The thesis

There are two kinds of undergraduate philosophy papers: those that have theses and those that do not. By a thesis I mean a clearly stated and defended claim that constitutes the topic of the paper. The thesis of a paper should

• Be stated near the beginning of the paper, in such a way that the reader can see that this is the thesis. (Ideally, the title of the paper should hint at the thesis.)
• Be explained and defended throughout the paper. Each paragraph of the paper should be conceived of as playing a role in the defense of your thesis, and it should be obvious to the reader what role any given paragraph is playing in your emerging argument.
• Take a specific and substantive position. It does not count as a thesis to maintain, for example, that "Plato has interesting things to say about the law." This is not specific enough. Your thesis should explain what interesting things Plato has to say. It also does not count as a thesis to say that "We'll never understand what Plato meant by his Forms." This is not a substantive thesis, but more like an excuse for not having a thesis.

The introduction

As noted already, you will probably want to put your thesis in your introduction. At any rate, you want to say something to orient the reader to your topic. In writing your introduction, avoid

• Obvious generalities. I do not want to be told that "Philosophers have argued for thousands of years about knowledge and reality." This sort of thing tells me nothing, and makes me suspect from the start that I'm dealing with someone who is a poor writer.
• Restating word-for-word the suggested paper topic. Write your own paper; don't mimic what I've written.
• Admitting defeat. It's a popular strategy to admit from the start that, for instance, "of course we'll never really understand anything about the nature of mind." Reflection should suggest to you that I, the reader, have chosen philosophy as a profession because I believe we can reach genuine understanding about philosophical issues. You should therefore avoid antagonizing me from the start by calling into question the very point of philosophic inquiry.

Argumentative strategies

Students sometimes have a difficult time in arguing for their views. This is natural. The result, however, is that your paper makes claims that are never defended. You want to avoid this. So you must find a way not just to give me your own opinion (which is an absolute requirement in the paper), but also to defend that opinion. In other words, it is not enough simply to say: "it is my view that the law must always be obeyed." I want to see you say something like that. But the next thing I want to see you say is: "I believe this because...." And this is the hard part -- to argue for the things you believe.

The way philosophical arguments almost always work is by beginning with assumptions or premises that the reader is likely to accept. So if you are defending the above view about obeying the law, you might start by making some less controversial assertions. Try saying, for instance, that you think promises should always be kept. (But be ready to return to this claim; couldn't someone think of an exceptional case where a promise shouldn't be kept?) Then compare keeping a promise to obeying the law. (There is an analogy here, isn't there? Socrates, at any rate, seemed to think so.) Then conclude that the law should always be obeyed. Maybe you don't think this is a very good argument. That just shows how hard it is to make good arguments. But what's crucial is that you try to argue for the things you state.

Grammar

Here are two dumb mistakes that get made all the time:

• Confusing its with it's. I'm confident that you all know the difference. But because English often uses an apostrophe to signify the possessive (e.g., Bob's bike), many people use the contraction "it's" when they should use the possessive "its".
• Switching from the singular to the plural: e.g., "Each person knows their responsibility." This may be acceptable in spoken English, but it is definitely not acceptable in written English. The mistake is common because people don't like using the masculine or feminine pronoun to talk about a group of mixed sex. (E.g., we would be reluctant to say "Each person knows his responsibility," unless we were talking about, say, a football team.) Often, however, this problem can easily be fixed by switching to the plural from the start. (E.g., "They all know their responsibility.")