Ultimate Guide to Writing the Perfect Persuasive Essay

A persuasive essay, sometimes also known as an argumentative essay, is a piece of writing in which the author uses logical reasonings to validate their stance. It is not different from a lawyer presenting his case to a judge, trying to convince the jury of his perspective.

In this, a writer chooses one side of an issue and prepares their argument with supporting evidence. The purpose of persuasive writing is to discuss why the writer’s point of view is correct as opposed to the other viewpoint.

Although commonly used in marketing campaigns, persuasive writing is not limited to this domain. Students are assigned this type of essay to sharpen their critical thinking skills.

Do you want to write a well-structured argumentative essay?

You will find easy examples and some great persuasive speech topics for persuasive essay writing in this blog.

Persuasive Essay Definition

A persuasive essay is a type of essay in which you uses logic, reason, and arguments to prove his point and convince the audience. To do it, you will need to provide substantial evidence to prove your arguments. This includes in-depth research, facts, statistics, expert quotes and logic and reason.

The term ‘persuasive’ is derived from ‘persuade,’ which means to convince. Thus, persuasive writing is similar to argumentative essay writing, where a stance is proved by convincing evidence.

The trick to make your persuasive essay effective is to do detailed research on both sides of an argument. The purpose of a persuasive essay is to convince the reader with your writing skills and information.

Although persuasive essay is also known as argumentative essay, there is a difference between the two:

Persuasive Essay vs Argumentative Essay

A persuasive essay is sometimes known as an argumentative essay but both of these essays are different from each other.

Persuasive essay is a type of essay that intends to persuade the audience to believe in the truth of your words or discourage them from believing the other viewpoint. This essay type aims to tempt the readers and make them acknowledge and admit your stance on an issue.

When you write a persuasive essay, you provide examples from personal experiences.

In contrast to this, an argumentative essay is a piece of writing that intends to show both sides of the issue. In this type of essay, you have to present the counter arguments as well to build an argument. The argumentative essay leaves a choice for its audience to decide which side to choose.

Persuasive Essay Topics for Students

Choosing the right topic that you can provide detailed information on is vital. If a topic interests you and you know you can provide the best content on it, then start writing your essay.

Experts have gathered some good persuasive essay topics ideas for your writing. These topics are divided according to the difficulty level.

Persuasive Essay Topics

• Everyone should have a pet.
• Junk food should be banned from schools.
• Cell phones should be banned in classrooms.
• The legal driving age should be raised to 21.
• School days should start later.
• Students should be required to wear uniforms.
• Girls and boys should be taught in separate classes.
• Standardized tests should be abolished.
• Recess should be longer.
• Homework should be banned.

Persuasive Essay Topics - Intermediate

• Should gambling be banned?
• Cats VS Dogs - Who are better pets?
• Biological weapons - Are they Ethical?
• Fashion - A good or a bad thing for society?
• Human behavior - Does it depend on genetics?
• Should mercy killing be legalized in all parts of the world?
• Should students learn quotes from experts?
• Is a cyber-attack to spy on countries ethical?
• Same-sex marriages - should be banned or legalized?
• Wars - are all outcomes adverse?
• Are blonde people dumb?
• Recycling VS Donating - A better concept?
• Military budget VS education budget - what’s more important?
• Private High school VS Public High school - Who provides better education standards?
• Is an essay writing everything to determine the student’s ability to evaluate and analyze situations?

Advanced Persuasive Essay Topics

• Social Media
• Gun Control
• Immigration
• Education Reform
• Healthcare Reform
• Climate Change
• The Death Penalty
• Animal Rights
• Genetically Modified Organisms
• Nuclear Proliferation

When choosing a topic for your essay, it is important that you choose inspiring topics that would help you research and provide more evidence. Engaging persuasive essay topics will not only make the paper attractive but will also make it easier for the writer to draft informative content.

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Persuasive Essay Outline

A successful persuasive essay that convinces the audience, has a clear outline. All academic and formal writings require a proper structure and format. This structure makes the essay content readable and understandable for the audience.

Moreover, drafting a persuasive essay outline helps the writer to collect their thoughts and arrange them in an organized manner. An outline is a plan through which the writer attempts to write an impactful essay. If the outlining is strong, the content will be explicit and convincing.

