I am a grade C philosophy student.? I just got back my philosophy essay and I got a C again.? I talked to the professor after class today when the group headed over to pub for a drink.? My problem is I am too obessive with presenting my own philosophy, neglecting the requirement of the assignment which is to criticize the philosopher in our text.? I am not very focus in my attack to his arguments, trying to cover too many things at the same time without giving a through thought on each of my points.? I also misunderstood part of his argument, so some of my criticisms are just attacking strawman.? It is always more interesting to talk about your own idea than criticizing others point of view.? However, this is the fundamental technics in philosophy or thinking in general.? Just like learning to play piano, before you can preform a lively music, you have to spend countless boring hours practicing the scale.? In philosophy, before you can write about your original ideas, you have to spend time in learning how to cross examine ideas from those famous dead guys.? Without this fundamental learning experience, you just don’t know how to present your ideas in froms others can understand.? It is a long way to go for me.? I have already dream up of a few dozen topics I could work on in philosophy.? I should worry about building my thesis later.? Now I just focus on learning the technical stuffs in the trade of philosophy.