Guidelines for Writing a Paper - Institute of Philosophy

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1 Guidelines for Writing a Paper - Institute of Philosophy The guidelines for writing a paper at the Institute of Philosophy (KU Leuven) discuss the formal aspects of writing an academic philosophical paper or thesis. 1 Keep these aspects in mind when you are writing, and check afterwards whether your work meets all the formal requirements. 1. Structure Make sure that the division of your paper is logical and balanced: all parts or sections should be sufficiently worked-out. The titles and subtitles should be concise and meaningful. Divide the sections in sub-sections where relevant. (Most journal artiles, however, are only divided in sections.) Make sure that the title corresponds to the actual section or sub-section and that the actual text is devoted to a single subject. The titles of sections and subsections should be preceded by a blank line; possibly also add a blank line below the title. In numbering the sections and sub-sections, you may use the numerical division: 1., 1.1., , , , 1.2., , , 2., etc. In the first sentence of a text following a title or subtitle words should be repeated where necessary. Example: ok: 1.3. Descartes proof of the existence of God Descartes proves the existence of God by not: 1.3. Descartes proof of the existence of God This proof consists of. 1 For these guidelines, some parts (sometimes verbatim) were taken from: HIW, Richtlijnen bij de masterproef onderwijs/masterproef/maproefgids; HIW, Eigen-Wijs: Individuele training van wijsgerige vaardigheden, Tutorial Informatievaardigheden Faculteit Letteren KU Leuven, module 6, all consulted in November 2011; University of Chicago Press, The Chicago Manual of Style, 17th ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2017), Part 2.13: Quotations and Dialogue, Part 3.14: Documentation I: Notes and Bibliography, Part 3.15, Documentation II: Author-Date References, Karin de Boer, Advice on Writing Essays (for the Common seminar ). 1

2 The division of your paper is the basis of the table of contents (with page numbers), which is to be placed at the beginning of the text. In case of a short paper or journal article it is not necessary or usual to include a table of contents. 2. Makeup 2.1. Text Choose a sober and easily readable makeup for your work. Use Times New Roman fond, size 12 and 1.5 line spacing for your main text. Use the same font for footnotes, but size 10. Do not include blank lines between paragraphs. Indent on the first line of each paragraph, except the first paragraph. Justify your text (justified text is text that is aligned with the left and right margins). You can use italics only in the following cases: to emphasize concepts or sentences. Use this option sparsely. Do not underline sentences, parts of a sentence or words. What is most remarkable in the passage quoted above is Kant s insistence that expressions of contempt are always contrary to duty, even when others act in ways that render them unworthy of the respect that we owe them. non-english words that are not generally used. (You can find the words from other languages that are currently used in English in an explanatory English dictionary, see below.) Concepts that are important in the thought of a non-english-speaking philosopher are often mentioned in the original language. Scientific terms are sometimes displayed in another language, e.g. in Latin. Sometimes these terms and concepts remain untranslated; sometimes they are translated into English with the original word in parentheses. Example 1: In the first case, the characterization of the subject s acts as rationalizing (vernünfteln) and as attempts to corrupt the law presuppose that the law is genuinely binding. Example 2: Ideologies are used to attract followers but they are exposed to change the moment they are put into action. The democratic element of parrhesia is very important here. The citizen is and remains her own master, so that she is able to question even the faith in a certain view of the world, in a specific Weltanschauung. titles of books and journals you mention in your text. The idea that obligation presupposes a moral subject capable of freely taking up the moral law addressed to her and making use of it as a standard for her own conduct was first advanced by the voluntarist natural law theorist Samuel Pufendorf in On the Law of Nature and of Nations and in On the Duty of Man and Citizen According to Natural Law. in bibliographic references (see below). 2

3 You can use single quotation marks for: concepts that we have not yet made our own. Was your starting point the current political situation in Italy, insofar as the disfigurements of technocracy, populism, and so-called plebiscitarianism certainly belong to recent Italian political history? terms which we would like to connote as so-called. Could one say that you conceive of democracy as a form of slow politics (in a way that is similar to the idea of slow food ), as opposed to the immediacy that characterizes some of the disfigurements that you describe, such as populism? referring to the term itself. The term plebiscitarianism, etymologically related to the Roman plebiscite, is coined by professor Urbinati as one of democracy s disfigurements, and refers to a highly personalized form of politics, in which the only form of political participation allowed is the acclamation of the leader. citing within a citation (see below). Double quotation marks are used for titles of articles in journals or in collections or chapters in books that you mention in your text. At the end of his Nietzsche, in a famous text entitled Metaphysics as History of Being, Heidegger indeed recounts a story that is in a way parallel to the one that I am investigating. [ ] 9 9 Martin Heidegger, Nietzsche II, trans. Pierre Klossowski (Paris: Gallimard, 1971), 325. citations that you include in your text and bibliographic references (see below) Titles, headers and footers Use bold for the subtitles of short papers (no italics, underlining, ornamental letters or colors). For the title choose font size 16, bold. In a longer paper or thesis you can use a larger font or a special makeup (e.g. bold, italics) for your titles (but no underlining, ornamental letters or colors). For example: 1. Bold 1.1. Italics 1.2. Italics Roman (= usual letter, without italics or bold) Roman 2. Bold Use the footer for the page numbering. Do not forget to add page numbers to your document! 3

