notes on writing and writing mistakes

1. Writing will be a factor in assessing the short papers. The purpose of these notes is to clarify what constitutes good philosophical writing and to explain some of the kinds of writing mistakes that can affect the paper grades. Much of this involves matters that you have no doubt studied before, but you may have forgotten to some extent. (Moreover, it is likely that not everything that you have previously learned is entirely correct, at least in relation to formal philosophical writing.)

2. The fundamental principle of all good writing is effective communication. Because philosophical ideas are inherently abstract and at least somewhat vague, the most essential virtue of good philosophical writing is clarity, at several different levels: clarity of large-scale organization or structure, clarity of paragraph structure and divisions, clarity of sentence structure, and clarity with respect to the choice of words and phrases. Each of these deserves some discussion.

3. Clarity of organization has to do with the overall shape and flow of the paper. It should be clear to the reader how the different parts of the paper (in a short paper, these will be paragraphs) go together and relate to each other. One way to indicate this is via an introductory paragraph, but this should be as brief and to the point as possible; you do not have space in these papers for the sort of lengthy or lavish introduction that students are often encouraged to write. Most of the time, in fact, an introductory sentence will do, with most of the structure being indicated by clear transitions between paragraphs (which are needed anyway).

4. Thoughtful paragraph divisions are crucial to good writing. They provide an easily visible indication of one aspect of structure and allow the discussion to proceed in easily graspable steps. To serve this purpose, it is important that paragraphs be neither too long nor too short. Paragraphs that are too long give the reader too little help in understanding the structure, while paragraphs that are too short break up the flow too much and yield writing that is choppy and disjointed. But there is a degree of latitude here, within which paragraphing is (to some extent) a matter of individual taste. Whatever their length, each paragraph should be unified around one central topic or theme, and the divisions should correspond to the main breaks or shifts in topic. (A transitional sentence joining and relating two paragraphs may come either at the end of one paragraph or the beginning of the next, though the latter is usually the better choice; a fairly common mistake is to place a transitional sentence at the end of one paragraph that really introduces the main topic of the next and so belongs there.)

5. Clarity of sentence structure has mainly to do with grammar and punctuation. Be sure that your sentences are grammatically complete, which means that they contain both a subject and a main verb (it is the latter that is much more commonly left out). Be sure that the subject and verb agree with each other as to number (singular or plural) and make good sense together in other respects. Be sure that modifying words or phrases are placed as close as possible to whatever they apply to and that each pronoun (“he”, “it”, etc.) has a clearly identifiable referent, one that is explicitly mentioned in close proximity.

6. It often is conducive to clarity to combine simple sentences into larger, more complicated ones, since this is one way to indicate the connections between the corresponding ideas. (The advice, sometimes given to students, to keep sentences short and simple is generally not good advice in relation to philosophical writing, since it makes it too hard to make the connections between different ideas or claims clear.) But such combining of sentences must be done correctly and with care. Some of the main points here are the following:

a. Two grammatically complete sentences cannot correctly be combined without punctuation or only with a comma. To do either of these things produces a “run-on sentence”, and the latter of the two cases is sometimes referred to as a “comma splice”. (Thus, for example, the previous sentence would be incorrect without the “and”.)

b. Perhaps the most common way to combine two sentences is with a comma together with a conjunction: “and”, “but”, “or”, “or else”, etc.—but note that “however” is not a conjunction and cannot do this job. (Occasionally, where the subjects or predicates of the two sentences are the same, this can be done instead by combining the two subjects or the two predicates with “and”.) Here the choice of conjunction often gives some indication of the connection between the two sentences.

c. Sentences can also be combined by using semi-colons, colons, or dashes, but these all indicate somewhat different connections, and the choice among them can be important for clarity. Semi-colons indicate that the two combined sentences go together in a parallel way: each complements the other, but there is no important order of priority between them. Colons, on the other hand, indicate that what follows the colon in some way completes or elaborates or explains what precedes it. Dashes are best reserved for asides or interjections that do not fit neatly into the rest of the sentence; most often these will not be complete sentences, though sometimes they can be. The dash is the least clear and precise of these various ways of joining sentences and so should be used sparingly—contrary to what may work in other, less formal kinds of writing. (Notice that some of the foregoing sentences are examples of these points; this is also true elsewhere in these notes.)

d. Two sentences can also be combined by making one of them into a dependent clause (for example, by using words like “since” or “although”). Whenever this is done, the resulting clause is of course no longer a complete sentence capable of standing on its own.

