How to Convince Anybody with Your Persuasive Writing

What Is a Persuasive Writing

Persuasive writing is a common writing technique taught to students early on in schools. This is an interesting and fun type of writing that strives to create a debate on a given topic. This writing technique challenges students to take a clear stance on a specific topic or cause and use convincing arguments to persuade readers that the author’s position is correct.

What Is a Persuasive Writing

Persuasive writing is a common writing technique taught to students early on in schools. This is an interesting and fun type of writing that strives to create a debate on a given topic. This writing technique challenges students to take a clear stance on a specific topic or cause and use convincing arguments to persuade readers that the author’s position is correct.

Argumentative vs Persuasive Writing

A persuasive essay is often referred to as an argumentative essay. This can create an illusion that these types of works are the same and can cause confusion. However, there is a difference between argumentative and persuasive writing approaches.

Although both writing techniques have the same goal – both papers are based on logic and reasoning to persuade readers of something; however, a persuasive paper also relies on emotions apart from straight facts. When writing a persuasive essay, you operate with convincing arguments, yet, at the same time, you deal with emotions to make the reader feel your well-defined point of view.

You might also be interested in discovering what is an argumentative essay and how to write one.

Persuasive Essay Format

The basic requirements for a persuasive paper are as follows:

• Fonts: Times New Roman or another easy-to-read fonts like Georgia or Arial
• Font Size: 16pt for the headline(s) and 12pt for the rest of the text
• Alignment: justified
• Spacing: double, or in some cases 1.5
• Word count: as a rule, from 500 to 2000 words—check your teacher’s guidelines to learn what word count applies to you

The List of Topics and How to Pick One

When thinking of persuasive essay ideas, it is best to choose a topic with many contrasting opinions. Broad issues such as gun control and abortion rights can spawn novel length essays. These best be avoided unless you’re writing a dissertation.

Say you want to argue in favor of space exploration. It perfectly fits the description of a widely explored contemporary subject. Creating a structure where every body paragraph explores a different planet might be a bit too much. Why not narrow it down and argue in favor of building a base on the moon? This way, you can convince the audience of the benefits of creating a moon base, and giving them a small idea of what can be achieved from space exploration on a larger scale.

Hence, you have persuaded your reader on a small topic connected to a much broader one. This will leave them inspired with plenty of thoughts to feast on, allowing them to dive further into the world of space.

Remember This When Picking a Topic

Persuasive essays are all about the point of view. It is essential to find good topics which you know something about, or topics which you can argue in favor of, or against. The greatest persuasive essays ever written deal with real-life experiences and point the reader towards important social problems most people have ignored. Take Martin Luther King Jr.’s A Letter from Birmingham Jail or Hillary Clinton’s Women’s Rights are Human Rights for example.

Topics for High School

Perhaps the concept of space exploration is long and tedious and makes your stomach turn. Don’t worry — you can come up with plenty of simple persuasive essay topics for high school. Perhaps you have already debated on some of these with your friends:

• Schools should restrict the use of tablets in the classroom, as it distracts students and causes difficulty in learning.
• The Velvet Underground is the most important and influential American rock band of all time.
• Explain why advertisements should be banned from social media.
• Eating meat should be banned within the next five years due to growing concern over the environment.
• Historically, businessmen in positions of power is a bad idea.

Topics for College

Persuasive essay topics for college get a bit more complicated. The best essay topics are ones that take into account the events of contemporary life, discussing moral, ethical, technological, and environmental issues. Students have the opportunity to make a serious impact with their writing, fearlessly breathing new life into the old world. For college, it is best to choose controversial persuasive essay topics. They challenge the writer to engage in relevant intellectual issues. Here are some examples:

• Media marketed for teenagers advertise morally and ethically wrong messages.
• Federal courtrooms must have live cameras that televise all trials.
• Beauty contests should not be encouraged.
• With the amounts of information available online, college education should be made significantly cheaper.
• Create a prisoner rehabilitation system using music and art.
• Arguing in favor of Net Neutrality.