4 2.3. Footnotes Notes are numbered (1, 2, 3, etc.) and placed at the bottom of the page (footnotes) or at the end of the text (endnotes). We suggest not to use endnotes. Each word-processing program on the computer allows you to generate the notes automatically. In Word you can introduce footnotes through References, Insert footnote. In most cases, footnote numbers are placed at the end of the sentence. The footnote numbers are placed after the punctuation (but before a dash ). With a citation they follow after xxxx. For examples, see 4 and 5. Footnotes can be used for different reasons: to cite the relevant sources (but not in the author-date system, see 4.3.2) to give the translation of a quotation that is in the original in the text (or the reverse) to give supplemental quotations to engage with additional secondary literature to nuance or supplement your assertions in cases where this is not immediately relevant to the development of your argument to refer to assertions made elsewhere in your text 3. Language use and style 3.1. Grammar, word choice, and spelling Pay attention to grammar, word choice, and spelling. If you have doubts regarding a grammatical construction, the right choice of a word, or the correct spelling, you can, amongst other things, consult online sources: If you are not sure about a certain expression, do a search on Google or Google Books. Add site:uk or site:edu to restrict the hits to those found on British or American websites. Put the expression, or a version of it, between double quotation marks so that you get examples of the exact phrase; vary if necessary. Texts should be written in either American or British English, not a mix of both. Be aware of the small differences between American, Canadian, and British English among different dictionaries. Some journals require one kind or another. The Oxford English Dictionary applies as the standard for British spelling (see quick link on the website of the library of the Institute). Merriam-Webster is one of the dictionraries that applies as the standard for American spelling: If a term such as nineteenth century is used as an adjective, it functions as a single term and needs a hyphen: nineteenth-century logic vs. throughout the nineteenth century. The same applies to other expressions that function as single adjectives. 4

5 Grammars: John Eastwood, Oxford Guide to English Grammar (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 2002, 1 st ed. 1994), /oxford_guide_to_english_grammar.pdf English Grammar on the website of the British Council: Check the rules about that vs. which. Simply put: Use that to specify the subject: The book that you would like to consult is not available. Use which to add information about the subject that could be left out without affecting the structure of the sentence: Book X, which is very popular, is not available. When you have finished, be sure to check the spelling using the spellcheck of your word processing program, but be aware that the spellcheck does not find all errors, and sometimes identifies terms and passages as errors that are correct Punctuation and spaces Use punctuation marks in the following manner: Use a space after, but not before a period, comma, exclamation mark, question mark, colon, and semicolon, e.g. xxxx. xxxxx, xxxx! xxxx? xxxx: xxxx; xxxx. Dot not use a space before and after em dashes (= long dashes): xxxx xxxx. An em dash may be preceded by a question mark or an exclamation point, but never by a comma, a colon, or a semicolon, and rarely by a period. Use a space before parentheses, single and double quotation marks, e.g. (xxxx) or [xxxx] or <xxxx> or xxxx or xxxx. For punctuation in citations, see below Advice on style Avoid long, complicated or winded sentences. Avoid strings of little words with little content. Keep it simple. Write the way you speak (up to a point); sometimes it can help to read your text aloud. Given the fact that X / Due to the fact that X > Since / Because X [use given or due to only if followed by a specific noun] What is characteristic of acts of willing that institute values is that they are X. > Acts of willing that institute values are characterized by X. In this article, I argue that it is coherent to claim that X. > In this article, I argue that X. I will argue that the key to developing a coherent account of notion X requires understanding that it is inseparable from Y. > I will clarify X by taking into account the mutual dependence of X and Y. 5

