Persuasive Essay

1. Persuasive Essay

2. Persuasive Themes • The skeleton (form) for the persuasive theme is exactly like the expository theme. • Introductory Paragraph • 1st Body Paragraph • 2nd Body Paragraph • 3rdBody Paragraph • Concluding Paragraph

3. Persuasive Themes • However, there are differences in the way you present your points or reasons for the persuasive theme. • The first difference is that the thesis sentence will often be referred to as your proposition or your argument. It will still always have your subject, direction, and your three arguments, propositions, or reasons. This is your purpose for writing the persuasive theme.

4. We are inundated with Persuasion Every day of our lives! • Every commercial on television or radio is persuasive. Its goal is to change your attitude and your behavior so you will buy the product. Advertisers want you to believe that you NEED the product they are trying to sell. When you watch or listen to the news, you are also being persuaded to change your attitude. Anytime politicians are up for re-election, you can count on heavy persuasion tactics. We can see by this that persuasion tactics can be used to manipulate us by emotionally influencing our minds and actions. It can be a form of social control when teens try to persuade their peers to speak, dress, believe, and act like the crowd.

5. Persuasion Themes • Anytime you write a persuasive them, you must present reasonable and strong evidence or support before you can expect to persuade anyone to change his mind or actions. It is not always easy to change people’s actions or their thinking.

6. Persuasion Themes • Persuasive Writing has 3 main goals: • You want to prove your point. • You want to change your audience’s attitude about something. • You want to change your audience’s behavior.

7. Prewriting • Just like expository, Cluster or concept web works perfectly for the persuasive theme. Remember however that you are going to build these arguments with the following: • Solid Evidence • Real details like statistics and examples • Logical reasoning

8. Be Positive • Also remember always to state your proposition in positive terms. Choose your words carefully! You do not want to put your reader on the defensive side before he even finishes reading your paper. Be respectful throughout your theme and select words to which your reader will react positively. Avoid negative words. Look at these two ways of stating the subject and direction of the proposition: • “School officials should be prohibited from using corporal punishment on students because…” • “School official should not be allowed to use corporal punishment on students because…” • The first proposition is respectful while still being forceful. Also, try to appeal to the needs of your readers. If you can convince someone that they stand to gain by agreeing with you, you have a written a powerful persuasive theme.

9. 3 Propositions or Arguments • Just like in the Expository essay, you will need three points, propositions, or arguments that you need to develop. • Your most important one goes last. • Build strong images as support.

10. Developing your Argument • If you use statistics be sure you round them off. Because you will be required to write on a topic which you have not had time to research if you are given the persuasive prompt for the State Writing Test, I will allow you to “create” some statistics as long as they are REASONABLE. Look at these examples. • Every day we waste nearly a million pounds of food in America while people in other parts of the world starve. • I took a survey and found that nearly eighty percent of the girls in seventh grade are allowed to wear make-up, and I want you to consider letting me wear it, as well.

11. Pattern for Introductory Paragraph 1 . If your prompt says who your audience is address the specific audience. 2. Immediately state your reason for writing. 3. Clearly state where you stand on this issue, all while writing in POSITIVE terms. Give support and development for the issue. 4. Last, give your thesis sentence (called argument or position).

12. Persuasive Format • Follow the skeleton for the expository theme, present and develop reasonable arguments, and do your best! • Introductory • 1st Body Paragraph • 2nd Body Paragraph • 3rd Body Paragraph • Concluding Paragraph