Final Project Paper Guidelines PHI 1100 Your project should be split into 5 sections: 
1. Background The argument you choose will come from some context of debate: there’s a topic or question or issue that people are arguing about, and which forms the context of the argument you’re going to analyze in the following sections. In this section your job is to explain that larger context. • what is the main question/issue the argument addresses? • why is it important? • what, briefly (one sentence), is the conclusion of the argument you’re going to analyze? 
2. Transcription of Source In this section you should copy and paste (or transcribe, if your source is audio/video) the portions of the source material that are relevant to reconstructing the argument. • copy&paste/transcribe the section that contains the conclusion • copy&paste/transcribe the section that contains the premises 
3. Reconstruction in English • rewrite premises and conclusions in standard logical format for PL: – “if…then” – “and” – “or” – “it’s not the casethat” • it’s often useful to try and rewrite the premises and conclusion with an eye to restructuring the argument into a common valid form: – A—>B, A ⊢ B (read this as: “if A then B, A, therefore B”) – A—>B, ~B ⊢ ~A – A v B, ~A ⊢ B – A—>B, B—>C ⊢A—>C • if none of the above forms makes sense for your argument, that’s ok; it may still be valid (see section 5) 
4. Translation into PL • take your reconstruction from section 3, and translate it into PL 5. Evaluation • is the argument valid? if not, do the premises provide any support for the conclusion (if not a deductive guarantee)? • are the premises true? can you think of any objections to them? how could the author respond to your objection? • don’t feel pressured to be exhaustive. if you have more to say about the validity of the argument, talk more about that; if you have more to say about the truth of the premises, say more about that
5. Evaluation • is the argument valid? if not, do the premises provide any support for the conclusion (if not a deductive guarantee)? • are the premises true? can you think of any objections to them? how could the author respond to your objection? • don’t feel pressured to be exhaustive. if you have more to say about the validity of the argument, talk more about that; if you have more to say about the truth of the premises, say more about that