What Your Professors Are Looking For
Professor Interviews
Writing Fellows Angela Panayotopoulos and Tammy Najarian interviewed several GMU philosophy professors about goals, standards, and concerns for student writing in philosophy. The professors' responses follow. You will noted that there is much accord and harmony among the responses, as well as some points of difference. These responses are not a definitive statement of the only goals and criteria that the department (or any member of it) will use in evaluating student work. Rather, they are a broad sketch of the priorities that the interviewed professors have. If you have any questions about the goals or requirements of any of your philosophy writing assignments, please do speak to your instructor. Also, if your professor is not one of those represented below, we recommend that you also ask him or her the questions Tammy and Angela asked.
The Writing Fellows asked professors the following questions:
- What are your primary concerns when reading and grading philosophy papers?
- What is the most important advice you give to students writing papers?
- What do you find students struggle with the most?
- What aspects of a strong philosophy paper do you value most?
- Do you focus most on content, style, or structure?