I have several ideas in mind but wouldn’t feel confident submitting right now, because I don’t know the norms of philosophy publication. I’d love to have someone who’s written for philosophy journals (preferably an EA) provide a guide to EAs who might want to submit articles. Is there anyone who might be able to address these kinds of questions?
Hi Scott. I’ve had one paper published in philosophy, and I’ve had several others accepted to conferences. I’m certainly not as credentialed as Will, but I might be able to give some tips. My guess is that many of these are not particularly unique to philosophy. First, it’s always good to reference other relevant philosophical work. We all know what hedonistic utilitarianism is, but if you’re going to write a paper about the implications of effective altruism for a hedonistic utilitarian, you should still clearly define the concept and cite major works on the topic. Second, clear writing is always preferred over convoluted writing. Sometimes people think philosophers want to sound smart and intentionally use complicated language, but the reverse is true. Sure, philosophy sometimes does legitimately require an understanding of technical terms, but good philosophical writing aims to be as clear as possible. Third, a good format to follow is abstract, introduction, argument, conclusion. Abstracts are extremely useful because they allow people to get the gist of your argument very quickly. Fourth, it is often better to make a genuine contribution to a narrow problem than to not really contribute anything to a broad topic. Finally, a good practice is probably to just read some published philosophy work. That is the best way to get an idea of the writing quality and organizational nature of publishable papers. I believe Will has some of his papers posted on his site. I’ve read some of his work, and I think it’s a good example of clear writing. That’s probably a good place to start.
Most CFPs request papers that have been prepared for blind review as well, so be sure to do that.
Thanks, Will!
I have several ideas in mind but wouldn’t feel confident submitting right now, because I don’t know the norms of philosophy publication. I’d love to have someone who’s written for philosophy journals (preferably an EA) provide a guide to EAs who might want to submit articles. Is there anyone who might be able to address these kinds of questions?
Hi Scott. I’ve had one paper published in philosophy, and I’ve had several others accepted to conferences. I’m certainly not as credentialed as Will, but I might be able to give some tips. My guess is that many of these are not particularly unique to philosophy. First, it’s always good to reference other relevant philosophical work. We all know what hedonistic utilitarianism is, but if you’re going to write a paper about the implications of effective altruism for a hedonistic utilitarian, you should still clearly define the concept and cite major works on the topic. Second, clear writing is always preferred over convoluted writing. Sometimes people think philosophers want to sound smart and intentionally use complicated language, but the reverse is true. Sure, philosophy sometimes does legitimately require an understanding of technical terms, but good philosophical writing aims to be as clear as possible. Third, a good format to follow is abstract, introduction, argument, conclusion. Abstracts are extremely useful because they allow people to get the gist of your argument very quickly. Fourth, it is often better to make a genuine contribution to a narrow problem than to not really contribute anything to a broad topic. Finally, a good practice is probably to just read some published philosophy work. That is the best way to get an idea of the writing quality and organizational nature of publishable papers. I believe Will has some of his papers posted on his site. I’ve read some of his work, and I think it’s a good example of clear writing. That’s probably a good place to start.
Most CFPs request papers that have been prepared for blind review as well, so be sure to do that.
Thanks, Zack!