A Persuasive Essay is Written using the basic essay outline of 5 paragraphs. This outline divides the entire content into the following sections:

• Introduction
• Body Paragraph 1
• Body Paragraph 2
• Body Paragraph 3
• Conclusion

Persuasive Essay Format

No matter which academic level you are writing a persuasive essay for, it must be well-formatted to be impactful. To shape up your assignment, make sure to format your paper in the following manner:

• Title page
• Use Times New Roman font
• Use font size 16pt for the headings and 12pt for the rest of the essay.
• Lines should be double spaced and alignment should be justified.
• The word count should be 500 to 2000, depending on the guidelines provided.

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How to Use Arguments in Your Persuasive Essay?

The first and most important step in learning how to persuade is to grasp the fundamentals of persuasive writing and know the five components of persuasion.

Given the need to persuade others to accept your viewpoint, you must make effective arguments that are credible, verifiable, and compelling. Furthermore, you must appeal to human logic and feelings. The proper balance of emotional and intellectual components is what gives your essay authority.

Remember the fundamentals of persuasion writing laid out by Aristotle millennia ago. They were referred to as parts of rhetoric, and they included three items:

• Ethos (writer’s character and credibility): When presenting a topic, use authoritative sources to back up your claims.
• Pathos (emotions): To create such a connection, you need to focus on the reader's morals, values, and beliefs.
• Logos (reason): Persuade others by using logic and evidence to get them to agree

Elements of Persuasion

You may use one body paragraph to present your viewpoint, and another to refute the opposing argument. Alternatively, you may produce 2-3-4 paragraphs with evidence and counterarguments in order to persuade readers.

But here's the thing:

Make sure you include the five elements listed below in your persuasive essay to make it seem more convincing and argumentative:

1. Make your argument as clear as possible. Make your thesis simple and focused in nature. It might be a claim, a fact, a definition, a solution, or even a call for judgment. It should summarize your viewpoint on the topic.
2. Excellent communication is essential. Start with some background information on the subject to pique the audience's interest. You might begin by asking a question that invites them to continue reading to discover your view. Use simple language that doesn't deceive readers.
3. This is the portion of your argument that should be backed up with research and facts. It should be logical, consistent, and based on facts. It should appeal to those you want to persuade, as well as be endorsed by recognized third parties.
4. It must have a good structure. Organize your persuasive essay so that each argument is connected to the thesis. Begin with the weaker argument and work your way up to the more convincing information for readers to remember. To assist readers follow the essay's arguments, pay attention to transitions and connections between paragraphs.
5. Conclude your essay with a strong statement of your viewpoint. In the light of the evidence you've laid out in your essay, restate your thesis. Make sure your conclusion is based on what you've said before

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How to Start a Persuasive Essay?

The planning of an essay is as important as the writing process. If the planning of your essay is strong, the written content will be effective as well.

Take a good start for your persuasive essay, follow the step by step process of planning:

1. 1. Choose an Interesting Topic for Your Persuasive Essay

   Choosing the right topic comes under the prewriting phase of an essay writing process and is considered the most crucial step.

   If your instructor has provided you with a topic, you cannot do much and start brainstorming and collecting information. But if you are not assigned any topic, do not let go of this chance to show your creativity.

   Choosing a topic is critical because you have to come up with something that doesn't only interest you but your audience as well. A trick is to pick an already existing issue known by everyone and present it from a different angle.

   Your topic should not be something of common knowledge, it should allow you to pick a side and give reasonings. Be smart and choose a topic that can be presented with a lot of information, even better if the topic is of great interest to you.

   Choosing your own topic can be tricky, avoid showing bias in your essay without enough evidence. If you pick a side but fail to give solid reasons for it in your essay, your grade might suffer.

2. 2. Pick your Side

   Now that you know what your topic and argument are, pick your side to support. The side you will advocate should be initially presented to the audience so they know your stance, and all the information gathered should support your thesis statement.

   The thesis statement is written just after ending the introduction. The thesis statement should clearly communicate what you think is right and why the reader should believe you.

3. 3. Know your Audience

   Your essay will be much more effective if you know the target audience. Your audience is a specific group of people that have their own interests, likes, and dislikes. Knowing the readers will help you write effectively to get your message across.

   A persuasive essay is written to persuade your audience. If writing for your academics, it is evident that your audience is your instructor. You are likely to get an A if you include information from scholarly articles, mention quotes, and facts that are bound to convince your instructor.

   Because of the difference in each group’s understanding level, there are different tactics to impress each group.

4. 4. Decide on the Persuasion Technique

   Deciding how you will approach the audience to persuade them is mandatory for effective persuasive essays. There are some basic elements of a persuasive essay through which the writer convinces their point to the readers.

