Persuasive Essay

1. Persuasive Essay • An issue with more than one side • A clear organization that builds toward a conclusion • A clear statement of the writer’s position • Evidence supporting the writer’s position, including arguments, statistics, expert opinions, and personal observations • Powerful images and language

2. Persuasive Essay Narrow Your Topic Make sure you can answer the questions Who? What? Where? When? Why? And How? You do not want enough information to write a book, but enough to cover your topic thoroughly Consider Your Purpose and Audience Purpose: Convince readers of your opinion Audience: Your readers. 1. What do my readers know about the topic? 2. What are their opinions or prejudices on the topic? 3. About which aspects of the issue might they be most concerned?

3. Persuasive Essay Gather and Provide Support: Gather Evidence on both sides of your issue. 1. Logical Arguments: Television news sensationalizes stories. Therefore, viewers get a distorted view of the world. 2. Statistics: Eighty percent of viewers did not know reasons behind the war. 3. Expert Opinions: Psychologist Joseph Lacan argues that the format of the news diminishes viewers’ attention span. 4. Personal Observations: I watched a battle footage on television for a week. I understood what the fighting was about only after I read a magazine article on the war.

4. Persuasive Essay Complete a T Chart Drugs Among Young People Excuses Realities _______________________________________________________________ Keeping your friends is more Drugs are dangerous & bad for Important than anything your health You have to look cool What you do today, will stay with you always You should live for today, not Being responsible for yourself is Tomorrow more important than following your friends

5. Persuasive Essay Draft your Essay Develop a Thesis statement – a sentence summing up your argument. Include this statement as the last sentence in your introduction, and organize your essay around it. Nestorian order: Begin with your 2nd strongest point. Present other arguments, and end with your strongest point – a dramatic way to conclude

6. Persuasive Essay Introduction: Introduce your subject, letting audience know its importance and end this paragraph with your thesis statement 1st Para: Present your 2nd strongest argument and other arguments, giving evidence of their importance 2nd Para: Identify opposing arguments and give evidence why they are bogus 3rd Para: Present strongest argument giving evidence as to its importance. This should be your strongest paragraph. Conclusion: Sum up the importance of your argument, starting with specifics and moving out to its impact to the world.

7. Persuasive Essay Provide Elaboration • Logical Arguments: appeal to most readers. Take your readers step-by-step through your argument, and present accurate evidence to earn their trust 2. Appeals to basic values: call on ideas that all readers support, but that may be applied in different ways. If you are arguing in favor of a policy, for instance, you might call it fair or just. If you argue against the policy, you might call it wasteful 3. Appeals to emotions: may take the form of a brief story or a vivid image. For instance, you might move readers to pity – and win their support – with the story of a young child who suffered because of a certain policy

8. Persuasive Essay • Repetition and parallelism: (the use of sentences with identical forms) strengthen your presentation. When words fall into a rhythm, it may feel as though each one “had” to be there – and thus, what they say is so must be so. • Charged words: have strong positive or negative connotations. They pack entire arguments into a few syllables. Call a plan irresponsible, and you create a scene: The plan is wrong: those who made it were careless, even childish; you (and your reader) are mature enough to see the fault