Writing Strategies
For most of us, writing is difficult and requires a lot of discipline. Sometimes it can be truly
depressing (e.g., when the philosophical problem seems just too difficult).
Strategies for getting writing done (with special focus on dissertations):
- Know your work habit strengths and weakness and design a writing program that builds
on your strengths and minimizes problems from your weakness. Customize the following
to your personal situation.
- When you have teaching duties, you should devote at least 20 hours per week to research.
When you have none (and nothing else significant), you should devote at least 40 hours
per week to your dissertation (reading, thinking, discussing, and writing).
- Have a specific workplace for writing.
- Have set writing times (ideally the same times of the day; pick times at which your
mental alertness is at its peak [the morning for most people]).
- Your workplace and work times should be selected so as to minimize interruptions.
- Recognize the importance of writing to discover even when the writing is deeply flawed
(both stylistically and substantively). Just keep writing!
- Have writing goals (5 pages per day? 20 hours per week?) and make sure that you
accomplish them. (Note that this concerns writing and not reading, thinking, or
discussing.)
- Have fixed deadlines for delivering drafts to your advisor and stick to them (no matter
bad the quality).
- At the beginning of each chapter (or in separate file), have and constantly revise, a brief
outline of (1) each chapter of the dissertation, and (2) the main sections of the given
chapter. This helps keep the big picture in mind. It will help you and your advisor.
- If you become blocked on a problem: (1) Write out what the problem is (make this your
writing assignment). (2) Move on to another section or chapter. (Let your subconscious
work on the problem for a while.) (3) Talk with others about the philosophical problem.
(This is usually extremely useful.) (4) Accept that being blocked periodically is a normal
part of the writing process. (5) Keep writing!
- Find one or two graduate students to share your drafts with and get them to provide
feedback on content and style. This is extremely helpful.
- Participate in the Philosophy Student Dissertation Group (in which students present
chapters from their dissertations).
- Participate in the university Dissertation Support Group (check with the Graduate School
to see if there is one).
- Use the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, plato.stanford.edu.
- Use the Philosopher’s Index, which is available free of charge to students from the
library at http://mulibraries.missouri.edu/search/databases/main.asp. Type in
“Philosopher’s Index” and then click on that name. Normally, search by Subject and
specify your subject (and perhaps other parameters). Normally, you can limit publications
to English within the last 20 years (earlier important work will typically show up in the
citations of most of the more recent works). Click Search. Note that the index recognizes
only certain predefined subjects. Thus, you may need to try several different ways of
specifying your topic.
Advice on writing philosophy:
- Keep in mind that, in philosophy (and the humanities generally) and unlike in the natural
sciences, writing is (normally) research and not merely a report on (e.g., lab) research.
Thinking about philosophical problems is how we investigate them. We can do this by
merely thinking, by discussing with others, or by writing out our thoughts. Writing,
however, is typically far more effective than merely thinking and discussing (although
they are important too). In writing, shortcomings normally become much more apparent
(lack of clarity, lack of structure, lack of defense, etc.). Thus, you must write to explore—
even when the writing is quite bad. Keep writing! This will involve many, many drafts.
- Do not confuse writing as exploration and research (which will probably take a lot of
time) with writing up a version for others to read. After many drafts of exploration, you
will eventually get a clear idea of what problem you will address, what your thesis is, and
how you will defend it. At that point, you start the process of writing up the paper for
consumption by others. Organize your material clearly. Ruthlessly cut everything that is
not relevant. Material may be interesting and useful for some purposes, but if it plays no
essential role in defending your thesis, it is clutter. Creating this public version of your
paper will take many revisions.
- Dissertation chapters can have a very different purpose and structure than a stand-alone
paper. For example, there may be little sustained argument in an introductory chapter
(giving big picture statement of the problem and your thesis), a background chapter
(stating the problem and your thesis(es) more carefully), and a concluding chapter
(summing up main significance). They merely set the stage for later chapters. Your
central 2-3 chapters, however, will probably be more like stand-along papers (except that
they will depend on earlier set up).
- Don’t try to solve all the problems related to your central question. There are just too
many of them! Instead, it is often appropriate to simply note the issue, make a stipulation
(e.g., with acknowledgement that it requires defense), and move on. For example: (1) For
some notions, you may not be able to give an adequate full explicit definition. It may,
however, be sufficient to simply characterize the notion intuitively and with some
examples. (2) For notions that have different conceptions (e.g., wellbeing), you may be
able to leave open what the correct or relevant conception is. (You may not need, that is,
to tell us exactly how you understand wellbeing.). (3) For some non-central claims of
your argument, it may not necessary to fully defend them. Instead, it may be enough to
discuss the issue, give some reasons in favor of your position, and then explicitly assume
it.
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