How to Write a Persuasive Essay
Persuading your parents to give you more freedom is challenging enough, how can you be expected to write a persuasive essay that successfully influences your audience to see your perspective and understand it? Here are some ways you can strengthen your persuasive essay (also known as an argumentative essay):
1. Start your introduction with a way to bring the audience to your level. Make it personal from the beginning by posing a question, starting with a general statement that everyone can agree with, or mentioning a person that everyone knows (Make sure to stay on topic though. If you are writing an essay about saving the environment, only mention Brad Pitt at the beginning if he has actually contributed to your argument on the topic.) Then, narrow your topic into a strong thesis statement.
2. Speak in a language that is appropriate for your audience. The argumentative essay you write for a college professor should be more advanced in vocabulary and structure than the argumentative essay you write for a high school teacher. Never use certain words that take away strength from your argument such as a lot, few, hopefully, in my opinion, bad, good, very, perfect, definitely, and always. You want to make your essay a credible, reasonable, and clear source of information. If you constantly mention that the essay is merely your opinion, the reader will, instead of being convinced, try to understand your opinion without really believing it for herself.
3. Along with avoiding certain words, try to include several vivid adjectives and adverbs throughout the essay. They add an element of powerful description that allows the reader to clearly visualize what you are trying to tell them.
4. Only use the strongest points of your argument. If you can’t come up with seven or eight different reasons supporting your argument, then only use three or four, but elaborate on them more fully. Highlight these points and stand behind them strongly in your essay.
5. When you conclude your persuasive essay, broaden your point back to the general subject and maintain the personal level that you first introduced to the reader. If you make this simple change, readers will leave your essay on a good note and have a better chance of truly evaluating your opinions and their own opinions of the subject.
If you follow the above points, it will be a lot easier to convince somebody of your ideas through your writing. Whether it is for your professor or a newspaper, writing a persuasive or argumentative essay can be considerably simpler if you just focus your language so that it appeals to the reader.