Good Persuasive Essay Topics on Everything

What is a Persuasive Essay?

A persuasive essay is a common type of writing task assigned to students in school, college, and university throughout the course of their education.
According to the definition, a persuasive (also referred to as argumentative) essay is a type of academic paper that implies using valid facts, clear logic, and reasoning to convince readers of the validity of an author’s viewpoint.

Why do you need to master this type of writing? From an academic perspective, mastering the art of persuasive writing is vital to be able to handle such tasks at school or college and maintain good performance. At the same time, this skill also has real-life value. Thus, learning how to write a persuasive essay teaches students how to develop their own viewpoints on a given subject matter and how to use arguments to prove its correctness. This type of writing also helps in acquiring vital life skills such as critical thinking, reasoning, logic, and persuasion.

How to Write a Persuasive Essay?

Here are some key persuasive writing prompts to keep in mind while working on such tasks:

• Choose an engaging topic. Choosing a relevant, manageable, and interesting topic can be hard, but it is one of the most vital steps in making your essay successful or unsuccessful (if it is not engaging).
• Take a clear position on a given topic. Writing a persuasive essay requires choosing a specific side you are going to advocate for in your paper.
• Know your audience. Since the main purpose of this form of writing is to persuade readers, it is vital to know the audience you are writing for and understand their perspective—to create an effective paper.
• Do thorough research to identify the arguments you can use in your essay. Then, prioritize arguments according to their validity and value.
• Use the most convincing and logical evidence.
• Make it engaging. Use a catchy hook in the introduction to grab your readers’ attention, and try your best to keep them interested through the whole piece.
• Keep it clear and straight to the point.

Difference Between a Persuasive Speech and a Persuasive Essay

• Another common form of persuasive writing is persuasive speech. This form of writing can also be assigned within an academic course. However, it is also widely used in the professional world, for example, when presenting a new idea to investors with the goal of persuading them to invest their money in a project.
• Is writing a persuasive speech any different from writing an essay? To begin with, writing an essay and a speech are two completely different experiences. Even though the ultimate goal is the same, to convince the audience of something, the steps of writing, style, tone of voice, and techniques used by the author can be quite different.

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Here are the key differences between a persuasive speech and a persuasive essay:

• Audience. Obviously, by writing a speech you intend to communicate with a live audience, meanwhile, an essay addresses a reading audience.
• Tone. Due to the difference in audience, the tone of these two persuasive pieces is also different. A speech aims to generate a strong emotional effect. To create it, authors often use a particular diction full of grave, hopeful, or uplifting tones. An essay also relies on evoking emotions; however, in this case, a writer will fulfill this goal with the help of making the right points.
• Format. Most essays follow a standard format: introduction, body, and conclusion. A speech also generally follows the same structure. However, often speechwriters draw a separate conclusion from every point made in the body to ensure that the audience is on the same page with the speaker.
• Presentation. A speech gives a speaker a wider range of tools to use during a presentation. Thus, when writing a speech, you can expect a speaker to further strengthen its effect with the help of eye contact, body language, intonation, gestures, etc. On the contrary, when writing an essay, the whole effect a piece makes depends on the word choice and the way you use them.

Components of a Persuasive Essay

Here we have compelled an extensive list of good persuasive essay topics divided into popular categories to help you get started with your paper.
A persuasive essay should be well-organized and follow a clear and logical structure. As a rule, the length of this essay is between 5-6 paragraphs. What are the components of a persuasive essay? This type of work follows the standard essay structure – that is, a catchy intro; the main body which includes the main ideas, with arguments to support them; and a logical conclusion. Now, let’s look at each of the three components closer:

• Introduction: An introduction is the opening paragraph of an essay. It is the first thing that gets presented to readers’ eyes, which is why it has to be clear and attention-grabbing. To drive readers’ attention, an introduction should contain a hook – an intriguing fact, statement, or argument. Also, an introductory paragraph has to contain a strong thesis statement that reflects the main idea that you will be examining in the next part.
• Body: An essay’s main body is its heart. As a rule, it consists of 3-4 paragraphs. Each paragraph reflects a specific point and provides supporting evidence for it.
• Conclusion: The closing part of your essay is used to sum up the key ideas discussed in its main body and connects them to the thesis statement in the introduction. In persuasive writing, the conclusion is used to strengthen the persuasive effect of the whole piece.

Persuasive Essay Topics

So, you were assigned to write a persuasive essay, where should you start? The first step in preparation for writing is the choice of a topic. A lot depends on this step. If you manage to pick a good topic, the writing process will be much simpler and you will also have higher chances to get a really good grade. At the same time, if a topic is not relevant or engaging enough, it can ruin everything.

Although having freedom of choice is seemingly a good thing, many students feel rather confused about which persuasive topics are good ones. If you are wondering how to pick a good subject, here are the main criteria that define good persuasive topics:

• The topic is engaging. A great topic should not only be interesting for your audience, but for you as well. If you find something you are interested in, the writing process will become more pleasant and less stressful to research.
• You have an opinion about it. In order to persuade readers of something, you need to define your position first. Thus, it is vital to pick a persuasive topic you have an opinion about.
• It is controversial. Obviously there should be two sides of the argument in order to have something to convince your audience about. Thus, you need to pick a topic you can examine both sides of.
• The topic is manageable. Finally, a perfect persuasive topic is one for which there are enough arguments to provide. Therefore, before you stop on a specific topic, be sure to conduct enough research to see if you can find sufficient supporting evidence for your ideas.

Following these tips, you can generate brilliant persuasive speech topics for college and school with ease. Need some extra prompts to get started? In the list below, we have included some of the most relevant and interesting persuasive speech topics—divided into categories:

Persuasive Essay Topics for Kids

1. I Should Be Allowed to Go to Bed Later
2. I Should Be Allowed to Have a Pet
3. I Should Be Allowed to Eat Sweets Every Day
4. Dogs Are Better Pets than Cats
5. Superheroes Are Real
6. Vegetables Should Not Be Eaten Regularly
7. I Should Be Allowed to Stay Home Alone
8. I Should Be Allowed to Watch TV as Much as I Want
9. I Should Be Allowed to Play Video Games as Much as I Want
10. My Allowance Should be Bigger

Persuasive Essay Topics for Elementary Students

1. Schools Should Cancel Dress Codes
2. Homework Should Be Optional
3. Elementary Students Should Be Allowed to Bring Their Pets to School
4. Students Should Be Allowed to Use Cellphones in School
5. The School Day Should Be Shortened
6. Why School Breaks Need to Be Longer
7. All Classrooms Should Have a TV
8. We Need to Have Longer Summer Holidays
9. Schools Should Have Play Time in Between Classes
10. Every Classroom Should Have a Pet

Persuasive Essay Topics for Middle School

1. The Best Vacation Destinations
2. Does a Home Environment Influence Pupils’ Academic Performances?
3. Should There Be Harsher Punishments for Bullying?
4. Is Less Homework Really a Good Idea?
5. The Pros and Cons of Summer Schooling
6. Field Trips Should Be Organized Every Week
7. The Impact of Violent TV Shows on the Population
8. The Role of Social Media on the Lives of Younger Generations
9. Do Violent Computer Games Hurt Kids?
10. Should Students Be Held in Detention?