All true knowledge presupposes the triune God, who is that than which nothing greater can be conceived. Nevertheless, we are not entitled to presuppose the correctness of every subsidiary conclusion. In arguments about less than ultimate things, it is fallacious to assume what you intend to prove.

It is not an established fact but only an assumption that Barry Manilow is the measure of good taste. Assuming what one intends to prove is vicious circularity since, in this argument, good taste is defined in terms of the first premise.

Please do not use the expression, "this begs the question whether" when you should say, "This raises the question whether...." To raise a question is not the same as assuming what is to be proved.

• Appeal to Force (Argumentum ad baculum).

1. 18 million Southern Baptists hold believer's baptism.
2. 18 million Southern Baptists cannot be wrong.
3. Ergo believer's baptism must be true.

The problem here is with the middle premise. In fact, large numbers of folk can be wrong. The numerical, social, or physical superiority of those advancing a proposition does not make that proposition true.³

• Appeal to illegitimate authority (Argumentum ad verecundiam).

1. Fred Jones is an expert in swine propulsion (p).
2. Fred also believes q (unrelated to p).
3. Therefore q must be true.

The conclusion does not follow from the premises. Jones’ expertise in porcine propulsion does not confer credibility on his arguments about anything else.

• Post hoc ergo propter hoc ("After which, therefore because of which").

1. Felix the cat is dead in the street
2. Elmer Fudd drove over the late Felix
3. Therefore Elmer Fudd murdered Felix

It does not follow that because Elmer tactlessly drove over Felix that therefore he is the cause of Felix’s demise. In fact, it may be that Felix had a myocardial infarction only moments before Elmer drove over him. At worst, Elmer is guilty of malice toward cartoon cats.⁴

•  Appeal to Mercy (Argumentum ad Misercordiam).

1.  Pork is a great good.
2. Jones was deprived of pork as a child.
3. Therefore Jones is not morally culpable.

Withholding pork from Fred may have been cruel, but is not sufficient grounds to relieve his moral or legal liability.

Consider Objections

An essay will be made even more compelling by considering counter arguments. It is not necessary to produce definitive responses to every possible objection, but one may certainly suggest responses to major criticisms of the thesis. It is also useful to suggest further areas for research.

An essay is concise when it uses only the number of words necessary to make its case adequately and when that number does not exceed the stated limit. Note well that a limit is not a goal. The word count does not include footnotes, but please be judicious.

II. The Nature of the Essay

In my courses, papers will ordinarily be historical or dogmatic in nature. In either case your essay should be exegetical, i.e., you must interpret some text, theologian, or event.

Prescriptive

Dogmatic or systematic theology propounds what ought to be believed and is therefore prescriptive.

Historical theology and church history investigate what was believed, why, where, and when. Therefore they are descriptive disciplines. HT and CH papers must prescribe a thesis, but they should not argue dogmatic or systematic theological points. Please observe the distinction.

III. The Style of the Essay

1. The text of your essay should be in double spaced, 12-point, serif (e.g. Times New Roman) typescript.
2. Please use margins of at least 1 inch to allow for comments.
3. Abbreviations of Biblical books should follow SBL guidelines.
4. It is best to cite published materials. If you must cite unpublished or web-based materials, please follow the Chicago Manual of Style. It is best not to cite lecture material unless absolutely necessary.
5. Please use footnotes. :
   1. MLA style references clutter the text;
   2. End notes are unwieldy in an academic essay.
   3. Footnote references are best placed at the end of the sentence. If necessary, a reference may be placed after punctuation other than a period.
   4. It is better to gather related footnote matter into one footnote rather than to scatter multiple references throughout a sentence.
6. Please see The Chicago Manual of Style for help.⁵ There are computer programs which will format your footnotes and bibliography for you such as EndNote and StyleEase. Here are some examples:

   Books: Fred Jones, The Aerodynamic Properties of Swine (Omaha: Porcine Press, 1912).

   Journal articles: Fred Jones, "Propulsion in Swine: A New Proposal" Scottish Journal of Flying Swine 23 (1913): 129-55. ⁶

   Essays in a collection: Fred Jones, "Anesthesia in Post-Flight Recovery for Swine" Stinkium Olfactaribus: A Festschrift (Omaha: Porcine Press, 1920).

7. According to the latest edition of the Chicago Manual of Style, the Latin pronoun ibid may be used in place of successive references to the same source in the same footnote or in successive footnotes where no other references intervene. Idem is used in place of the author's name in successive references in the same footnote. Always be clear. If ibid or idem might be confusing, give the author's name and/or title.
8. 
    After the first full reference, subsequent footnote references to a work should be abbreviated to the author's name and a short-title reference to the work being cited. Hence subsequent references would be, e.g., Jones, Aerodynamic, 22.
    
9. Proofreading is best done by reading hardcopy. It is easy to miss typographical errors when proofing texts online.

10. Grammar. A seminary essay is not a text message or an email. It is a formal academic paper and is expected to meet appropriate standards. To improve your grammar try, Lynne Truss, Eats, Shoots & Leaves. The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation (New York: Gotham Books, 2003). 

