ARGUMENTATIVE ESSAY A How To Guide

What is an Argumentative Essay? In persuasive or argumentative writing, we try to convince others to agree with our facts, share our values, accept our argument and conclusions, and adopt our way of thinking.

Elements of a persuasive/argumentative essay Picking A Topic Pick something that comes from an emotional reaction inside you to the subject, question, prompt or situation you’ve been asked to write about. In other words: Something that sets off a reaction, either positive or negative, in relation to the idea or ideas you have to write about. Something that triggers an agreement or disagreement inside you.

Establish Facts You need to make sure you have enough facts to back up your point. Without facts, you have no argument. Does this argument have any hot button issues that could raise emotions?

Why is your topic relevant to your audience? Why should they care about how they feel one way or another? How might this topic impact them?

Organize your facts in order of importance. You don’t want to start off your paper with your most important fact. You want your facts to build on one another, and hit your audience with your biggest fact right before your conclusion.

Forming and stating conclusions. When you do this, it helps wrap up your paper and give it closure. IMPORTANT!!!

Persuading your audience until the end. Your conclusion needs to align with your facts to help prove your point.

Persuasive/Argumentative writing helps build confidence as a writer. It can also help you build confidence when it comes to expressing your feelings and your view points to others.

Works Cited teachers-will-love/