Episteme
Submission Guidelines
Episteme will consider papers written by undergraduate students in any area of philosophy.Papers are evaluated according to the following criteria: quality of research, depth of philosophic inquiry, creativity, original insight and clarity. Submissions to be considered for the thirty fourth volume (September 2024) should adhere to the following stipulations:
1. Be a maximum of 5,000 words, a minimum of 2,000 words.
2. Combine research and original insight.
3. Include a cover sheet that provides the following information: author’s name, mailing address (current and permanent), email address, telephone number, college or university name, title of submission and word count.
4. Include a works cited page in the Chicago Manual of Style format. Please use footnotes.
5. To allow for a blind review process, the author’s name should not appear on the submission itself.
6. Submissions should be sent electronically in .pdf format.
7. More than one article per author will not be accepted for review.
8. Please be courteous; submit each paper to only one journal.
Rolling submissions accepted. Submissions to be considered for September 2024 publication must be received by midnight, Wednesday, December 20, 2023.
Please send papers and cover sheets to episteme@denison.edu.
Questions should be submitted to the Editors (episteme@denison.edu).
Episteme Style Guide
Episteme welcomes submissions from current undergraduate students of any discipline who have an interest in or engage with philosophy. In order to provide potential writers with an idea of the style and expectation of the journal, we have provided a description of the types of things we look for in philosophical papers.
If you have a paper that is a work in progress, or have an idea that you would like to develop, please feel free to reach out to the Episteme editorial team at episteme@denison.edu. We can help work with you to craft a paper ready for submission or even answer any questions you may have.
The Editors consider papers written by undergraduate students in any area of philosophy. Throughout our history, we have published papers on a wide array of thinkers and topics, ranging from ancient to contemporary and including analytic, continental, and eastern. All submissions undergo a process of blind review.
In terms of how to prepare citations and formatting, we publish in Chicago. For publication all citations and footnotes must be in Chicago style. Please consult the Chicago style guide here.
Additionally papers should be between 2,000 and 5,000 words in length. Include a cover letter with the following information: author’s name, mailing address (current and permanent), email address, telephone number, college or university name, title of submission and word count. To allow a blind review process, the author's name should not appear on the submission itself, only on the cover letter. Submissions should be sent electronically in .pdf format. Lastly, we only accept one article per author for review.
While there is no exact formula to a good paper there are some general guidelines that might help shape a philosophy paper.
Original Philosophical Papers
Purpose: Episteme looks for papers with a clear, narrow, well developed, argumentative, and original purpose. To help think about how to achieve this in your writing consider (1) Why are you writing about this topic in particular? (2) What are you writing about? (3) Why should anyone else care about this topic (4) Has anyone else written about this topic? (5) What do you want to accomplish by writing this paper?
Audience: Many writers have a tendency to assume their audience knows as much as they do, maybe even more about the subject at hand. While you should assume that your audience is intelligent and familiar with academic writing, that does not mean that they will be experts or even knowledgeable about all areas of philosophy. This does not mean that the use of technical terms makes for bad writing but be sure to be clear, defining important philosophical terms, theories, and notions as they come up. Readers should leave your piece having learned something.
Context: There are many different ways to approach and write philosophy, too many to list. The vastness of this field is of great benefit to philosophers themselves and readers of philosophy. In pursuing your paper we encourage you to think about the following approaches that we at Episteme value and look for.
Originality: Above almost all else, we look for original writing. Episteme is a place for discourse. We will read and discuss the articles you submit in detail, we will think about it as much as you do. We want to publish works that are challenging, new, and the product of your original subjective experience and thought. For whatever topic interests you the most, consider a few questions: Why is it the way it is? Could it be otherwise? What do I think?
Relevance: Philosophical enquiry is often at its most critical when it engages with topics that are relevant both to society and the author themselves. At Episteme we look for papers willing to do the hard task of understanding our world, they are both a pleasure to read and publish. While philosophy is often held up as a discipline separated from peoples lived experience, we disagree with that conclusion, and hope to see papers willing to comment on lived experience. Thinking about how your topic is relevant not only to you but to others is often the start of a good topic or line of thought.
Research: Good research is the foundation of a good paper. Try to understand your topic through and through, as well as counter arguments and opposing perspectives. A good paper considers more than one view point in its explication. Some helpful resources to begin researching might include Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, PhilPapers, Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, and JSTOR. Papers should be academically rigorous, be able to withstand scrutiny, and thorough in its explication of the argument at hand. We are looking for a depth of philosophical inquiry that shows a level of comfort and confidence in writing that is difficult by design. Research should be cited appropriately both in-text and in a reference list.
Tone: Episteme is a journal of philosophy, not a magazine, or zine. Language should be used deliberately and professionally. Pursue a rigorous and thoughtful approach, active voice, and formal prose. While it may at times be appropriate to speak frankly or use passive voice the overall tone of the piece should be academic. Nonetheless, we look for, and indeed prize, writing that we can tell is thoughtful and that balances a writer's passions and interests with this formal tone. This is a difficult balance but one that helps make a good paper stick with readers. Clarity: Be clear about the points you want to make. While verbose, complex, and inventive prose may demonstrate your skill as a writer, it makes for a difficult, sometimes impenetrable, paper. The ideas you are discussing are often already complicated, try your best to be clear and accessible to readers. Your most important points should be explained with care and simplicity. Use precise, understandable language that removes doubt from your readers mind. Be sure to ‘sign-post’ throughout your essay, make clear where the argument is moving and where it is related to other sections. Avoid complex sentence structures, don’t worry about over-explaining your key points, and try to re-edit your writing looking for concision.
Coursework
Students are busy, often too busy to think about and write an original philosophical paper. Episteme encourages students to submit exceptional pieces of writing they produced for a given class. It is always a pleasure to see papers produced with creativity and precision for classes shared with a broader community. Pieces produced for a class can, and often do, need significant work in order to be ready for submission. Each piece should stand alone, intelligible without a prompt, and be understood outside the classroom setting. This may mean reworking parts of the paper to make them more appropriate for journal submission. Here are a few things to consider if you would like to submit coursework.