Philosophy, like many other academic disciplines, is ultimately concerned with truth. As such, philosophers write to persuade their readers of the truth of the claims in which they are interested. Thus in philosophical writing one attempts to be persuasive. This kind of writing is unlike reportive writing in which the main object is to report and clarify facts or data. A piece of persuasive writing is critical in that it aims to establish the truth of a claim by providing reasons for it and rejecting reasons against it or reasons for opposing claims.
        In persuasive writing clarity and conciseness are important virtues. For beginning students short sentences are often much clearer than long ones with many qualifying clauses. Make sure you carefully read over your work before handing it in and that all the sentences are complete and make good English sense. If there's a discrepancy between what you want to say and what you do say, then you probably need to think through and clarify for yourself what you want to say.
        In addition to sentences being well formulated in themselves, they must cohere well with the whole paper. Make sure you're not drifting away from your topic. Ask yourself how each sentence and paragraph contributes to the overall argument of your paper. If you don't have a clear answer to the question for each one, then it's probably a good idea to leave that sentence or paragraph out entirely. Even professional philosophers almost always find themselves revising their works many times.

The following is a set of guidelines to help you compose your essays.

0.     You may want to tell your reader what you're going to be doing in the paper in an introductory paragraph. Such a paragraph not only informs the reader what to expect, but also helps you stay focused on your topic. A good introductory paragraph would contain at least some of the following: the problem with which youíll be concerned, your solution to the problem, and a synopsis of how you will demonstrate your solution to be adequate.

1.      Give a clear statement of the view under consideration. In your statement of the view answer the following kinds of questions: What is the claim or claims of the position?; How does or would a defender of the view defend those claims?; Can the defense be made any stronger by additional evidence or premises for the view?. In short muster up the strongest case you can for the position youíre considering.

2.     Give a clear statement of an opposing view or objections raised against the view you are considering. Be clear about what the objections are and how they speak against the view you are considering. Which claims in the original view are being refuted? Are there, and if so what are the, unstated assumptions of the original view? Are those assumptions true? What are the consequences of the view? Are the consequences acceptable?

3.     Decide with which side you agree and clearly say why. Do the objections you have considered adequately refute the claims of the original view or can further support be mustered up to deal with the objections? Are there, and if so, what are the, assumptions of the objections? Are those assumptions true or not?

Though you're certainly not expected to revolutionize philosophy with entirely original ideas and arguments in your papers as an undergraduate student, the ideas in your papers must be your own. It is not just permissible, but highly recommended that you refer to, and even use, the ideas of other philosophers. You ought not, however, merely rephrase them in your own words, but also be sure that you understand them and maintain a critical attitude toward them. When paraphrasing or using a direct quotation, the source must be cited. Professors are much better than students generally give them credit at figuring out whatís not the student's own work. And if there's any doubt, a question or two about the content and meaning of the ideas can settle the matter rather quickly. The student who clearly has thought about the problem on which (s)he is writing earns a much better grade than one who merely paraphrases other philosophers' ideas. The purpose of assigning papers is to get you to practice thinking on your own, not just to report what other thinkers have said. The latter purpose would be served much more efficiently by "objective" type tests.

A few suggestions and some common mistakes to avoid:

Don't begin your essays with "From the beginning of time philosophers have wondered about...", and don't end them with "Until the end of time philosophers will continue to debate whether...," or any similar expressions. Taken literally they are false: philosophers have not been around from the beginning of time and they probably won't be around till the end of time. Taken not so literally the expressions are trite and unnecessary.

Don't start your sentences with "I think," "I believe," "I feel" or the like. Given that your reader knows that you wrote the piece, the addition of these expressions is entirely unnecessary.

Don't confuse 'its' with 'it's.' The former is the possessive form of 'it'; the latter is a contraction of 'it is.' Similarly, 'your' is the possessive form of 'you,' and 'you're' is a contraction of 'you are,' and 'whose' is the possessive form of 'who,' and 'who's' is the contraction of 'who
is.'

Don't confuse 'then' with 'than.' The former indicates sequence in either time or logical order; the latter is the comparative operator.

Unlike the word 'judgment' which may be spelled with an 'e' (judgement), 'argument' has only one correct spelling.

'A lot' is two separate words; 'alot' is not an English word at all. Similarly, 'of course' is two separate words; 'ofcourse' is not an English word at all.

'Existence' does not have an 'a.'