The Art of Argument
I'm currently writing an open access textbook, tentatively titled The Art of Argument, that shares some of what I've learned about writing philosophy articles. While the chief audience consists of advanced undergraduates, graduate students, and early-career scholars, I think that you can use many of these tutorials in introductory courses, so long as you're willing to put in some extra effort in teaching the concepts. Below are some early drafts of chapters that have been tested (to varying degrees) with my students. Once this is a bit more polished and battle-tested, I may eventually make this open source.
Below is my best guess at how the book will be structured. Links are to drafts. Unlinked chapters are in varying stages of (in)completion.
- Reconstructing Arguments
- Criticizing Arguments
- Kinds of Analytical Essays
- Reviewing the Literature... and Living to Write About It
- Blueprints for Writing Essays (These aren't in LaTex yet--sorry!)
- Thought Experiments, Toy Examples, and Real Examples
- Economizing Your Prose
- Enlivening Your Prose
- Writing Abstracts (co-authored with Kyle Freiler)
- Presenting