6 Hegel s Philosophy of Spirit can be seen as his most exhaustive attempt to systematically contribute to what he describes as the doctrine of spirit, which is usually called psychology and whose philosophical condition he finds bad and neglected. > Hegel s Philosophy of Spirit contains his most exhaustive contribution to the discipline usually called psychology, whose philosophical condition he finds bad and neglected. If one is to consider at face value what Hegel states in the Preface it is plausible to think that he opposes liberation movements. > In the Preface Hegel seems to oppose liberation movements. Avoid redundant sentences, words, or clauses, and wordiness more generally. Ask yourself: do I really need this? Can it be put more succinctly? Don t use two descriptions that cover more or less the same content, but choose the strongest one, or the one that implies the other. - Similar criticisms can be found in the writings of later philosophers as well - Although this argument may not be watertight, it nevertheless has one advantage: - a number of different ways In the following example, to question implies that the subject will be studied: This article studies our philosophical understanding of experience in order to question the current dismissal of experiential accounts in feminist theory. > This article questions the current dismissal of experiential accounts in feminist theory. Don t use terms or clauses for the sake of embellishment or to impress the reader. Avoid jargon. It is highly likely that whoever has studied philosophy remembers that the Scottish philosopher David Hume is mostly famous for his skepticism. > David Hume is most famous for his skepticism. Vary expressions do not write I will argue three times on a row, and alternate, for example, Nussbaum and she/her. Add signposts that guide the reader through the argument, i.e., recapitulate when necessary, or indicate briefly why you are moving to the next step / topic. However, it is not necessary to start each section with an introduction; this can be a bit boring. Often it suffices to end the preceding section with a sentence that explains the transition to the next. Finally, do not interrupt the text too often by referring to things that will be dealt with later on. As was argued in section 2,.... Sofar we have seen that... Whereas the preceding section..., the present one focuses on... Turning to the Prolegomena, the next section aims to identify the various elements of Kant s response to Hume. But how...? This question will be addressed in the next section. This raises the problem / brings us to the issue of..., to which I now turn. 6

7 Show, don t tell. The sentence that follows is not exactly wrong, but on many occasions it can be left out, because you can save words by explaining immediately what your alternative approach is: Without taking issue with any of these suggestions, I would like to take a different approach to X. Make sure it is clear who is doing / arguing what. Make explicit, on a regular basis, that you are discussing someone s theory, account, understanding, etc., if this is the case, rather than the matter at hand itself (he/she holds, considers X to..., on her account, as he puts it, etc.). Do this as well when you are presenting your own view (I hold, I would contend, arguably, etc.). The mind has two aspects. According to Lærke, the mind has two aspects. [Laerke is a contemporary Spinoza scholar.] > According to Lærke, Spinoza considers the mind to have two aspects / distinguishes two aspects of the mind. Support your argument / interpretation by means of quotes or by paraphrasing someone s words (in the main text or in footnotes). See 5. Give (your own) examples, occasionally, to make your interpretation or point more concrete. The word I should be used with some discretion, but there is no reason to avoid it completely. Do not hesitate to use I, in my view, etc., when you are describing your opinion or the way you want to proceed, esp. in the introduction or conclusion. Avoid exclamation marks and other ways of conveying emotions (i.e., unfortunately ): if the content of your words is remarkable, the reader will realize this anyway. Do not attribute mistakes or errors to philosophers, because that is pedantic and suggests there is a single truth that can be known; rather point out that their claim or argument is not well supported, that an author makes claims that are difficult to square, that someone s view is problematic for specific reasons. Avoid, in most cases, sentences between brackets. Things you want to add, but that do not fit nicely, can often be moved to the notes. Do not use abbreviations such as don t, won t or doesn t in academic texts. Use present tense when dealing with ideas or the content of texts, past tense when dealing with events that happened in the past: In the Phenomenology of Spirit, Hegel maintains that... Hegel never abandoned the ideas put forward in the Phenomenology of Spirit. Avoid, in most cases, the passive voice; sometimes it can be used for the sake of variation. In other words: make clear who is doing what and avoid vagueness (active voice: X wrote the book ; passive voice: the book was written by X ). 7

8 In the following example, it is unclear who is doing the calling: Self-consciousness is a modification of the mind that each of us can experience and that is fittingly called a form of cognition. > Baumgarten conceives of self-consciousness as a form of cognition that anyone can obtain. Avoid nouns that are derived from verbs and use verbs instead. More generally, prefer verbs over nouns wherever you can; this makes the sentences flow better. According to Hegel the annulment of contradictions is necessary. > According to Hegel, contradictions are necessarily annulled. Using the present participle (-ing) or the past participle (-ed) helps sentences flow nicely (but make sure it is clear who or what is the subject of the action): Inspired by X, Y wrote... Drawing on / challenging X work, Y maintains in her latest book... Make complete sentences, not sentences that lack a proper verb and have the formal structure of a subordinate clause: A methodology deeply influenced by the arguments used to defend the Copernican model. > This methodology was deeply influenced by the arguments used to defend the Copernican model. Avoid vague terms, such as that, this, and it, if they refer to an earlier part of the present or preceding sentence, but do not allow the reader to identify the subject. Another vague term to be avoided is relation or relationship : try to specify how X and Y are related. The same holds with regard to possible and possibility : stating that something is possible does not tell us much about it. Hegel conceives of world history as a series of transgressions and reconciliations caused by the tension between particularity and universality. This emphasizes the need to... Be careful with the use of as : expressions such as to regard X as Y are fine, but do not use it in combination with a negative verb ( to disregard X as Y ) or with verbs such as to investigate X as Y. 8

