How to Write a Persuasive Essay
A persuasive essay is usually defined as a piece of writing that…
- Utilizes logic and reason to show that one idea is more legitimate than another idea.
- Attempts to persuade a reader to adopt a certain point of view or to take a particular action.
- Must always use sound reasoning and solid evidence by stating facts, giving logical reasons, using examples, and quoting experts.
Making an effort to convince others, we try to share our values and impel people to adopt our way of thinking. Considering that this task can not be fully implemented, writing a persuasive essay becomes even more challenging.
The art of persuasion is not an easy skill to obtain. Lots of people feel unable to persuade others even if they strongly believe they are absolutely right. Such people may experience serious difficulties in organizing their ideas in a logical order and swaying others to accept their point of view. It drives them to serious troubles in communication and creates unnecessary tension produced as a consequence of inability to deliver thoughts cogently to other people.
Generally speaking, a capacity to persuade the audience using strong arguments with sufficient support is obligatory to every person who wants to be heard and understood.
How to Write a Persuasive Essay
Organization and structure are essential components of effective persuasive essays. No matter how bright your ideas are, without a strong introduction, well-developed body paragraphs, and a memorable conclusion, a persuasive essay is not an impressive paper.
Here are some hints on how to deal with this type of writing. Richard Turley in his book “Writing Essays” gives four major recommendations concerning writing a persuasive essay:
- Say what you want to talk about and why.
- Locate your argument in the critical debate.
- Check that your ideas progress in a logical sequence.
- Make sure that you always say what you mean.
When you write an academic paper, you should draw close attention to the essay structure.
According to the basic essay structure, a persuasive essay outline should incorporate three main parts.
- Introduction, where you introduce one of the chosen persuasive essay topics and draw the readers’ attention to the problem under study.
- Main body, which usually starts with the thesis statement and contains the development of your ideas in several paragraphs (one for each idea) in order to reveal the topic you are dwelling upon.
- Conclusion, which serves to summarize everything written above and restate your thesis statement as well as give balanced opinion on the topic.
Kay Stewart offers the following consistency of steps to write a successful persuasive essay.
- Find a standard or standards of evaluation either in the assignment or in the process of gathering material.
- Analyze your subject by choosing appropriate categories and gathering material in them.
- Identify strengths and weaknesses by applying the appropriate standard of evaluation to the material in your categories.
- Formulate a thesis, which states an opinion about the relationship between strengths and weaknesses, gives reasons to support your opinion, and indicates your standards of evaluation.
- Construct a draft outline according to the principle of pro-con structure, and write the first draft of a persuasive essay.
- Check the draft by means of a revision outline for problems in thesis statement, pro-con structure, and transitions.
- Check the introduction and conclusion for fair-mindedness.
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Check middle paragraphs for problems in transition and logic.
Persuasive essay writing usually contains only “for” or “against” arguments, but sometimes it is advisable to include a piece of argumentation of your opponents in order to make your position more balanced and considered.
Writing persuasive essays is not an easy task to deal with, but it seems not so complicated if you follow the basic rules of academic writing. Do not forget about a basic essay format, logical sequence of arguments, and be sure to give enough support to your ideas. These hints will help you succeed in presenting your opinion to any audience convincingly and coherently.