Product Description

Writing Philosophy: A Student's Guide to Writing Philosophy Essays is a concise, self-guided manual that covers the basics of argumentative essay writing and encourages students to master fundamental skills quickly, with minimal instructor input. Opening with an introductory chapter on how to read philosophy, the book then moves into the basics of writing summaries and analyzing arguments. It provides step-by-step instructions for each phase of the writing process, from formulating a thesis, to creating an outline, to writing a final draft, supplementing this tutorial approach with model essays, outlines, introductions, and conclusions. Skills essential to evaluating arguments, citing sources, avoiding plagiarism, detecting fallacies, and formatting final drafts are dealt with in detail. The final two chapters serve as a reference guide to common mistakes and basic skills in sentence construction, writing style, and word choice. Employing a rulebook format similar to that of the classic Elements of Style (by Strunk, White, and Angell), Lewis Vaughn distills helpful writing advice into simple rules that students can easily remember and apply--and that instructors can refer to when reviewing student papers. These rules cover essay organization, sentence structure, documentation styles, plagiarism, grammar, usage, and more. Written in a clear and engaging style and incorporating samples of student writing, Writing Philosophy is an indispensable resource for virtually any philosophy course.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #11363 in Books
• Published on: 2005-11-10
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 160 pages

Customer Reviews

Writing Essays and Making Good Arguments
This is a really good book. I bought this book for my Intro to Philosophy class 3 months ago and did not sell it. I am going to keep this book since it's a really informative one. This is not really about Philosophy at all. It is about how to analyze/interpret text, write good essays, make good arguments and identify fallacious ones.

So this is a very practical book. It also helps format your essay and cite your sources effectively with the MLA and CMS citing guidelines.

Pleasantly surprised
This book was a requirement for a Philosophy class and I have to say it was a fairly easy read. Looks can be deceiving and when I saw how little the text was, I thought, "Wow... Philosophy in a compact book?" It was concise when it needed to be and it sparked a lot of further reading on my part. I did not re-sell this book after the semester was over. It's a keeper!