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Pieces of advice:                               ... under construction ... 
<--- Overview of Advice on Writing Philosophy Papers

For Constructing Strong Arguments in Written Work:

​On Judgments, Arguments, & Fallacies:

 On Judgments:
The most important, utterly critical, central, significant, vital, crucial fact to grasp and accept is: YOU CAN MAKE JUDGMENTS.  You can & are qualified to—you are rationally, logically, intellectually, linguistically, socially, & personally capable of making judgments (in fact, you are already, constantly, incessantly making judgments, & ought to).  Neither deny this, nor shirk your responsibility (nor say you “ought not,” for that is a judgment); we all sometimes feel ill equipped to make the right judgment, but with practice, like most things, one’s talents at judgments improve.  So … what is a judgment?  “Judgment” can designate either:
  • (a) one’s coordinating faculty: a faculty is one’s inherent mental ability or power; in this case, it is your inborn tool that evaluates situations & makes decisions.  Judgement is specifically a “coordinating faculty,” which means, literally, that it gives one the ability to coordinate things: to apply your sensible faculties’ data to your cognitive faculties’ concepts (i.e., sense experience tells us details, judgment compares these to the concept, e.g. “virtue,” that reason provides);  OR
  • (b) the formed decision itself: that claim consequent from one’s judging, one’s activity of deliberation, that is the decision, the judgment. 
 
Most of our judgments will be “determinate judgments,” which have a clear concept used in the coordinating or comparing, because most intellectual structures have clear “principles”—even if you aren’t aware of them (principles might be from scientific presumptions, moral or civil law, universal truths, Ten Commandments, social contract, cardinal or character virtues, etc.; they might include concepts of bravery, truth, charity, temperance, kindness, hospitality, magnificence, wit, prudence, fortitude, autonomy, beneficence, fidelity, etc.)—despite their variety, such principles do provide a solid conceptual basis by which to make a judgment. 
Epistemic structures & theories give discernable if varying steps to follow, but, in most everyday instances fairly sound judgment involves:
  • 1. Consider the situation ... Gather sensible facts: who, what, where, when, why, how, how it feels or is received, etc. 
  • 2. Figure out the precise dilemma ... Noting that situations have diverse dimensions, from ethical to aesthetic imports (e.g., the fact that a mountain is in the middle of a village may be aesthetically important, but isn’t ethical—unless the local king enslaved the villagers to make that mountain last week—& may have economic impacts even if irrelevant for religious arguments)
  • 3. Figure out which principles relate to the dilemma ... E.g., the aesthetictician may rely on harmony, form, or beauty’s subjective basis, etc.; per king & mountain making: such may concern principles of justice, equality, humanity, etc.
  • 4. Do the judging ... Compare the principle (3) to empirical knowledge of the situation (1&2) & judge whether the latter abides by or conflicts with the former
  •  5. The conclusion of your judging gives you the judgment ... E.g., “the mountain is beautiful,” “the king is wrong for enslaving his people,” “the king has violated the principle of justice,” etc.—i.e., your judgment “sums up” your reasoned evaluation of the situation; ensure that you can formulate its content (of 4) as a proper argument so as to justify your judgment
 

​On Arguments:
An “argument” is a coherent, cohesive set of statements that lead from a premise to a conclusion. 
To elucidate the argument for your judgment, a helpful, but not required form is this:
  • (1) Premise: your “judgment,” that is, your stance on the issue (e.g., X is/isn’t moral/beautiful/etc. …)
  • (2) Statements between: delineate the stages described above in judgment, e.g., identify & describe dilemma, principle, evidence, what found in comparative exercise (where most logical slips happen) *
  • (3) Conclusion: affirm that and succinctly why your premise is correct
​
* To be More Technical on Step (2)’s Coordinating of the Principle & Evidence:
The simplest form of argument uses Basic Propositional Logic, which combines two or more statements (“propositions”) together to produce a coherent combination that can further knowledge or demonstrate the logical truth or falsity of something; the combination statement will be logically valid if and only if both the component statements are true, e.g.:
  • Statement 1: All men are mortal.                             ... “Combination statement” would read: “All men are mortal, and Socrates
  • Statement 2: Socrates is a man.                                                 is a man, therefore Socrates is mortal.”   This argument is valid.
  • Conclusion: Socrates is mortal.                            
 
Or:                                                                                    Invalid conclusion: neither statement alone is true (1st is a belief, not a true/
  • Statement 1: All dogs are evil.                            ... false knowledge claim; 2nd might be true if my dog was named Socrates, but
  • Statement 2: Socrates is a dog.                                  would require evidence); so, has the same flow as example 1, but does not
  • Conclusion: Socrates is evil.                                                      fulfill the requirement that both propositions themselves be true.
 