9 4. Bibliographic references 4.1. The importance of bibliographic references When writing an academic text (e.g., a paper, a BA or MA paper, a doctoral thesis), it is important to inform the reader as correctly and completely as possible concerning the sources you have used. A reference to a source is a bibliographic reference. Bibliographic references can be added either in the text or in the footnotes. Usually you also record bibliographic references in a bibliography (or reference list) at the end of the text. It is of essential importance to give a complete bibliographic reference for each source. This enables the reader to find the referenced source as quickly and easily as possible Details for bibliographic references When consulting a source, it is important to note as many details as possible or store these data or your sources digitally, so as to avoid searching for details (e.g. publisher, page numbers) at the last minute. The table on the next page can help you to collect the necessary data. The DOI (digital object identifier) is a means of identification for a file on the web. The URL (uniform resource locator) of a publication is the address of the webpage where you can find this publication. 9

10 Book first name + name author(s) title + (possibly) subtitle (sometimes title of work that consists of several parts) (possibly) translator(s) and/or editor(s) of a book or text edition in case of a revised edition: edition (e.g. 4th revised ed.) in case of a work with parts: number of parts (vols.) or number and title of a certain volume (possibly) title of the series in which the book was published + number in the series place of publication + publisher + year of publication if digital: * online: DOI (or URL if no DOI is available) * other types: medium, e.g. CD- ROM, pdf, e-book Chapter from a book first name + name author(s) of the chapter title + (possibly) subtitle of the chapter editor(s) or author(s) of the book in case of a revised edition: edition (e.g. 4th revised ed.) in case of a work with parts: number of parts (vols.) or number and title of a certain volume (possibly) title of the series in which the book was published + number in the series place of publication + publisher + year of publication page numbers of the chapter if digital: DOI (or URL if no DOI is available) Journal article first name + name author(s) of the article title + (possibly) subtitle of the article title of the journal volume and issue of the journal year of publication of the journal page numbers of the article if digital: DOI (or URL if no DOI is available) Webpage first name + name author(s) of the webpage Title or descripton of the webpage / document Title of the website Owner or sponsor or responsible of the website publication date or date of the most recent revision date on which you visited the web page (in case the document has no DOI) DOI (or URL if no DOI is available) 10

11 4.3. Chicago Style: Two systems of bibliographic referencing There are different citation styles in use. A citation style is a set of rules, formulated by an academic association or editors of an academic journal, on how to format bibliographic references, both in comprehensive and abbreviated form. Most citation styles have their own official style guide. It is important that you use one uniform citation style consistently throughout your work. When applying a citation style, you must be aware of all details, such as the order of the publication details, spaces (!!), punctuation (periods, commas, colons, semicolons), parentheses, single or double quotation marks, italics, and capital letters At the Institute of Philosophy we use the Chicago Manual of Style, 17th edition for source citation. When you are logged in to Limo, you can consult the full Chicago Manual of Style Online, which contains very detailed guidelines. A short quick guide is available for free: On the Institute s website you will find a summary with examples from philosophy, the HIW Abbreviated Bibliography Guide for Preparing Bibliographic Reference : There are two systems of source citation in your text and bibliography: the notes and bibliography system and the author-date system. The Chicago Manual of Style contains both guidelines for the notes and bibliography system as well as for the author-year system Notes and bibliography system In the notes and bibliography system you use numbered notes that correspond to numbers (in superscript) in the text. The notes can be footnotes or endnotes. (1) You place a footnote number in the text and use the footnote at the bottom of the page to detail the bibliographic details of the reference. At the end of your text you add a bibliography. (2) A variant on this is when you place an endnote number in the text itself and the accompanying bibliographic reference(s) in the endnote(s) at the end of the text. Text We need a good definition of what a psychiatric disorder is, because many social issues seem to depend on it. Think for example, of a question like should health insurance pay for the treatment of nicotine addiction? 1 Footnote 1 Rachel Cooper, Classifying Madness: A Philosophical Examination of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (Dordrecht: Springer, 2005), 6. 11

12 Bibliography Cooper, Rachel. Classifying Madness: A Philosophical Examination of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Dordrecht: Springer, The notes and bibliography system is normally used by researchers in the domain of literature and history. In the field of philosophy the notes and bibliography system is most often used in the continental tradition and in publications that refer to several historical sources. It is almost always applied when citing Ancient or Medieval authors, because the publication year of their works (which is crucial in the author-date system) is often not known and a reference to a publication year of a recent edition (e.g. Plato 2014) is strange. An advantage of the notes and bibliography system is that it is flexible. In the footnote reference, the researcher can add comments to the cited source, which gives the researcher a large freedom to clarify his or her position with reference to the source. Moreover, it is easier to reference unusual sources (e.g. correspondence, a weblecture, a flyer) in footnotes. On the Institute s website you will find a summary of the Chicago Manual of Style Online: Notes and Bibliography System with examples from philosophy: For complex cases of source citation, you should consult the Chicago Manual of Style Online through Limo: 14: Documentation I: Notes and Bibliography Author-date system In the author-date system you only insert a short reference in between brackets in your text: the author s name, the year of publication, and, if necessary, the page number. The complete bibliographical reference is given at the end of the work, in the bibliography. Text We need a good definition of what a psychiatric disorder is, because many social issues seem to depend on it. A question like should health insurance pay for the treatment of nicotine addiction? (Cooper 2005, 6), would probably depend on whether we consider addictions disorders. Bibliography Cooper, Rachel Classifying Madness: A Philosophical Examination of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Dordrecht: Springer. The author-year system is mostly used by researchers in biomedical, exact, behavioral, and social sciences. In the field of philosophy the author-date system is most often used in the Anglo-American tradition. It works best when the bibliography about the subject is very homogeneous and specialized (e.g., no mix of scientific and literary sources). 12

