Mini-Workshop Writing a Persuasive Essay Assignment Choose an Issue Identify Your Thesis and Call for Action Consider Purpose and Audience Support Your Position Organize Your Support Practice and Apply Feature Menu

Writing a Persuasive Essay Assignment: Write a persuasive essay defending your position on an issue that is important to you. You probably express your opinion on some issue or another almost every day. Which issues do you care about the most? Writing a persuasive essay can help you convince others to agree with you. For this essay, you’ll develop a strong argument targeted to a particular audience. [End of Section]

Look around for issues that intrigue you. Issue: a topic about which reasonable people have opposing views Writing a Persuasive Essay Choose an Issue What have you seen on the television news or read in the newspaper? What would you like to see changed in your school or community?

List several issues. Look at each one and ask: Writing a Persuasive Essay Choose an Issue If you answer yes to all three questions, you know you have a good topic for your essay. Do I really care about this issue? Is it narrow enough to argue in 1,500 words? Does it have clear pro and con arguments?

Would these issues make good topics for a persuasive essay? Writing a Persuasive Essay Choose an Issue No (too broad) No (no clear con argument) Yes, meets all criteria Protecting the environment is important. The public schools must prepare all students for college. The bike path system in this city needs to be improved. [End of Section]

Writing a Persuasive Essay Identify Your Thesis and Call for Action Also, develop a call for action—a sentence that tells readers what you want them to do. Write a thesis statement that defines your perspective, or position, on the issue. Concerned citizens are urged to write their City Council members and ask them to place this matter on the agenda for the next meeting. The City Council should establish a budget and a plan to repair, expand, and maintain the bike path system downtown. [End of Section]

Writing a Persuasive Essay Consider Purpose and Audience Your purpose is to persuade your audience. First, analyze your audience so you can tailor your argument to them. Decide what evidence, reasons, and language to use. What are the audience members’ ages, interests, education levels, values? Determine how much background to provide. What do they already know about the issue? Prepare to address any objections to your thesis. Where do they stand on the issue? [End of Section]

Writing a Persuasive Essay Support Your Position Include solid reasons why your readers should believe or act as you suggest. Logical appeal: Logical appeal: engages readers’ ability to think clearly Emotional appeal: Emotional appeal: stirs readers’ feelings; personalizes the issue Ethical appeal: Ethical appeal: establishes you as a fair and knowledgeable speaker; calls upon readers’ sense of right and wrong

Writing a Persuasive Essay Support Your Position Logical appeal: engages readers’ ability to think clearly The downtown bicycle path provides a safe and convenient route into the center of town for cyclists.

Writing a Persuasive Essay Support Your Position Emotional appeal: stirs readers’ feelings; personalizes the issue We have already lost one child to the dangerous traffic on our downtown streets. Susan Bentley would be with us today if she had been able to ride on a safe bicycle path.

Writing a Persuasive Essay Support Your Position Ethical appeal: establishes you as a fair and knowledgeable speaker; calls upon readers’ sense of right and wrong Bicycle riders deserve the same benefits as automobile drivers—a safe and efficient route to and through our downtown area.

Writing a Persuasive Essay Support Your Position Classify each statement below as a logical, emotional, or ethical appeal. Just last month, a bicyclist was killed when he was hit by a bus on Main Street. Surely his family wishes there had been a bike path. emotional appeal ethical appeal logical appeal More bike paths would encourage people to ride their bicycles to school or work, creating less pollution from automobile exhaust. Everyone would benefit from that. Much of the money that would be needed to improve the bike path system could come from the mass transit budget.

Writing a Persuasive Essay Support Your Position Back up your reasons with solid evidence—facts, statistics, anecdotes, expert testimony, and examples. Reason: More bike paths would lead to a reduction in air pollution. Evidence: Two years ago Bridgeton, a town similar to our own in size, climate, and demographics, reported a 5 percent reduction in toxic fumes from auto emissions after twenty-six new bike paths were constructed. statistics [End of Section]

Writing a Persuasive Essay Support Your Position Use rhetorical devices to improve your argument: Analogies make a comparison between the issue and something familiar. Repetition focuses readers’ attention on key terms and core ideas. Parallelism—repetition of words, phrases, or sentence constructions—is especially effective. Rhythm can be used to aid the flow of ideas.

Writing a Persuasive Essay Organize Your Support Arrange your reasons by order of importance. Body Paragraph 1 second strongest reason Body Paragraph 2 another good reason Body Paragraph 3 strongest reason Body Paragraph 1 strongest reason Body Paragraph 2 another good reason Body Paragraph 3 second strongest reason OR Capture readers’ attention early. Make a strong final impression. [End of Section]

Writing a Persuasive Essay Use the guidelines in this presentation to choose an issue formulate a thesis statement and a call for action gather and organize support Write your persuasive essay and share it with your intended audience. [End of Section]