First of all, what is an argumentative essay?
An argumentative essay is a writing assignment that requires students to develop and present arguments based on their own original thinking. As with other essays, this type of assignment requires the student to use relevant evidence to support his or her ideas. The most important difference between an argumentative essay and many other kinds of writing assignments is that in this type of essay, it is understood that the writer will take a position, make an argument about something specific, and attempt to prove why he/she holds this view.
In other words, when you write an argumentative essay you should convince your readers by presenting facts and examples to back up your opinion. In order to do so, you should follow some basic steps that will help you build a strong argument.
The first step of writing an argumentative essay is choosing your position and title. When it comes to choosing a topic, you should think about something controversial and write about it from your own point of view. That means, the more emotional and subjective your opinion is, the better! For example:
“Whether we need to protect endangered species in our country by prohibiting hunting them down.”
This position allows for many different arguments and can spark a hot debate among readers which makes it perfect for an argumentative essay. Moreover, this topic would allow you to talk not only about the necessity (or lack thereof) of such restrictions but also about whether people even care enough about animals to fight for their rights.
You should try to capture the reader’s attention with the title of your essay because it will determine whether he or she decides to read on. One way to create an appealing title is by using adjectives that convey emotions and poetic metaphors that help you express your opinion in a more interesting way. For example, “Are People Really Ready To Fight For Animal Rights?” would be a better choice than simply stating your position on the topic.
If you struggle with choosing the topic for your essay, you can find some options here.
The second step you need to take is providing some background information about your topic. That means, if you are writing an argumentative essay on animal cruelty, discuss its history, give some examples of how it has been influential throughout different eras and talk about who was involved in this movement and who was against it.
You should include all of the necessary background information in your introduction. Those parts don’t need to be too long, you just need to provide some basic facts and then continue your paper with the main body of your argumentative essay. At this point, it is important to remember that each paragraph should present a new argument or idea so make sure you switch from one topic to another as often as possible.
After providing the background information about your topic as well as some examples for further clarification, state what side of the argument you choose and why. This will be the main bulk of your paper that will present all of the points you want to make in support of your thesis. As mentioned before, each paragraph should serve a separate argumentative claim about your topic. But don’t worry, it doesn’t mean that you have to provide 7 different examples every time! You can use one example for several claims or talk about a single claim with multiple examples from which one is more descriptive than others. Remember – your goal here is to convince people that you are right and they need to agree with you!
The third step is the conclusion. In this part of your essay, thank the reader for spending his/her time reading your work and share some final thoughts expressing what side of the argument you still think is correct and why. You can also talk about the significance of your topic and how it affects people’s lives these days.
Writing an argumentative essay requires a lot of effort and time but with some practice, you will be able to do it faster and better every time! Make your position clear and try to stand out with an interesting topic, useful background information and compelling arguments.
Thanks for reading 🙂