Persuasive Writing Outline

Writing an outline is a big step for writing persuasive essays. An outline helps to get your thoughts well-organized and makes the writing process simpler.

A standard persuasive essay structure is quite similar to other types of essays and consists of three main elements: an introduction, body, and conclusion. Each element plays its own role in the paper. You will be required to follow the persuasive essay format and cite it according to one of the common citation styles, such as APA or MLA.

Here is a brief note on what each part of this paper consists of and what purpose each part has:

1. Intro: Consists of a hook, background info, and a thesis statement. It should be straight to the point, engaging, and concise. The main purpose of the introductory paragraph is to define your topic and position, grab the reader’s attention, and give a sneak-peek into the topic’s background.
2. Main Body: Consists of several paragraphs, each focusing on a separate idea with supporting evidence. It should be logical, contain valid arguments, and be interesting. As a general rule, such an essay has from 3 to 5 body paragraphs. In the final body paragraph of your paper, you can also state the opposing opinion and provide counterarguments—this will strengthen the persuasive effect of the text.
3. Conclusion: Consists of a short summary of key points, a restated thesis, and additional information to leave readers some food for thought. To consolidate the convincing effect of your paper, it should be clear, logical, and powerful.

To give you a better idea of how a persuasive essay outline should be formed, here is a sample on the topic “Are Women Weaker Than Men Today”:

1. Introduction

• Hook: “In the 21st century, women are more than housewives.”
• Background Info: “For ages, the debate on whether women are weaker or stronger than men have not faded.”
• Thesis: “The era of male dominance has come to an end. Today women can do and be pretty much everything men can.”

2. Main Body

• Argument #1: The strength of a woman from a family perspective + supporting facts, stats, and evidence
• Argument #2: The strength from a work perspective + supporting facts, stats, and evidence
• Argument #3: The strength from a society perspective + supporting facts, stats, and evidence

3. Conclusion

• Summary of all arguments
• Thesis restatement: “Women were perceived as a weaker sex for centuries. However today, looking at modern women examples, we can mark this statement as false.”
• Food for thought: “Over the past decades, women from all over the world have proven that they can do anything a man can do and succeed. Their success is the best indicator of their strength. And, even though there is nothing else to prove, women are still seeking to take a more active role in modern society.”

How to Use Arguments in Persuasive Essays

How to start a persuasive essay: first and foremost, to write an effective paper, you have to understand the basic principles of persuasive writing. Your main goal is to make readers accept your opinion and agree with it. The only way to do it is by supporting your ideas with credible, reasonable, and verifiable arguments. Apart from that, you will have to appeal to human emotions and logic. The right blend of rational and emotional elements in your text is what makes it persuasive.

Now, let’s get back to the basic elements of persuasive writing. There are three elements of rhetoric described by Aristotle that you should keep at the core of your writing:

• Ethos: an element that appeals to an author’s credibility. It implies that readers will trust your opinion because they find you a credible author. If you don’t have your own ethos yet (meaning you are not a proven expert in a specific field), you can refer to opinions stated by credible organizations and personas. In this case, their ethos will help your arguments sound more solid.

How to Shape a Powerful Persuasive Argument

Here are a few basic tips to help you generate convincing arguments for your paper:

• Research. To be able to form solid and convincing points, you have to be very well informed about the chosen topic. Research it thoroughly using trusted sources, collect expert opinions, and find facts.
• Make sure there are two sides to your topic. Your thesis must have two sides – the one with which you agree, and the one you are going to be opposing. You will not be able to create a good persuasive argument if the chosen topic is not debatable.
• Understand the contrasting opinion. Another vital factor in shaping powerful arguments is being able to understand the opposite position and being able to find solid counterarguments to disprove it.
• Use evidence. Finally, keep in mind that a persuasive argument will look incomplete and invalid if you don’t have sufficient and convincing evidence to support it.