How to Write a Persuasive Essay

There is certainly no shortage of persuasive essay topics. The purpose of writing a persuasive essay is to get the reader to not only understand, but to agree with your point-of-view. Therefore, every part of your persuasive essay must be finely crafted in order to help convince the person of the point you are trying to make.

Before writing your persuasive essay, you must first determine the main idea of the essay as well as your point-of-view. You must also determine who your audience will be. Understanding your audience is key to writing a persuasive paper because you need to develop arguments that will appeal to their senses and that won’t cause them to tune out immediately. For example, if you are writing to an audience of people that are still on the fence with an issue, you might write in a bit different style than you would when writing to a group of people that are strongly against your point-of-view.

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Another important element that is required to write a persuasive essay is to identify the opposing viewpoints. By identifying the opposing viewpoints and then making arguments against them, you can strengthen your own point-of-view while adding credibility to the essay.

As with any essay, the first paragraph of persuasive essays is the introduction. In your introduction, you should utilize some sort of “hook” to help grab the reader’s attention. Two simple ways to accomplish this are to ask a question or to present an alarming statistic. A persuasive essay should also provide the reader with some background information about the topic or the controversy you will be addressing. Finally, the introductory paragraph should end with a clear statement about your point of view.

The body of your persuasive essay should be used to provide information that supports your main idea. Each of the paragraphs in the body should focus on only one point and should provide plenty of examples or evidence to prove the point being made with the paragraph. After presenting several paragraphs supporting your point of view, you should then write a paragraph that explains the most significant opposing viewpoint and then provides evidence to the contrary that can be used to refute that point of view.

The final paragraph of your essay should be the conclusion. In the conclusion, you should restate your supporting points and main ideas, though these points should be worded differently from how they were previously worded in the essay. Finally, your conclusion should leave your audience feeling more connected with the topic and you should make one last attempt to persuade the audience to your perspective.

One of the most important factors you should keep in mind when engaged in persuasive essay writing is that you should never be “wishy-washy.” In other words, you should not concede that the opposing viewpoint has a valid argument. If there is a good counterpoint to your argument and you do not have evidence to refute that argument, it is best to not include that information in your essay.

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