Peer Assessments / Philosophy and the Physical Sciences

Submission Phase

Evaluation Phase

Results Phase

1. Do assignment

2. Evaluate peers

3. See results

Help

No work was submitted before

the submission deadline. You

will not be able to evaluate the work of your peers or receive an evaluation.

Background information
The peer assessment is designed to provide an opportunity to explore issues raised in this course in more depth
and to receive feedback on your thinking from other course participants.
Submitting a peer assessment assignment is a good way to practice philosophical inquiry and argument.
Reading other peoples assignments and providing feedback is also a great way to cultivate your reflective
philosophical thinking.
This peer assessment contributes towards your overall grade. See the Grading and Logistics page for details.

Basic requirements
This assignment can be up to 750 words long. Please write in English. There is only one question, but
material from any of weeks 1-4 can be used in the answer.

Evaluation and feedback

To receive feedback, you must evaluate three other assignments.
Below the answer field on this page, you will see the evaluation and feedback scheme. You will use this when
evaluating others' assignments.
There are eight numbered criteria. Each criterion is followed by a question or questions, which explain what to
look for when evaluating an assignment.
For the first seven criteria, there are three scores available: 1, 2, or 3. Each score has a description of what is
needed for the assignment to receive that score.
The eighth criterion - General feedback - is an opportunity for you to make any additional comments to the
author of the assignment, if you wish. The author may find this helpful for explaining why the assignment

received the score it did, and for making improvements to future writing.
When evaluating an assignment, read the assignment carefully. For criteria 1-7, use the score descriptions to
decide whether to give 1, 2, or 3 points for that criterion. This will produce a total score for the assignment of
between 7 and 21.

Assignment advice
You can also use the evaluation and feedback information to help you write your assignment. Aim for your
assignment to meet criteria 1-7. This will help you to write a high-quality essay.
For extra tips, you might find Jim Pryor's 'Guidelines on Writing a Philosophy Paper' helpful (although you can
ignore the detail of the final section, "How You'll Be Graded" - this is aimed at specifically at Dr. Pryor's students).
Remember, many of the people taking this course are engaging with either philosophy, science, or philosophy of
science for the first time so don't grade too harshly! The goal is to be constructive, informative and
helpful.
Good luck!

In what way can philosophy or philosophical thinking contribute to the physical sciences? Give a
clearly argued answer, using at least one example from the lectures.

Overall evaluation/feedback
Note: this section can only be filled out during the evaluation phase.

Layout: Does the assignment have a clear introduction and conclusion?

Structure: Is a clear philosophical position or thesis stated? Are arguments offered in support?

Argument: Is the argument clear and coherent? Is the argument convincing?

Addressing the question: Does the assignment address the question being asked?

Objections: Does the assignment anticipate and address obvious objections to the argument?

Engaging with the material: Does the assignment show engagement with the relevant lecture
material?

Understanding the material: Does the assignment show clear understanding of the relevant
lecture material?

General feedback (maximum 500 words)

Do you have any additional comments for the author? Consider:

A. What did you think were the main strengths of this assignment?
B. What did you think were the most important ways it could have been improved?

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