Eric's Writing Peeves

Prof. Barnes' Writing Pet Peeves

Most Common Mistakes:

Avoid the use of rhetorical questions. Instead, it is usually best to simply make the assertion that the rhetorical question was intended to suggest. For example, replace the rhetorical question "Why wouldn't John escape from prison?" with either "There is no good reason for John not to escape from prison." or (probably even better) "John should escape."
-- In some less common circumstances, it may be appropriate to simply assert that it is a particular question needs to be answered (by you or by someone else). For example, replace the apparently rhetorical question "But what is justice?" with the statement "To provide a satisfactory theory of civil disobedience, Martain Luther King needs to define what makes a law unjust." or "Since King doesn't define justice, his theory is unsatisfactory."

Avoid using the word "feel" instead of "believe". People do not feel propositions, but they do believe, assert, think, and claim them (to name just a few propositional attitudes). A good (but not perfect) test for when "feel" is inappropriate is when the word "that" can be inserted after it. For example, "The Senator feels the economy is improving" is wrong, and you can tell it is wrong because you can add the word "that" after "feels", which indicates that "feels" should be replaced by "believes", "claims", or some other propositional attitude. On the other hand, "The Senator feels uneasy about the economy" is fine, and you cannot add "that" after the "feels". This doesn't work perfectly, because there is a different type of situation where "that" can come after "feel" (e.g., "I feel that cold icicle you just put down my shirt."). But this type of case should be easily distinguished.

Do not use "their" as a gender neutral singular pronoun. It is plural, not singular.

You may use either gender pronoun as neutral. You should be consistent within a context, but you may vary your neutral gender throughout a paper.
I'm not a big fan of words like "s/he" and I find "she or he" cumbersome in most contexts, but if you prefer one of these I'll accept it.
Do not switch from using "one" as a pronoun to using another form of pronoun like "he" within the same context.

Mistakes Regarding Particular Words & Phrases:

"Cannot" (one word) means not possible. "Can not" (two words) should only be used to mean possibly not. It is quite rare that "can not" is appropriate. For example, "I cannot go to school" means that it is impossible for me to go to school, but "I can not go to school" means that I may refrain from going to school if I so choose.

Avoid using "must" instead of "should".

Avoid adding phrases like "It seems that..." that tend to weaken your assertions, unless you have good reason to weaken them.

Avoid inserting "I believe..." into your writing where it isn't needed. Simply make the assertion.

The idiom "begs the question" does not mean invites the question or anything similar to this. An argument (which is the only kind of thing that can beg the question) begs the question if the conclusion of the argument is also a premise (typically a hidden premise). [Note that "premise" means "assumption".]

The abbreviation "i.e." means in other words, & "e.g." means for example.

Only use "literally" when you want to indicate that you are being exact in your meaning (i.e., not exaggerating AT ALL, and not using a metaphor of any sort).

Be precise when you use logical terms like "logical", "follows", "because", "premise", "contradiction", "argument", "thesis", etc. These words have precise meanings and should not be used without due care.

Use the words "therefore", "thus", & "so" (with obvious exceptions for other senses of the word "so") when you are introducing a conclusion which has just been established by a preceding argument. They are not merely transitional words.

"Necessarily" does not mean always, and it should only be used to indicate that it is impossible for something to be any other way.

Little (or perhaps nothing) interesting can be established by definition. Don't use the phrase "by definition" to indicated the mere obviousness of an inference.

General Guidelines for Writing Good Philosophy:

Eschew obfuscation. Avoid jargon and fancy rhetoric whenever possible. Use unusual words only when you are comfortable with the nuances of their meanings. Say what you mean in the simplest way possible.

Use the same word consistently to refer to the same concept. Don't vary word use unless you intend to make a distinction and imply that there are two different concepts.

It is rarely necessary to include phrases like "the idea of" or "the concept of", and they should usually be removed. Yet, people seem very tempted to include them. They are only necessary to avoid potential confusions where the reader might think that something other than the concept was being referred to. For example, in the sentence "John Stuart Mill was concerned with happiness", it is entirely clear that he was concerned with the concept of happiness as a part of his theories, and not that he was concerned with being happy, so it is just cumbersome to insert the extra phrase.

Employ the word "is" to simplify sentences. For example, the sentence "Chris shows every indication of having become smarter" should probably be shortened to "Chris is smarter now". The only reason to use the former would be if you really wanted to call attention to the mere indications of being smarter, and perhaps to deny that she really was smarter. This one example is hardly adequate to demonstrate the point, I know, but do try to be simple wherever possible.

A dictionary is never of any use as an authoritative source on a philosophical point. Of course, they are a great use in coming to get the gist of words that you simply don't recognize, making sure that you aren't misusing a word, or coming to appreciate a word's nuances (with a good dictionary). However, resist the temptation to use a dictionary as an authority in your analysis of a philosophical issue.

Direct quotation should be brief and should be used very sparingly in short papers. You should always give your own interpretation of what the quote says, unless it is grossly obvious what the author of the quote meant. Never insert a quote instead of saying something in your own words.

Avoid hyperbole. {This is the most important thing you will ever do!!!} ;-)

Other Somewhat Picky Things:

Do not use quotation marks for emphasis.

Use double quotes when mentioning a word (as opposed to using it).
For example: Ed is short. (This uses the word "Ed", and says that some person named "Ed" is of small stature.)
"Ed" is short. (This mentions the word "Ed", and says that this word has few letters.)
You can use single quotes to indicate that a word or phrase is being used in a variant sense. These are scare quotes. For example: The acorn fell not far from its 'mother'. Acorns do not literally have mothers, so "mother" is being used in a variant sense here. [Note that this use of single quotes is not universally accepted. You can use double quotes for scare quotes if you prefer.]
Avoid using quotation marks where they are unnecessary. For example, consider this sentence:
John acted 'immorally' when he killed the 'innocent' teller during the bank robbery.
The quotation marks in this sentence are not needed, unless you are trying to suggest that the teller wasn't actually innocent and the killing wasn't a bad thing.

Do not to confuse your mass nouns and count nouns. (E.g., "Use this lane if you have ten items or less." is wrong.)

Do not to use capitalization for emphasis. Just because a word refers to an important concept does not warrant its capitalization.