13 An advantage of the author-year system is that it is clear and saves space, and that you can immediately see, when reading the text, the publication date of the referenced work. A disadvantage is that it cannot be used for referencing authors from Antiquity or the Middle Ages, because it is not usually known in which year these authors wrote their work. On the Institute s website you will find a summary of the of the Chicago Manual of Style Online: Author-Year System with examples from philosophy: For complex cases of source citation, you should consult the Chicago Manual of Style Online through Limo: 15: Documentation II: Author-Date References Citations in your text In a text, you cannot only give a general and complete overview of all the consulted sources in the bibliography. For each part of your paper you need to accurately indicate which sources you have consulted. This should be done by means of source references scattered throughout your text, either as citations in footnotes (notes and bibliography system), or as in-text citations (author-date system) How do I make a good reference? The references in the text are meant to inform your reader on the exact passage you have used, so you need to give the specific pages of your source. Example 1: Notes and bibliography system This idea is so important to Pufendorf s ethical project, and to the line of ethical thinking that follows from it, that Stephen Darwall has characterized it simply as Pufendorf s Point. 2 2 Stephen Darwall, The Second-Person Standpoint: Morality, Respect, and Accountability (Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 2006), 22. Bibliography Darwall, Stephen. The Second-Person Standpoint: Morality, Respect, and Accountability. Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, Example 2: Author-date system This idea is so important to Pufendorf s ethical project, and to the line of ethical thinking that follows from it, that Stephen Darwall has characterized it simply as Pufendorf s Point (Darwall 2006, 22). Bibliography Darwall, Stephen The Second-Person Standpoint: Morality, Respect, and Accountability. Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press. 13

14 With an article or a chapter from a book, you reference not only the page numbers of the full contribution in the bibliography (e.g ), but also, in the text or footnotes, the exact page numbers where you found the information (e.g ). With some classical works (e.g. by Aristotle, Plato, Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Descartes, Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche) the references are always done in the same manner, regardless of the edition or translation used. Plato, Rep. 360e-361b. Aristotle, De an a14-24; Met b5-8. Augustine, De civitate Dei Immanuel Kant, KrV A 99. Friedrich Nietzsche, MA I Rep. = Republic; De an. = De anima (On the Soul); Met. = Metaphysica; KrV = Kritik der reinen Vernunft (Critique of Pure Reason); MA = Menschliches, Allzumenschliches (Human, All Too Human). With references to the work of Plato, such indications as 688e are based on the renaissance-edition (1578) by Henri Estienne or Stephanus. In references to the work of Aristotle, indications such as 184a16 are based on the edtion by the 19th century German philologist August Immanuel Bekker. With references to Kant we are referring to the standard edition, the Akademie-Ausgabe, an edition from the Königlich Preußische Akademie der Wissenschaften in Berlin, wherefrom the first volume appeared in In the first reference you list which edition you have used and possibly which translation. If you use different editions, you must note the edition (or an abbreviation thereof) in each reference. Example 1: The first time you refer to Kant, you write, for example, in the footnote: 3 AA 27: [AA = Akademie-Ausgabe, i.e. Kants gesammelte Schriften, ed. Königlich-Preussische Akademie der Wissenschaften / Deutsche Akademie der Wissenschaften (Berlin: de Gruyter, ).] All translations from Kant s work are taken from the relevant volumes of The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant, under the general editorship of Paul Guyer and Allen Wood (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, ). Example 2: In the first footnote of an essay on Nietzsche, you could, for example, mention: Texts by Nietzsche are cited according to the Kritische Studienausgabe (KSA) (Friedrich Nietzsche, Sämtliche Werke: Kritische Studienausgabe, ed. Giorgio Colli and Mazzino Montinari (München / Berlin: DTV / de Gruyter, 1980), always with the siglum of the text and possibly the number of the aphorism or note, and after that the volume and page number in the KSA. All translations from Nietzsche s work are taken from How often must I reference my sources? In case you use the same source(s) many times in the same paper, it is not sufficient to refer to the source(s) only once at the beginning of your text. On the other hand, you should avoid including the same or a very similar references repeatedly. It is therefore important that you strike a good balance of how many times you cite the same source(s) in your work. 14