11. Five points from C. S. Lewis:
    
    i. Always try to use the language so as to makie quite clear what you mean and make sure your sentence couldn’t mean anything else.
    
    ii. Always prefer the clean direct word to the long, vague one. Don’t implement promises, but keep them.
    
    iii. Never use abstract nouns when concrete ones will do. If you mean “More people died” don’t say “Mortality rose.”
    
    iv. In writing, don’t use adjectives which merely tell us how you want us to feel about the things you are describing. I mean, instead of telling us the thing is “terrible,” describe it so that we’ll be terrified. Don’t say it was “delightful”; make us say “delightful” when we’ve read the description. You see, all those words (horrifying, wonderful, hideous, exquisite) are only like saying to your readers “Please, will you do my job for me.”
    
    v. Don’t use words too big for the subject. Don’t say “infinitely” when you mean “very”; otherwise you’ll have no word left when you want to talk about something really
    infinite.⁷

12. Be careful regarding the use of prepositions. Ordinarily a sentence should not end with a preposition.  Avoid the temptation to intensify expression by adding prepositions (e.g., "early on," "separate out").

13. "Luther said that...." introduces a paraphrase. "Luther said...." introduces a quotation.

14. The verbs "to feel" and "to think" are not synonymous.⁸

15. The first person singular (e.g., "I think") can useful to avoid circumlocutions, but it should be used  with discretion.

16. In American usage most punctuation precedes the closing quotation mark. Hence, in the following quotation from Calvin this punctuation is correct: "We do not use musical instruments in public worship."

IV. PROFESSOR'S PET PEEVES

1. Please do not use hopefully when you should write, "I hope." Hopefully is an adverb, which modifies a verb as in, "She ran hopefully to the shore." In this sentence, "hopefully" describes the attitude with which she ran. If you mean, "I hope to make this argument clear" please say that rather than, "hopefully, the argument will become clear."

2. Please observe the distinction between who and whom. Who is the relative pronoun for the subject of the verb and whom is the object (either direct, as in the accusative, or indirect, as in the dative). E.g., "Tom saw John who went to the river. John saw Fred whom he had pushed into the river. Fred floated downstream toward his grandfather, to whom he had spoken rudely earlier that day."

3. Please do not use "impact" where you mean "influence." Cars may impact one another, but ideas, persons, and movements usually have influence, unless they meet on the field of battle.

4. Please do not orphan indented quotations. If an author is worth quoting, he is worth explaining. Few quotations are self-explanatory, so please explain the meaning of the quotation. Therefore, one should not begin a new paragraph following an indented quotation but should exposit the indented quotation.

5. If you are writing an historical essay, please use the past tense where possible. For example, "Luther said we are justified by the imputed alien righteousness of Christ." Avoid the temptation of trying to make Luther more relevant by making him speak in the present tense, e.g., "Luther says…." If an author is still alive at the time of writing, it is appropriate to speak of him in the present tense. Two exceptions to this rule are Scripture and the confessions. In the case of Scripture, given its nature, it or the author is still speaking. Since the confessions are ecclesiastically sanctioned documents, they are the voice of the church on those topics and thus the present tense is appropriate.

6. Please date and paginate your essay.

7. Avoid beginning sentences with conjunctions such as "And" or "But." If you find yourself doing this, it is probably a clue that the sentence is not actually finished. For example, the two sentences, "Van Til was a brilliant apologist. But he did not write as clearly as we might have wished." should be, "Van Til was a brilliant apologist, but he did not write as clearly as we might have wished." If you need an adversative try "however," as in "Benny Hinn, however, has not repented of his errors." Please note the postpositive location of "however."

8. Contractions are not appropriate to formal academic writing. Tip: If you use MS Word, set the "writing style" to "formal" (under tools, spelling and grammar or F7). Word will highlight contractions and other informalities.

9. Do not use online or electronic references (e.g., from a CD) unless the source is not otherwise published. If the work is published in hardcopy, cite that form. A writer should refer the reader to a publicly accessible primary or secondary source. Web sources are ephemeral and may disappear as soon as they are cited. CD based texts are not always standardized, edited, or consistently available. Google Books provides full access only to books that are in the public domain. This means that if you are using a secondary source via Google Books the scholarship may be outdated. There are exceptions:

   Archive.org, CCEL, EEBO, and DLCP are good sources for primary resources.

10. References to titles and schools (e.g. Dr, Professor, Dean, etc) should be avoided unless they are material to the argument.

11. Do-able is not a proper word. Possible is still a perfectly serviceable word.

12. Please put your name, surface and email addresses as well as student mailbox number on your essay.

13. Pay attention to instructions.

14. References to Calvin's Institutes are to be given thus: Book, chapter, title, e.g., 1.1.1.  Using this standard form of reference allows the reader to consult other editions (e.g., the Latin and French texts) without first finding the edition the writer cited.

_________
¹ The categories: "clear, concise and cogent" have been borrowed from John Frame but modified to suit my purposes.

² This list is intended to be suggestive not exhaustive. See a standard logic text such as Irving M. Copi, Introduction to Logic, 5^th edn (New York and London: Macmillan, 1978), 86-125.

³ This has in view illegitimate appeals to secondary authorities. There are legitimate appeals to authority. For example, one may legitimately appeal to divine authority since it is on another order. Belief in God's existence is a necessary presupposition to all knowledge and is therefore properly basic. Nevertheless, even an appeal to Scripture does not necessarily prove a given point unless one shows that one's reading of Scripture is also correct.

⁴ I owe this example to a lecture by Richard Cross.

⁵ I used the dreaded end notes in this document only because I am forced to it by HTML.

⁶ This ground breaking essay has been revised recently. See F. Jones III, "The Effect of John Denver Recordings in Pre-Flight Preparation of Swine," Scottish Journal of Flying Swine 108 (1997): 350-97.

⁷ Letter from June 26, 1956, quoted in Wayne Martindale and Jerry Root, eds., The Quotable Lewis (Wheaton, Ill.: Tyndale, 1989), 623.

⁸  Points 12—14 are borrowed with thanks from notes by James E. McGoldrick, Professor of Church History, Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary.