Writing papers in philosophy
My guidelines for what categories I look at when marking, and my marking rubric, can be found on the page with the instructions for the first essay: https://blogs.ubc.ca/phil449/short-paper-on-nietzsche/
Jim Pryor’s guide to writing papers in philosophy: http://www.jimpryor.net/teaching/guidelines/writing.html
– These are clear, down to earth suggestions that reflect what most philosophy profs are looking for in essays. Only the “how you’ll be graded” part likely differs from professor to professor. See my own writing handout and rubric for how your essays will be marked for this course
A shorter article on writing philosophy papers, also good, by Peter Horban from SFU: http://www.sfu.ca/philosophy/resources/writing.html
Citing Sources and Avoiding Plagiarism
It’s actually fairly easy to engaging in plagiarism in essays, even if you don’t mean to. Usually it’s a matter of learning how to cite sources correctly. See the following links for help in learning about plagiarism and how to avoid it.
UBC libraries website on academic integrity and avoiding plagiarism: http://help.library.ubc.ca/planning-your-research/academic-integrity-plagiarism/
UBC libraries site on how to cite sources properly in your essays: http://help.library.ubc.ca/evaluating-and-citing-sources/how-to-cite/
A site that goes through what plagiarism is and how to cite properly: http://www.plagiarism.org
– the “Plagiarism 101” part is good
– this video on the site is also useful
– Note: the site seems to exist in part to get you to use their plagiarism checker site, WriteCheck, which costs money, and which might require you to store personal information in the United States. I am not recommending you sign up for WriteCheck! You can use the plagiarism.org site without that.
Here are a couple of comprehensive tutorials on how to use quotations and paraphrases accurately to avoid plagiarism.
- Here’s a nice, fairly short tutorial from the University of Southern Mississippi, which allows you to take some informal quizzes to test your knowledge: http://www.lib.usm.edu/legacy/plag/plagiarismtutorial.php
- Here’s a longer tutorial from the University of Maryland University College: http://www.umuc.edu/writingcenter/plagiarism/index.cfm (this one is good, but I can’t get the animated version to work. It might work on your computer, but if not, you can just click on the links separately.