15 For instance, if you have used a lot of ideas or arguments from three publications for a chapter in your MA thesis, then you reference: too little if you refer to the three publications only once, i.e. you give one general reference at the beginning of the chapter; too much if you refer in each sentence to the exact passage in the publications; sufficiently (good balance) by referring for each paragraph or logical unit to the exact passage in your sources When do I need to reference? Ideally you refer to, or engage with, some of the relevant literature throughout the paper. 1. You need to indicate the source of the factual information you give. [note] As a third-year student Hume was taught metaphysics through textbooks by Gerard de Vries, an anti- Cartesian proponent of reformed scholasticism (Harris 2015: 39). [Harris is the author of a biography of Hume.] 2. You need to support your interpretation of primary texts by referring to primary sources. Nothing might have become more decisive with respect to the fate of metaphysics, Kant writes in the Prolegomena, than Hume s attack on this discipline (Prol, 4: 258). 3. You need to either critically engage with other authors or use other authors views to support your own by referring to secondary sources. [note] Wilkerson (1971: 351) has gone so far as to argue that Kant aimed to eradicate Humean scepticism about the external world, a view at odds with both Hume s and Kant s stated aims. Commentators who argue that Kant intended to refute Hume s skeptical attack on causal inferences include Friedman (1992), Falkenstein (1998) and Allison (2008). Refer to secondary literature for the sake of support or critical discussion, but not if the relevant content can be found in the primary text at hand: Wrong: According to Croce (1915), Hegel considers the concept of becoming to result from the sublation of being and nothing. [This is something that can be found in Hegel s own Science of Logic.] Do not try to cite all relevant secondary literature, but focus on a number of exemplary cases. Try to find out who was the first to defend a particular position. Try to identify who are the main players in a particular debate (by reading the relevant literature), but do not engage with these alone: perhaps there are less recent works, or recent works by relatively unknown authors, that are highly relevant to your article and deserve to be cited or challenged. Only refer to literature you have consulted yourself. Do not include references to literature that you do not mention in the text. 15

16 When do I not need to reference? You do not need to refer to your sources when you mention a well-known fact, a fact most people would know without having to look it up; e.g., the beginning and end date of World War I ( ); the name of the current president of the United States of America (Donald Trump); Pythagoras theorem; the chemical composition of water. when you are dealing with a widely accepted proposition; e.g. When you write about the gravity on earth, there is no need to cite the work of Newton. when you note a proverb; vb. What s learnt in the cradle lasts till the tomb. when you present information originating from yourself: if you are the first one to gather certain data, draw a conclusion or formulate an original hypothesis or interpretation. It is possible that you develop your own train of thought on the basis of sources. Such ideas, theses or interpretations are from you and therefore no sourcenote is required. If in doubt, whether a reference is required or not, it is better to be safe and add one. Acknowledging a lot of sources is not shameful or a sign of ignorance, but rather proof that you are well informed on your subject Methods to limit the number and length of notes If you use the notes and bibliography system, you may use the following tips in order to limit the number and length of notes: Group, in one note, references to different sources that are mentioned close together in the same paragraph. However, one note cannot bundle information from different paragraphs. In a passing reference to a classical work (e.g. by Plato, Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, Descartes, Kant, Hegel etc.), you can only reference the title and specific passage, not the used edition. If the work of a classical author occupies an important place in your text, however, then you must mention the used edition in your first note (see above). If you refer frequently to a certain work (or a series of works) by one author (or two authors) in your thesis, then you can put these references after the work or works in the text between parentheses (xxxx). With the first reference you note the full reference in a footnote and how you will abbreviate the work (e.g. Immanuel Kant, Kritik der reinen Vernunft, : hereafter KrV), followed by References to this work are in the text between parentheses. If you constantly refer to the same work, you can leave out the abbreviated title and give only the page number (or possibly the part, chapter) between parentheses in your text. Only use abbreviations in the references, not in the main text. While Rawls is sometimes read as relying on the premise that public appeals to religion in political argument are inherently uncivil or destabilizing, 6 I do not think he subscribes to the argument I have just criticized. 16

17 But the claim that the relies on that argument is understandable. On my reading, Rawls both early and late was concerned to show that the terms of cooperation in an ideally just liberal democracy would enjoy a privileged form of stability. In his early work, thinking that stability would inhere in the terms of cooperation, he referred to that form of stability as inherent stability (TJ (rev.) 125, 436). Later, as his view developed in Political Liberalism, he referred to it as stability for the right reasons (PL xlii). 6 See David Hollenbach, Contexts of the Political Role of Religion: Civil Society and Culture, San Diego Law Review 30 (1994): esp You clarify the abbreviations in the first footnote or in the list of abbreviations at the beginning of your paper: TJ = John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press, 1971). A revised edition was published in PL = John Rawls, Political Liberalism (New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1993). Make use of abbreviations for referencing authors and works that you frequently refer to. Sometimes the name of an author is abbreviated. e.g. Arist. for Aristotle; Aug. for Augustine; Aver. for Averroes; Desc. for Descartes. You can abbreviate titles of publications you regularly refer to. For classical works there are standard abbreviations. e.g. Arist., Pol. = Aristotle, Politica. S.T. = Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae. KrV = Immanuel Kant, Kritik der reinen Vernunft (Critique of Pure Reason). WWV = Arthur Schopenhauer, Die Welt als Wille und Vorstelling (The World as Will and Representation). You can introduce these abbreviations in various manners: You note the abbreviation in the footnote where you reference the publication for the first time. You note the abbreviations in a list at the beginning of your work, or before the bibliography in the back. This method is chosen for a thesis or book Bibliographies What is a bibliography? The bibliography or reference list is a list with the complete bibliographic references of all sources you have used. Usually a paper, article or book has a bibliography at the back. List in your bibliography only works that you have read, which means no works that deal with your topic but which you have not consulted; and no works that you know only through footnotes in consulted publications. You do not have to list all the works that you have had in your hands, only the works that you have actually read. (In journal articles you only refer to the sources you quote or paraphrase.) Titles of journal or series that occur often in the bibliographic references are sometimes abbreviated. In this case you find a list of the used abbreviations before the bibliography. 17

