writing
TagCiting the Referees at the Journal that Rejected You
You may not like it when your article is rejected from a journal, but at least sometimes you get something good out of it: criticism. (more…)
Virtual Dissertation Writing Groups
The following is an announcement from Joshua Smart (Ohio State University) regarding virtual dissertation groups (VDG) for philosophy graduate students.
Students Have Easy Access to Ghostwriters for Hire — What Should Teachers Do?
Recently, Eric Winsberg (South Florida), as an experiment, tweeted, “Who could I pay to write a five-page essay for me that I need to turn in for my philosophy class?” (more…)
The Inefficiencies of Traditional Academic Writing
Most of the words in an average, considered-well-written paper are in some sense superfluous: for the right audience, you can usually boil it down to a few statements. (more…)
Triumphantly Breaking Free from Academic Philosophy, But Still…
In 2015 I received the National Humanities Medal at a ceremony at the White House. President Obama himself put the medal around my neck, and the rumor was that he made the final choice. In the speech he gave before awarding all the medals, in addition to citing my work on Gödel and Spinoza and Plato, he spoke of me as the philosopher who sometimes chooses to write n..
Virtual Dissertation Writing Groups
The following is an announcement from Joshua Smart (Ohio State University) regarding virtual dissertation groups (VDG).
Daily Nous Turns Five
Daily Nous began with a brief welcome message five years ago, today, around this time. Some of you may be thinking: “five years already? No way!” Others may be thinking, “only five years? I thought it has been around forever.” Still others might be thinking, “you are not going to guess what I’m thinking.” (more…)
Seven Principles of Humane PhD Advising (guest post by Eric Schwitzgebel)
The following is a guest post* by Eric Schwitzgebel (University of California, Riverside). It originally appeared at his blog, The Splintered Mind.
The Best Reviewer/Editor Comments You’ve Received
Last week people shared their horror stories on “The Worst Reviewer/Editor Comments You’ve Received“. But refereeing papers and editing journals is crucial and often underappreciated work, and, as some noted, sometimes the comments can be extremely helpful or encouraging or otherwise appreciated. (more…)
Who’s Down With QPPs? (Questionable Publication Practices) (guest post by Mark Alfano)
The following is a guest post* by Mark Alfano (Australian Catholic University & Delft University of Technology).
The Worst Reviewer/Editor Comments You’ve Received
By request, here is a spot for you to tell us about the harsh, insulting, devastating, stupid, nonsensical, mean, unhelpful, contradictory, and otherwise objectionable comments you’ve received from peer reviewers and editors on your work. (more…)
Virtual Dissertation Writing Groups
Once again, Joshua Smart (Ohio State) is organizing virtual dissertation writing groups for philosophy Ph.D. students. (more…)
Philosophical Diamonds
“I don’t know any academic field whose writing regularly indulges in sentence structure as complex as in analytic philosophy.” (more…)
Peer Review or Perish: The Problem of Free Riders in Philosophy (guest post by Elizabeth Hannon)
“Here’s a radical suggestion, using the only weapon/motivational device editors have: If someone fails to fulfill their duties as referee, the journal will not accept submissions from that referee.” (more…)
The Examined Illness
Darrel Moellendorf, professor of political theory and philosophy at Goethe University Frankfurt, survived. Nearly a year ago, he began chronicling his experience undergoing a stem cell transplant to treat his secondary myelofibrosis, a kind of bone-marrow cancer, that developed from his pre-existing essential thrombocythemia, at On Being (a) Patient. The treatment w..
Don’t Forget to Remove the Scaffolding
“In a way that will be familiar to any reader of analytic philosophy, and is only too familiar to all of us who perpetrate it, this style tries to remove in advance every conceivable misunderstanding or misinterpretation or objection, including those that would occur only to the malicious or the clinically literal-minded.” (more…)
Philosophical Writing’s (Lack of?) Appeal to Other Academics
“It would be great for philosophy if more philosophical papers were written in a way that was appealing to scholars from across the academy.”
So says Brian Weatherson, Marshall M. Weinberg Professor of Philosophy at the University of Michigan, in a recent interview at the Blog of the APA. (more…)
An Impressively Detailed Philosophy Paper Grading Rubric
Micah T. Lewin, a recent PhD from Stanford who is currently an adjunct professor of philosophy at Perimeter College, Georgia State University, has created an impressively detailed and helpful rubric for grading philosophy papers. (more…)
Data About Your Own Writing
Are you curious about your use of words and phrases in your writing? If so, you can play around with the text analysis tools at Voyant Tools. You can paste in the text of a paper, or upload or link to it, and Voyant will produce data about the frequency and location of words and phrases, presenting it in text and graph forms. (more…)
Hopes For Your Philosophy Book — Its Sensible Ideas And Its Mistakes
Joseph Raz, professor of philosophy and law at Columbia University and Kings College, London, has written reflections on his well-known and nearly 30 year-old The Morality of Freedom for a collection of critical essays by others on it, forthcoming in the Jersualem Review of Legal Studies. Rather than engage point-by-point with the criticisms the other contributors ..
The Quality and Reach of Philosophical Writing
In an epic interview at Emotion Researcher, Martha Nussbaum answers questions about her life and her work and philosophy. At one point, the interviewer says:
Another distinctive aspect of your philosophical work is its ambition to have practical import. In your The Therapy of Desire: Theory and Practice in Hellenistic Ethics, you cite approvingly Epicurus’ claim ..
Writing Philosophy With Style
Lou Andreas-Salomé, who was at one time a friend and romantic interest of Friedrich Nietzsche’s, included in her book on the philosopher his “ten rules of writing.” They are:
Teaching Under Trump: A Writing Exercise
This is what author and professor of literature and creative writing Melissa Febos (Monmouth University) did with her students the day after the election: (more…)
An Interview with David Chalmers
David Chalmers (NYU & ANU), apart from being a prolific academic philosopher, does a good amount of public philosophy, is half of the team that runs PhilPapers and its associated endeavors, edits the philosophy of mind series for Oxford University Press and the philosophy of mind section at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, and, I’m told, takes on an impressi..
What To Read To Improve Your Philosophical Writing
A professor writes in with a question:
I’d be very curious what books or other resources your readers might recommend for graduate students looking to improve their writing skills. I have in mind anything from general style guides, to guides aimed more specifically at academics (or even professional philosophers!).
One thing that helps writers improve is read..
Reference Management Software Revisited
Back in Fall of 2014 we discussed reference management software and apps. Bibdesk and Zotero seemed to be the most popular options at the time. A reader has written in asking us to revisit the topic, noting that when it comes to information technology, a year and a half is a long time. What new options are out there? Have people’s preferences changed? Let us know. T..
Virtual Dissertation Groups
Working on a dissertation? The latest round of the Virtual Dissertation Groups, organized by Joshua Smart of the University of Missouri, will be up and running soon. He writes:
While advisors and committees are important, it can be incredibly helpful to discuss one’s work with peers in a lower-stakes environment, and it can be particularly enlightening to do so w..
“American Society for the Protection of Philosophers” Proposed
In a comment in the ongoing discussion regarding the reaction to George Yancy’s “Dear White America,” University of Oregon professor of philosophy Naomi Zack puts forward the idea of an “American Society for the Protection of Philosophers.” She volunteers herself for it and asks interested others to contact her:
The American Philosophical Association should expre..