The Philosophy Student Writer's Manual

Simply put, this manual is an excellent guide to writing philosophy papers. The manual elucidates the systematic procedures for writing book reports, expository writing, and persuasive writing. It has a great section on grammar, research techniques, how to spot fallacies, principles of argument, and much more. One of the best tips in the manual was, "write philosophy as if you are writing for the travel section of a newspaper." At the end, it has a great chapter on ethics and information on philosophers. As a graduate student in philosophy, I whole-heartedly recommend this manual to all who want to write sound papers in philosophy.

Professor Graybosch and his co-authors havedone a tremendous service for all of us who teach for a living.It is hard to find anything negative to say about this book.All of the obvious structural and functional aspects of student writing are covered in detail.Common errors in philosophy student writing are also discussed.Dr. Graybosch gives some of the more obscureerrors as well some of the more common ones, like the use of first or second person.A valuable section on informal reasoning defines and describes all of the common logical fallacies.The book is written in plain language,and yet no stone has been left unturned.Especially useful is the chapter on "Citing Sources." Dr. Graybosch writes from a tremendous base of his own knowledge and experience..He has "seen it all" in student papers and he has given the rest of a pearl of great price.His book contains everything I have ever said to students about good writing,and more.This book is truly a "bible" of its genre.All future efforts along this line will be judged against this book.I cannot recommend this book highly enough.I wish this book was available back in 1988 when I taught my first intro. class as a young Ph.D. student.I especially recommend the book to grad. student lecturers,ABDs,and part-time instructors.