18 The ordering of references In a bibliography, the references are alphabetically ordered according to the surname of the first author or editor. Pay attention when you let your PC do the sorting: spaces have a sorting value for the PC. For works where no author or editor is listed or identified, you arrange according to the title (taking no account of articles, the or a ) or a keyword. It depends on your topic whether you can further divide your bibliography into sections. For a topic in contemporary philosophy, where there is no clear distinction between primary and secondary sources, you can put all references in one list. This has the advantage that the reader can quickly find the references and does not have to look through different sections. For a topic in philosophy where you can make a clear distinction between primary and secondary sources, we suggest that you divide your bibliography into sections, so that the reader sees the distinction between works by the author(s) you are discussing and works on the author(s) you are handling. A possible division is: (1) primary sources; (2) reference works (possibly split into bibliographies, lexica, encyclopedias); (3) secondary literature. Another possible division is: (1) primary sources and (2) secondary and tertiary sources. Order the references alphabetically within each section, and provide your sections with titles (e.g. Primary sources ). If there are numerous publications by one author: order the references according to publication year (from older to most recent). for different publications in the same year: put the titles in alphabetical order (without taking articles ( the and a ) into account). A reference with one author comes before a reference with various authors beginning with the same author. List the name of the author or editor only once. For the references that follow immediately, you can replace the name with (= 3 em dashes: Alt +0151). 2 If there are numerous pulications by the same authors or editors and they are listed in the same sequence, then you can replace these names with. Replacing the authors names with is best done when your bibliography is complete. Be aware of the layout of the bibliography: the second line of a reference is indented. when taking over references from a database or catalogue: adjust the layout! you can introduce space between different references, not with the return key, but (in Word) via Format, Paragraph, Spacing, After : 4 pt. 2 On how to introduce an Em dash, see Misti Shaw, Insert an Em dash in Word, posted on 1 May 2012, 18

19 An example of how you can replace the names of authors or editors with. You do not replace abbreviations like ed. Adriaens, Pieter, and Andreas De Block, ed. A Hundred Years of Evolutionary Psychiatry ( ). London: Sage, 2010., ed. Maladapting Minds: Philosophy, Psychiatry, and Evolutionary Theory. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, The Sciences of Sexual Orientation. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, De Block, Andreas. Doomed by Nature: The Inevitable Failure of our Naturally Selected Functions. Philosophy, Psychiatry & Psychology 12 (2005): Freud as an Evolutionary Psychiatrist and the Foundations of a Freudian Philosophy. Philosophy, Psychiatry & Psychology 12 (2005): De Block, Andreas, and Pieter Adriaens. Darwinizing Sexual Ambivalence: A New Evolutionary Hypothesis of Male Homosexuality. Philosophical Psychology 17 (2004): Pathologizing Sexual Deviance: A History. Journal of Sex Research 50 (2013): Quoting and Paraphrasing 3 In philosophical texts, it is appropriate to quote or paraphrase relevant passages from the primary source(s). Additionally, you can refer to interpretations of this/these source(s) in the secondary literature by means of quotations or paraphrases. Similarly, when constructing an argument, you are supposed to reference, by means of quotations and paraphrases, the arguments by other philosophers who have thought about the same issue. You can agree or disagree with these arguments, you can nuance them, work them out further, critically discuss them etc. While a relevant reference to an authority can clarify and support your own arguments, it does not release you from the obligation to think critically or draw your own conclusions Quotations Definition and use of quotations A quotation is a literal representation or translation of a sentence, or part of a sentence, from a primary or secondary source. One could, for example, quote a particular phrase from a philosophical text (e.g., by Hegel) to discuss and interpret its various elements in detail. It is also possible to quote a phrase from a secondary source to support one s own interpretation, or to criticize the interpretation. Further, one could quote a philosophical argument to support one s own argument, to subject this position to criticism, or to compare different arguments with one another. Citations are not meant to replace your own argumentation or to allow you to write less yourself. Before you insert a quotation, you have to ask yourself whether it is necessary to quote. You may only insert a long quotation if it is important for your line of thought, and on the condition that you add your own interpretation. Break long quotes up while 3 The information on citing is partially based upon the Chicago Manual of Style Online, 16 th edition, 13, Quotation and Dialogue. The examples from texts on philosophy of psychiatry were made by Olivier Lemeire. 19

