Category: persuasive essay examples

How to write Persuasive Essay

How to write a good persuasive essay? What are inseparable components of an effective essay in structure and organization? No matter how intelligent the ideas, a paper cann’t be effective when without strong introduction, well-structured body paragraphs, and an insightful thinking. Here is the outline of the persuasive essay format from introduction to conclusion.

The Introduction

Without any tricks, the introductory paragraph introduces the argument of your persuasive essay. A good way to capture the interest of your reader is to write a well-constructed introductory paragraph and give appropriate background information about the essay’s topic. Such a paragraph might include a brief summary of the ideas to be discussed in your essay’s body as well as other information relevant to your essay’s argument. The essential function of the introductory paragraph, though, is to introduce a clear and distinctive statement of your persuasive essay’s argument. This is where you insert your essay’s thesis. It is impossible to present a well-written argument without thesis. The thesis sentence should reflect both the position that you will argue and the organizational pattern with which you will present and support your argument. An efficient way to elaborate on the construction of a thesis sentence is to look at it in terms of stating both the “how” and the “what” of the persuasive essay’s argument. The “what” is simply the basic argument in your persuasive essay: what exactly are you arguing? The “how” is the strategy you will use to present this argument. The following are helpful questions for you to consider when formulating a thesis sentence:

• What is the argument that I am trying to convince the reader to accept?
• How exactly do I expect to convince the reader that this argument is sound?

  When you have got those questions answered, you can start synthesizing them into a single thesis sentence, or, where necessary, two thesis sentences. For instance: You would like to convince your reader that the forces of industry did not shape American foreign policy from the late 19th century through 1914, and you plan to do this by showing that there were other factors which were much more influential in shaping American foreign policy. Both of these elements can be synthesized into a thesis sentence:

  Fear of foreign influence in the Western hemisphere, national pride, and contemporary popular ideas concerning both expansion and foreign peoples had significantly more influence on American foreign policy than did the voices of industrialists.

  This sentence shows the position you will argue and also sets up the organizational pattern of your paper’s body.

The Body

The body of your persuasive essay contains the actual development of your essay’s argument. Each body paragraph presents a single idea or set of related ideas that provides support for your essay’s argument. Each body paragraph addresses one key aspect of your essay’s thesis and brings the reader closer to accepting the validity of your essay’s argument. Because each body paragraph should be a step in your argument, you should be mindful of the overall organization of your body paragraphs.

The first step in writing an effective body paragraph is the construction of the first sentence of this paragraph, the topic sentence. Just as the thesis sentence holds together your persuasive essay, the topic sentence is the glue binding each individual body paragraph. A body paragraph’s topic sentence serves two main purposes: introducing the content of the paragraph and introducing the next step of your argument. It is important to keep in mind that the goal of the topic sentence is to advance your essay’s argument, not just to describe the content of the paragraph. The first part in your thesis on page two states that fear of foreign influence in the Western Hemisphere had more influence on American foreign policy than did industry. Thus, you need to elaborate on this point in your body paragraphs. An effective topic sentence for one of these paragraphs could be: American fear of foreign influence was a key factor in the United States’ actions in the Spanish-American War. Subsequent body paragraphs might offer further evidence for the idea presented in this body paragraph.
A good way to test the strength of both your topic sentences and your argument as a whole is to construct an outline of your essay using only thesis statement and topic sentences. This outline should be a logical overview of your essay’s argument; all of your persuasive essay’s topic sentences should work together to support your thesis statement.

The Conclusion

A basic purpose of your essay’s concluding paragraph is both to restate the essay’s argument and to restate how you have supported this argument in the body of the persuasive essay. However, your conclusion should not simply be a copy of your introduction. The conclusion draws together the threads of the paper’s argument and shows where the argument of your persuasive essay has gone. An effective conclusion gives the reader reasons for bothering to read your essay. One of the most important functions of this paragraph is to bring in fresh insight. Some possible questions to consider when writing your conclusion are:

• What are some real world applications of this essay’s argument?
• Why is what I am writing about important?
• What are some of the questions that this essay’s argument raises?
• What are the implications of this essay’s argument?

  While the organization and structure described in this handout are necessary components of an effective persuasive essay, keep in mind that writing itself is a fluid process. There are no steadfast rules that you need to adhere to as you write. Simply because the introduction is the first paragraph in your essay does not mean that you must write this paragraph before any other. Think of the act of writing as an exploration of ideas, and let this sense of exploration guide you as you write your essay.