7. Commas in particular are often misused. Many students have learned the “rule” of inserting a comma wherever one would pause in reading the sentence, but this is a very unreliable procedure. Commas indicate a break or separation of some kind and should be used in a way that makes logical sense.

a. A common use of commas is to separate off some element in a sentence that is an aside and is thus inessential to the main thought; such commas work in a way analogous to parentheses, though indicating a less major break and thus less departure from the main thought, and so are sometimes called “parenthetical commas”. (The previous sentence contains an example.) Except where the inessential element comes at the beginning or end of the sentence, parenthetical commas always go in pairs, and one main kind of mistake is to leave one of them out. It is also, of course, a mistake to use parenthetical commas where the element they mark off is actually essential to the thought: the test here is whether omitting the element in question entirely results in a sentence that (i) makes clear sense and (ii) still says something that is correct.

b. It is always a mistake to separate the subject and predicate of a sentence with a comma where there is nothing else (such as a parenthetical aside) that comes between them. Following the “pause” rule sometimes produces this result when either the subject or the predicate is long and complicated. A sentence that has a very long and complicated subject like this one can be confusing, but the solution is to reformulate the sentence, if this seems necessary. (Thus it would be wrong to put a comma after “one” in the previous sentence.)

c. Commas also serve to separate the elements in a series of two or more persons, objects, or items of some other kind. In some kinds of writing, it has become the practice to omit the final comma before the conjunction (“and”, “or”) in such a series, but this is still not fully acceptable in formal prose, at least in this country. The argument in favor of retaining this comma is that leaving it out can create ambiguity, since some of the items in such a series may be compound themselves. Thus in the sentence “I invited Susan, Tom, Bill and Karen, Mike, Sam and Jennifer to the party”, presumably Bill and Karen were invited as a couple, whereas Sam and Jennifer were invited separately and constitute the last two items in the list; but this is not entirely clear and in any case is apt to be misunderstood by the reader at first, until he or she gets to the end of the list and realizes that no more items are coming. The underlying principle here, which is also applicable in many other cases as well, is that a sentence should be clear when read in the normal order from left to right, so that the reader does not have to do a “double take”, reinterpreting some earlier aspect or element on the basis of what comes later. (As far as I have been able to tell, the only argument in favor of omitting this “series comma” is that it saves a tiny bit of space; this might imaginably be important in a narrow newspaper column, but not in most situations.)

d. The proper placement of commas (and periods) in relation to quotation marks is a bit uncertain at present. Standard British style has been to put them outside of quotation marks (except where they are actually part of what is being quoted), while standard American practice has been to always put them inside of quotation marks. Due to reciprocal influence, this has led—at least in philosophy—to some writers adopting one practice and some the other. Since the British practice makes more logical sense, I adopt it here and in other material for this course. But since there is no fully standard practice, it’s really up to each writer.

8. Be sure you know the difference between “its” (the possessive of “it”—without an apostrophe) and “it’s” (the contraction of “it is”—with an apostrophe).

9. Using a word or phrase that either does not make clear sense or else says something other than what you are trying to say is an error in diction. One guideline here is to be sure that you have a clear understanding of any word you use, checking with a dictionary if there is any doubt. (For philosophical terms, you may need to use a philosophical dictionary; the best by far is the Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, edited by Robert Audi.) Beyond this, there are no general rules that are of much help in this area; you simply have to think very carefully about what you are trying to say and make sure that the words and phrases you use are correct for this purpose. If in doubt, try to find an alternate wording about which you are surer.

10. Use the spell checker in your word processor. But don’t rely on it exclusively, since it won’t catch typographical errors that turn the word you want into another correctly spelled but inappropriate word.

11. One useful way to catch many sorts of mistakes is to read your paper aloud (this works even better with an audience). This forces you to focus on what you have actually written in a way that may help you to notice ways in which it is unclear or inaccurate or awkward.