17 highlights
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Peter Lipton Style is the feather in the arrow, not the feather in the cap
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One case of awkward writing is not using your own words. Instead, you rely on the phrases and constructions of the author you are discussing. The resulting mixture of your author’s style and your own is almost always awkward.
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The most general and important cause of awkwardness, however, is simply the failure to revise. Most writers produce awkward sentences the first time around; good writers take the time to review their writing and know how to spot awkwardness and how to eliminate it.
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Most people have a better ear than eye, and if it sounds good it will usually read well. If you do have any doubts about your ear, W. Strunk and E.B. White, The Elements of Style, London: Macmillan, 1979 (3rd ed.) is a good guide to awkwardness.
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Once you understand something, it is difficult to remember what it was like not to understand it; but you have to do this to get your point across. To write effectively you must put yourself in the reader’s shoes.
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Don’t just make your point, explain it. Give an example. Approach it from several angles. Above all, keep your writing concrete, even in as abstract a subject as philosophy, because abstract writing loses the reader.
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An essay is not a list of sentences: it has structure. The structure should be obvious to the reader.
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The introduction should not only introduce the topic, it should introduce your argument. That means that you should tell the reader what you are going to prove and how you are going to prove it. Unless the introduction gives the reader a clear map of the essay, she is likely to get lost.
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Be direct and specific. Replace sentences like ‘Throughout the centuries, the greatest minds have pondered the intractable problem of free will’ with ‘In this essay, I will show that free will is impossible’.
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The conclusion of the essay should tell the reader what has been accomplished and why the struggle was worthwhile. It should remind the reader how the different moves in the body of the essay fit together to form a coherent argument.
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Generally speaking, a paragraph should start with a transition sentence or a topic sentence. A transition sentence indicates how the paragraph follows from the previous one; a topic sentence says what the paragraph is about. Both types of sentences are really miniature maps.
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The order of your paragraphs is crucial. The reader should have a clear sense of development and progress as she reads. Later paragraphs should build on what has come before, and the reader should have a feeling of steady forward motion. To achieve this effect, you must make sure that your sentences hang together. Think about glue.
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There is room for originality even when you are out to give an accurate description of someone else’s position. You can be original by using your own words, your own explanations, and your own examples.
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This worries some beginning philosophy students, who think they don’t know how to come up with their own arguments. Do not deceive yourself: Plato did not use up all the good and easy moves, nor do you have to be a Plato to come up with original philosophy.
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First, make distinctions. For example, instead of talking about knowledge in general, distinguish knowledge based on what others tell you from knowledge based on your own observation.
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Second, consider comebacks. If you make an objection to one of Plato’s arguments, do not suppose that he would immediately admit defeat. Instead, make a reply on his behalf: the resulting ‘dialectic’ will help you with your own arguments.
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Often the problem is not lack of originality; it is rather that the originality is not exploited. When you have a good point, don’t throw it away in one sentence. Make the most of it: explain it, extend it, give an example, and show connections. Push your own good ideas as deep as they will go.