20 commenting upon them. A text that contains many quotations without accompanying commentary is not well-written. Long or frequent quotations distract the reader and will often be ignored. Make sure the reader can understand the quotes without taking recourse to the text(s) from which you took them. Incorporate the quotes into your paper by providing context and interweaving them into your paper Run-in and block quotations Quotes can be presented in the notes, in the running text, or as block quotes. The way in which a quotation is represented in a text (as run-in or block quotation) depends on its length. A run-in or in-text or embedded quotation is a short quotation (fewer than ca. 40 words or ca. three lines) in the running text, enclosed in double quotation marks: xxxxxx (not: «xxx» or xxx ). For a quotation within a quotation you use single quotation marks. Wilkerson (1971, 351) has gone so far as to argue that Kant aimed to eradicate Humean scepticism about the external world, a view at odds with both Hume s and Kant s stated aims. Bibliography Wilkerson, T. E Cause and Object: Kant s Second Analogy of Experience. Kant Studien 62: Longer quotations (ca. 40 words or more) are presented separately from the main text (block quotation): you start a new line, widen the left margin and/or decrease the font size (to 10 or 11), and add a blank line before and after the block quotation. You do not use quotations marks. For a quote within a block quotation you use double quotation marks. But perhaps the best answer to the question of what unifies James s thought is a nonphilosophical answer, an answer that James himself suggests at the end of the first lecture in Pragmatism: Not only Walt Whitman could write, Who touches this book touches a man. The books of all the great philosophers are like so many men. One s sense of the essential personal flavour in each one of them, typical but indescribable, is the finest fruit of our own accomplished philosophical education. 1 In the end, perhaps, the most important reason to read William James is to touch William James. 1 The Works of William James, vol. 1, Pragmatism, ed. Frederick H. Burkhardt, Fredson Bowers, and Ignas K. Skrupskelis (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press, 1975), 24. You choose a block quotation for texts that demand a special layout (e.g. poems, lists, letters with a greeting and signature). When you compare different citations with each other, block quotations are clearer than citations in the running text Introducing and ending a quotation Make sure that the sentence with a quotation is grammatically and logically correct and reads smoothly. Use signal phrases to indicate who you are quoting. Examples of signal phrases are: According to X, Y writes that., As Y puts it,, X 20

21 notices, concludes, adds, argues, discusses, states, claims, proposes, writes, explains, points out, notes, demonstrates, says. There are three ways to insert a quotation in your text: 1. You can built in your quotation seamlessly into the sentence (without commas). Example 1: in-text quotation William says explicitly that the world itself has only primary qualities. [ ] It is true that Donald Davidson, while giving full credit to Quine for the arguments that allegedly establish indeterminacy, claimed that the extent of indeterminacy is much reduced in his theory by his willingness to make a more far reaching application of the principle of charity than Quine Donald Davidson, Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984), 228. Example 2: block quotation The child should not simply learn facts, nor should values or virtuous habits be simply instilled in the learner. In the Deweyan scheme learning is the accompaniment of continuous activities or occupations which have a social aim and utilize the material of typical social situations. [ ] All education which develops power to share effectively in social life is moral. It forms a character which not only does the particular deed socially necessary but one which is interested in that continuous readjustment which is essential to growth. Interest in learning from all the contacts of life is the essential moral interest. 21 Taking Dewey seriously means taking the context in which he wrote seriously. 21 The Middle Works of John Dewey, , vol. 9, Democracy and Education (Carbondale: Southern Illinois Univ. Press, 1978), You can introduce a quotation with a complete sentence that ends with a colon. The quotation then begins with a capital. Example 1: in-text quotation Eberle rightly observes that the core of justificatory liberalism consists of two distinct commitments that are almost always run together. The first is what he calls the Principle of Pursuit : A citizen should pursue public justification for his favored coercive laws. The second is the Doctrine of Restraint : A citizen should not support any coercive law for which he lacks a public justification. 40 Eberle uses public justification here to refer to the justificatory liberal demand for reasons that are accessible, and thus justifiable, to all. 40 Christoph Eberle, Religious Conviction in Liberal Politics (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1996), 68. Example 2: block quotation In his Remarks on Spencer s Definition of Mind James brilliantly contrasts the spectator s point of view with his own agent point of view: I, for my part, cannot escape the consideration, forced upon me at every turn, that the knower is not simply a mirror floating with no foot-hold anywhere, and passively reflecting an order that he comes upon and finds simply existing. The knower is an actor, and co-efficient of the truth on one side, whilst on the other he registers the truth he helps to create. 3 The point here is twofold. 21