Persuasive, as well as argumentative essay, is aimed at proving that this or that point of view is correct, while another is wrong, using logic, facts and argumentation as its tools.
It has little to do with emotions and personal opinions – you not only have to state your opinion, you should make reader believe it is true. Therefore, if you want to write a good persuasive essay, you have to do the following:
- If given such an opportunity, choose the topic you are interested in and have definite opinion on.
- Either way, choose a point of view that you feel closer to. Decide what you will write about and what solution you will offer.
- Try to define how favorable your audience will be to this point of view.
- If you don’t know enough about the topic, try to learn as much as possible. Persuasive essay requires a lot of evidence, and the best evidence is facts, statistics, quotations from established experts, although all of it should be cemented by your own logic.
- Decide on how you will refute the opposing idea or ideas and prove your own one.
Remember – your teacher expects you to prove your point, not to say about your feelings about the topic. Persuasive essays build up your argumentative skills and are most important for the people who are going to work in connection with other human beings, like lawyers, psychologists and so on.
Typically, a persuasive essay is written in the following way:
- Introduction.
- Attention grabber – usually no more than a sentence or two. It may be a quotation from a famous person, an interesting statistics or fact, question (rhetoric or not), exaggerated statement, an anecdote and so on.
- Idea statement – here you say what the essay is about, how you are going to organize it, what your point of view is.
- Body.
- Here you enumerate and elaborate the reasons why your idea should be accepted as truth. Usually, one paragraph is used to describe one point, and there should be at least three of them. As persuasive essays are written on debatable topics, both sides have their own arguments and counter-arguments – disprove the opposing ones.
- Conclusion.
- Generally, it returns to the beginning, retells the most important thoughts, shows why you consider your point to be proved.
Finally, we would suggest that you think critically; reread the essay and try to be objective – would you be persuaded by the given argumentation?