   These include:

   • Ethos - In this, the writer uses an ethical approach and tries to persuade the readers by their credibility and reputation.
   • Pathos - It is a technique through which the writer emotionally influences the audience and persuades them to give a response with feelings.
   • Logos - As the name suggests, this technique uses logic to persuade the audience.

   Keeping in view the theme of your essay and the targeted audience, choose an appeal to influence and convince the readers.

5. 5. Research

   Now that you have your topic and audience in mind, you are ready to dig deeper. Brainstorm all the ideas that you think are important to include in the content and list them down in order of importance.

   For each key idea, gather information and facts that will support your argument to persuade the audience.

   The information and data gathered will work as shreds of evidence to support your stance on the side. Some audiences are way too adamant, so you will need enough information on the opposing side as well to defend your stance. It also includes tackling follow-up questions that put your argument at risk if left unanswered.

6. 6. Organize

   The core purpose of persuasive writing is to convince your reader, and to do that; you have to make sure that the audience understands your point.

   The only way the audience understands your point is when it is clearly stated with a logical flow. While giving shape and structure to your essay, try to follow a logical format.

   To follow this format, arrange your paragraphs and ideas according to their importance and right placement.

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How to Write a Persuasive Essay?

Once you have developed a plan and taken all the prewriting steps, the writing procedure becomes simpler. Start writing your persuasive essay in the following order:

Introduction

The introduction section is the first part of the essay. Here the writer introduces the main topic and argument of the essay. The introductory paragraph of a persuasive essay has the following elements:

• Hook
• Background information
• Thesis statement

A hook statement grabs the reader's attention and compels them to continue reading the essay. Your hook statement could be a quotation that will inspire the audience or a fact that will make the audience curious. Make sure that you draft the hook statement according to the topic and nature of the essay.

Include background information for readers who don’t have any previous information on the topic. The background information should relate to the reasonings you give later in the body paragraphs.

Following the background information comes the persuasive thesis statement, and it is usually the last part of the introduction. The writer forms a statement to reiterate their take on the topic and why they think it is correct. Usually, the thesis statement is a little controversial with some ambiguity that is later cleared in the body section.

All of the content in the essay tries to justify the thesis statement by providing strong supporting information.

Body Paragraphs

The body paragraphs of the essay contain all the details that back the main argument. All the reasoning of the writer is provided in this section which convinces the audience of the thesis statement. According to the traditional outline, the body paragraphs are divided into three paragraphs.

Each paragraph in the body section of your persuasive essay includes sub-arguments that prove the thesis statement. In addition, an influential body paragraph is started with a topic sentence that introduces the idea to be discussed.

Topic sentences are written to bind all the paragraphs in the body section and to maintain a logical flow in the content. After this, all the details and examples are provided to prove the point.

Conclusion

Every paragraph in the body section leads the audience towards the conclusion. Here, the writer closes the whole discussion by summarizing the major points and restating the thesis statement.

Moreover, the concluding paragraph includes a Call-To-Action that asks readers to adopt certain courses of action to deal with the problem or issue discussed in the essay. The conclusion of the persuasive essay should be closed with the writer’s final verdict or an invitation to future research on the topic.

Proofread and Edit

The last thing to do when finishing the writing process is to recheck your essay. This is to make sure that your content is well written and structured. Revise and proofread your document a couple of times to get rid of all the mistakes and errors.

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Persuasive Essay Examples

In order to get a better understanding of how persuasive essays are written, look at the sample persuasive essay examples carefully.

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Frequently Asked Questions

What are the 3 parts of a persuasive essay?

The three parts of a persuasive essay are:

1. Issue
2. Side
3. Argument

How long is a persuasive essay?

A basic persuasive essay is, indeed, five paragraphs. This standard ensures that each point supports your main argument or thesis. Therefore, the reader can follow it more easily and stay engaged throughout.

What are the 5 steps to writing a persuasive essay?

The 5 steps to writing a persuasive essay are:

1. Choose the position of your argument.
2. Know your target audience.
3. Conduct a thorough research
4. Highlight the key points to identify them.
5. Start organizing your essay; its outline and structure.

Cathy A.

Literature, Marketing

For more than five years now, Cathy has been one of our most hardworking authors on the platform. With a Masters degree in mass communication, she knows the ins and outs of professional writing. Clients often leave her glowing reviews for being an amazing writer who takes her work very seriously.