Can writing a persuasive essay be easy? We believe that it can if you have solid guidelines to follow! To spare you from roaming around the internet, trying to find a decent how-to guide, we decided to collect the most detailed and useful data we could find in one place – our blog. This article will be divided into two parts – the revision of the persuasive essay format and useful tools and tips for rocking your essay.
Part One: Revision
We believe that you know that persuasive essay format doesn’t differ significantly from other types of academic essays. We would even say it’s the classical essay format you will see everywhere, yet the one that is difficult for students to stick up to. That’s why we decided to repeat the general structure of the paper so you can refresh it in your memory and have a guideline to refer to quickly.
Structure of Your Paper
So, the structure of your persuasive paper should look like this:
INTRODUCTION
- Hook
- Background info
- Definitions (if needed)
- Thesis
BODY PARAGRAPH (each of the three of them)
- Topic sentence
reflects only one main idea
links back to the thesis - Evidence
quotes
citations
proper referencing - Analysis
CONCLUSION
- Sum up your points
- Prove the significance
- Give some food for thought or action
A pro tip: to rock this persuasive essay format, make a document with all the parts of the paper named and blank spaces to fill in. Make sure you leave a lot of space because the first draft is usually a lengthy one. Print out the paper and fill in the spaces with whatever comes to your mind when you see the word “Introduction.”
What Else to Remember
Before you unleash your creative powers and start bringing your enemies down with impeccable arguments, check out the following rules of persuasive essays.
1) Your thesis should be debatable. The whole point of writing a persuasive essay is that of learning how to hold an argument in an academic environment. Choose something you can actually argue about. The thesis “smoking is bad for your health” won’t be suitable because, well, you can’t argue with that. But “smoking causes insomnia” can be a thesis because there’s not enough evidence to state it.
2) You need to understand the opposing point of view. Since disproving opposing opinions is a part of your paper, you should be well-rounded on the topic. That is not, however, the only reason why you should know well what your opponents are thinking. Any persuasive essay is built around being coherent and logical, and if you are sure that your opinion is true only because of ignorance, that won’t be considered a good basis for an essay.
How to Evaluate Your Essay
Once you have completed the first draft of your paper, it’s always good to have someone read and evaluate it. If you are not confident in your own editing abilities, and you don’t have a professional editor to ask for help, we recommend you reach out to a friend for help. This doesn’t require any specific academic skills and can be done by anyone with a little bit of dedication and desire to help. Even if you are confident in your proofreading skills, we still advise you to capture one of your friends and start the torture (just kidding).
So, find a selfless friend, and let’s get started. Your friend needs to answer the following set of questions:
1. What is the thesis statement?
2. How is the thesis explained?
3. What are the main points of the argument? (three of them)
4. How did the author back up each point? (three pieces of evidence)
5. What is the opposing point?
6. What is the writer’s solution?
Have a quick look at the answers provided by your friend. If it’s clear that he or she managed to allocate the thesis, arguments, and evidence without major doubts, you have succeeded at writing a persuasive essay and now can proudly submit it to your professor.
Part Two: Useful Tools for Your Paper
Writing a persuasive essay requires not only skill and strong understanding of the requirements but lots of additional tools. We have collected the best of them to suggest to you for use. Note that particular services mentioned in the list are just personal preferences, and they are given for an example of the assistance you should be aiming for.
A collection of good samples. Nothing is more effective than a couple of samples you can look up to during your odyssey with your own paper. Find a service you consider to be reliable and have a look at the offered sample papers and templates. We are happy to announce that we regularly update our sample library and post the best of them at our blog, so stay tuned for the best content.
Grammarly or similar tool for checking your writing. Proofreading is good, and it also improves your writing skills, but sometimes rereading your paper is not enough for a quality check. Of course, a professional editor would be the best choice, but if you don’t have time or money, try free grammar checkers online. They will help you spot the biggest mistakes, such as article mistakes, typos, incorrect commas, etc.
Purdue OWL or BibMe. Writing a bibliography is annoying because of the enormous amount of rules you need to keep track of. It’s nice to have them all in one place. Purdue OWL provides an extensive guide on academic formatting. You will be able to find any case you need to refer to, even if we are talking about a YouTube video or Twitter post. If you are not feeling like reading tons of text and checking everything on your own, try BibMe – an automatized bibliography creator. We warn you, however, that it might not be as precise as official instructions.
Mindmap or notepad. This one is a must-have for scribbling down your ideas and drawing connections between them. Good academic writing is all about connections between your arguments, evidence, and thesis. You’ll see how the whole writing process becomes easier and clearer after you try mind mapping, whether using electronic tools or a good old notepad.
Essay topic generator. There are plenty of such websites on the internet. They may not suggest perfect topics suitable for your paper, especially if you are writing something serious and lengthy, but they definitely will help you combat the creativity block and keep the ideas flowing.
Plagiarism checker. This one is a must-have for anyone who wants to write anything in the modern world. Make sure you choose the best one to avoid nuisances at your educational institution. Use your university or college checker, if you are allowed to – they are mostly very advanced.
If you like this post, check our also How to Write My Essay for College. Do you have suggestions of tools we should add here? Share your own writing secrets, and let’s spread the knowledge that good and easy academic writing is closer than most students think!