature of identity, they came to think that identity entails indiscernibility, and moreover that indiscernibility entails identity. A clear exposition of this can make up the first part of your essay. When you are presenting anothers arguments, always make it clear that you are doing so and give references to the article/book in which the argument originally appeared (in line with some accepted style for giving references). For more information on presenting others arguments see the section on plagiarism and the style guide in the following: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/philosophy/LPSG/intro.htm). In your exposition, you dont need to raise objections to the theory or argument youre presenting; the objections can come in the next part the critique.

2.2. Critique Go through all the counterarguments to the view you presented in the exposition (or at least all the counterarguments that seem good to you, and that space permits you to address). Show that the counterarguments hold or that they fail. Again, taking the example of the Identity essay: the question to some extent guides you, because the second part of the question asks you to assess whether the principle of Identity of Indiscernibles is

false, and in the suggested reading there is a famous argument to this effect, namely, that of Max Black. Thus your critique can consist of an explanation of how Blacks argument might seem to refute Identity of Indiscernibles. You might think at this point that the above procedure has not given you much room to express your own views. Well, if you have good objections to Blacks argument, then present them at this point (i.e. after youve outlined his argument). But if you dont have strong views either way, thats fine, as long as youve given a good account of the debate i.e. youve given a clear and accurate presentation of the arguments on both sides. Hopefully you can see that the structure that is generally expected in philosophy essays is dialectical that is, argument and counter-argument. Historically, this may have taken the form of a dialogue (canonically, Platos dialogues; also, Max Blacks article is a late example of this form). Nowadays it would not be expected that you write a dialogue, but it is expected that the structure of your essay is dialectical where appropriate that it presents argument and counter-argument. An essay that consists of an exposition and a critique of a philosophical argument meets this requirement. Furthermore, even if your essay is not focussed primarily on some other philosophers approach to a problem, but rather is your own theory about some philosophical problem, you should still aim to retain a dialectical structure by going through (and hopefully refuting) all the good objections you can think of that might be made to your position. (A colleague of mine sums up essay writing procedure as follows: you start with an opinion on some philosophical problem and then go through all the arguments against it.)

3. Conclusion Conclude in light of what the main part of your essay has shown. Did the argument you outlined in the exposition withstand the counterarguments in the critique, or did it seem to be refuted by them? Say in the conclusion that the original argument stands because each counterargument failed (mention briefly how each failed); or say that the original argument is refuted by counterarguments x, y, and z (or by x, but not by y or z; etc.). After the conclusion, include your bibliography or list of works cited (as mentioned above, see the style sheet at: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/philosophy/LPSG/intro.htm).