Academic Skills Project - Philosophy

This page contains details of the ASP workshops run by the School of Philosophy. All workshops are aimed at a first year audience. For further information and to register for these workshops, contact the School ASP Coordinators Mario Bison or Pak Him Lai by email at mb563@st-andrews.ac.uk or phl8@st-andrews.ac.uk.

Semester 1:

Workshop 1 - Cancelled

Workshop 2 - An introduction to reading philosophy

Date - TBC

Intended Learning outcomes: How to detect an argument, with the guide of textual cues; how to summarise an argument, and synthesise a paper’s content; how to learn from a text to improve your own writing; how to connect and summarise debates.

Workshop 3 - An introduction to philosophical debates and asking questions

Date - 9 and 16 October 2025

Intended Learning Outcomes: How to ask good questions; how to raise respectful and constructive criticism; how to respond to criticism; how to present ideas.

Workshop 4 - How to approach essay questions

Date - 27 October 2025

Intended Learning Outcomes: Common reasons why student essays lose marks; how to avoid the usual pitfalls; how to structure your essay clearly and effectively; why signposting matters, and how to do it well; what the marking criteria actually ask for.

Workshop 5 - How to use feedback to improve your essays

Date - 30 October 2025

Intended Learning Outcomes: Know where and how to access the feedback for your essays; understand how to take on board constructive comments; understand what materials are appropriate to bring to office hours; feel confident in asking for more information about your feedback.

Workshop 6 - How to find relevant readings for your essays

Date - 3 November 2025

Intended learning outcomes: How to use key philosophy databases; how to tailor your searches to get better results; where to find full texts of papers and books; how to tell when you’ve gone too deep into a research rabbit hole.