Frederick offers a critique of my writing tips aimed at undergraduate students coming to philosophy – and in many cases, essay writing – for the first time Frederick claims that most of my tips are good tips but characterizes two of them as bad tips, as follows: Bad tip 1. Be very careful about making any universal claims. Such a claim can be refuted by just a single counterexample. Do not leave yourself open to such refutation. Make a universal claim (...) only if you are sure that there are no counterexamples. Bad tip 2. Pick a smaller, more narrow thesis and argue for it thoroughly rather than a more ambitious thesis for which you argue less thoroughly. (shrink)