stressedout

That is an unusually difficult intro to philosophy of language partly because of the page/word count constraints on those Princeton Foundations series books.

Have you decided where you will go? Selim Berker at Harvard is the awesomesauce...as is Setiya at MIT. I will live vicariously through you if you choose one of these two places.

This isn't Nam, underdrag, there are rules! I've also been told (and have seen for myself) that contractions in philosophy aren't a huge deal. In fact, philosophy in America is much, much more informal regarding writing than other disciplines.

I thought I might solicit some advice from ya'll concerning how to write a good philosophy paper. Regarding style, some people tell you to emulate popular stylists (like David Lewis, for example), and others stress developing your own. Then there are the more structured recommendations everyone knows about -- Jim Pryor's website, for example; or the "Improving Academic Writing" paper by Bennett and Gorovitz -- but I wondered if there were any other tips here. Regarding substance, there are a lot of how-to docs out there and the general advice about getting feedback on your work early and often. That's all well and good, but I wonder how you all start writing a philosophy paper. How do you settle on a topic, and what constraints do you put in place to ensure that the piece of work will be any good?

Thanks, that's helpful.

Is there any hope?

! I'm anxiously waiting for news from WMU. I'm surprised you got an offer this quickly; in past years wasn't it around mid-March on average? Oh man, now I'm nervous! Congrats, though!

Thanks for your thorough and thoughtful reply! As it happens, I own the Bonevac and Priest books (and a few others). I attended a program that didn't offer a phil language (let alone semantics) class, and logic was only intermittently offered. Your writing sample sounds right up my alley. I wrote on non-naturalist responses to Sharon Street et al's evolutionary arguments. I'd love to study with Berker or Setiya (now at MIT), or Jacobson at Michigan. Good for you, sir. Oh, and if you aren't aware of it already, you should check out Shafer-Landau and Cuneo's forthcoming paper in phil studies on new directions for non-naturalism. Cheers.

I know the least about logic and semantics... Did you study on your own, following, say, the logic study guide that Peter Smith has on his "Logic Matters" blog? Did you take/sit in on classes? What is your writing sample on (if you're okay with divulging that information and if it hasn't been asked before!)?

I second this.

Just look at ND's placement record. It's abysmal over the last several years. Regardless of whether or not it's due to the Religious/Christian stuff, it's worth thinking about placement alone.

Got a paper Arizona love note as well...

I'm probably screwed as well, brother. I did apply to a funded MA program, though, so we'll see how that goes.

Here here!

Don't be depressed. Why? Because I will help dispel your confusion. I know several people who were rejected by Baylor and yet accepted to top 20 schools this cycle and over the past few years. They have a very idiosyncratic admissions process that heavily weights the quantitative portion of the GRE. Some people were rejected as quickly as 3 or 4 weeks after the admissions deadline (late January)...and I while these people had lowish quantitative scores (50-70 percentile), their verbals and writing were high (95+). I doubt their samples were even given a glance. There's more I could say about this, but anonymity concerns keep me from it. PM me if you want more info. The upshot? Don't be depressed about it because now you know. I was depressed at first until I started asking several of my friends who applied there in the past (all at top 20 schools at the moment!).

I gotta say, I'm jealous. But! I am happy for you, (wo)man. Good for you.

Here's a contribution to this thread. Arizona rejected me by email yesterday. Yay!

You are a scholar and a gentleman.

Man, I just want to hear about the Arizona wait list!

carolinebk, Congrats! But I hope you get into more of your top choices so you can give Arizona to me!!!