A good paper, finally!

Again, the assignment.

According to Descartes, even if we don't know that the external world, the world
outside our minds, exists, still we know the contexts of our own minds. Explain
briefly his argument for this claim.

Then take up this further point.

Explain how Descartes' skeptical analysis leads to this starting point,
indicating the steps of his analysis in the first Meditation.

A simple outline is needed.

I. The existence of the mind
II. The skeptical argument

That's a beginning, for now we can link the two part assignment to the reading.

Let's start filling in.

I. The existence of the mind
A. Self = Mind, not body
B. Mind exists even if there is no external world
Explain!

This is crude, but it helps
     It's easy to fill in the details once we have this much.

Now, II, let's look at the stages, focused on linking them to the discussion in
part one of the paper

II. Stages in skepticism
A. Sense errors
B. The madman
C. Dreaming
D. The Evil Demon

We need to state those claims, but not get absorbed in too many details.
     This is a short paper.
Four pages in all, two on each part. It would be easy to spend 3 pages on the
four stages of skepticism. But given the assignment, clearly that's not called
for in this paper.

What's missing is the link between I and II. How do we get from skepticism to
Descartes' peculiar claim, we are identical to our minds.

Motivating the discussion helps.
Descartes' claim is peculiar, it's paradoxical. That's one reason it's
interesting.

Let's redo the outline, with this consideration in mind.

II. From skepticism to the mind
A. Stages in skepticism
1. Sense errors
2. The madman
3. Dreaming
4. The Evil Demon
B. Implications of skepticism
1. Doubt about external world
2. Certainty about existence of self

These outlines need not be neat and tiny. What matters is getting the structure
of your paper.

There is nothing superfluous
     No notes about 17th century history, nothing about Rousseau
And we have a logical order.

The outline permits you to do a calculation.

I, II each take 2 pages. So you can think, II, A, that's about a page, with
another page for II, B.

The outline tells you how to produce the paper.

You still need to spell check, and check your grammar. But once you have the
plan, the writing is relatively easy.

Note how in this exercise we matched the question given to your knowledge.
You know enough to answer the question. So the trick is figuring out how to use
your knowledge in a well organized paper
     And how to avoid bringing in superfluous materials.