Or:       
  • St. 1: All maples belong to the genus Acer.                                        ... Invalid conclusion; statements 1 & 2
  • St. 2: Pancakes traditionally belong together with maple syrup.                    are true, but together jump from maple trees to
  • Conc.: Pancakes belong to the genus Acer.                                                            maple syrup & equivocate on what it means to  
                                                                                                                                                                                                     “belong” to a genus & “belong” together.
 
When you are composing your own or judging other people’s arguments, pay close attention to each proposition and the movement from one to another:
  • make sure that each can be evidenced as true        (& evidence requires naming, describing, & showing)
  • make sure that they combine coherently       (i.e., statements need a common element & avoid equivocation)
  • and, if either or both of the above are lacking, the conclusion is logically invalid. 
(Even if your conclusion is otherwise true, your argument (your way of “proving it”) might not be valid … don’t ever discredit your good ideas with bad explanations!)
 

​Common Fallacies: 
... Know these so to be able to avoid these ...  A fallacy is a mistaken belief founded on unsound arguments.  To move beyond basic propositional validity or invalidity, the best way to strengthen your arguments is to be very keenly aware of avoiding logical fallacies, e.g.:
  • Ad hominem attacks  (i.e., attacking a position by attacking one who holds it; e.g., X is ugly, so X’s position is null);
  • Is/Ought fallacy  (i.e., presuming something ‘ought’ to be the case because it ‘is’ or was the case--i.e., ‘this is the way it is, thus it ought to be this way’; e.g., arguing slavery is moral because of the South pre-civil war);
  • Arguments from Ignorance / Proving Lack  (i.e., arguing something is the case because there is no prohibition against it in one’s principle or its absence in one’s evidence e.g., the Constitution doesn’t mention the internet, so the internet is unconstitutional);
  • Hasty Generalizations  (i.e., when your conclusion is a generalization based upon insufficient evidence; e.g., there was once a tribe in the Amazon that swapped children for weapons, therefore children swaps are not immoral);
  • Appeal to Authority  (i.e., one’s criterion for determining truth is authoritative power, e.g., King/Mom/President/God is always right, so what S/He says is right);
  • Appeal to Tradition  (i.e., one’s criterion for determining truth is tradition, e.g., this is the way it has always been done, thus this is the good way for it to be done--notice the use of the is/ought fallacy here, too);
  • Appeal to Force  (i.e., argument by threat, e.g., if you do not agree that it is morally right to authorize the military spending bill, you might be committing an act of treason, and you know what we do to traitors);
  • Equivocation  (i.e., changing the definition of a key term in your argument, e.g., the good is what is good for everyone, the king said, and this new crown of mine looks so good on me, so it is good);
  • Faulty Causation  (i.e., correlation is not causation, e.g., Bill was outside the burning building, thus Bill caused the fire; e.g., one sip of beer and you will become an alcoholic). 
 
Keep in mind that many fallacies are very subtle & therefore easily trick us; unfortunately, such little slips can lead us to insensible beliefs about radically important decisions, and do harm, despite our best intentions.  The best way to strengthen your argumentation abilities is practice.  


Misc.:

Re: Annotated Bibliographies: 
​it is important to clearly distinguish your descriptive and evaluative annotations, and the differing parts within both (e.g., description of an author’s content from his/her method of conveying the content; evaluation of contents of an author’s arguments, conclusions, evidence, etc., from how s/he argues, concludes, evidences, etc..  Cf.:
Re: Other Helpful Links:
To make an appointment with Research Librarians for help with anything connected to research (for any class): Resources for tips & guides on Writing Philosophy Papers: ​Guide to Recommended Chicago Style:
Database of Print & Electronic Resources in Philosophy, notably, a link to ‘JSTOR,’ a great site for scholarly research: Database of Print & Electronic Resources in English, notably, a link to ‘Project MUSE,’ a great site for scholarly research:  Undergraduate Research Commons, a database of notable work from undergrads worldwide across most disciplines: Belmont Writing Center:
Re: Documentary Research Projects:
two aspects to consider when selecting, using, and reflecting on documents as evidential materials: (1) Contents of Suitable ‘Archive’—balance scholarly rigor with open-mindedness; materials should be evaluated as to the nature and scope of their validity (e.g., the types of ‘documents’ vary, e.g., films, ephemera, journal articles, letters, public records, and will imply correspondingly variable criteria for determining their validity, e.g., a scientific study should be peer-reviewed, an ad’s publication demographics should be considered); (2) Diversity of Researcher Ends—consider your research ends (aim, intent, goal) and whether you will restrict yourself to a single, well-defined end or employ diverse ends (e.g., social sciences diverge on the degree of quantitative vs. qualitative inquiry, but overall value statistical work more than the humanities, which tend to hermeneutic and aesthetic inquiry, paying more attention to the methodological and pedagogical practices of the materials’ creators, e.g., why did it use a documentary form, does it rely on expert testimony, does it aim to realistically depict something or aspirational motivation, etc.. Cf.:



Live Well, too:
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