the argumentative essay writing

the argumentative essay writing

The Art of Persuasion: Mastering the Craft of Argumentative Essay Writing

1. Introduction to Argumentative Essay Writing

The ability to convey your thoughts with authority is the quintessential talent that marks a well-rounded citizen in today’s society. Persuasion is the lifeblood of ways. Persuasion is writing that combines artistic expression, systematic reasoning, and meticulous research. Although the art of persuasion dates back to antiquity, well-founded, persuasive arguments will always reign across human societies because people will always gravitate towards sound rationale. Mastery of the argumentative essay is necessary in an age in which people are required to write in academic, professional, and public spaces. As argument is inherent in everyday affairs, this mastery is all the more pertinent. The art of persuasion is a blend of ethics and simple merit. Ethical people recognize pitfalls at home, workplace, and within society at large. Writers must be educated and observant. They must think critically and practice their creative writing persistently if they will write compelling essays.

Argumentative essay writing is a craft, and arguments are the tools that make up this craft. In this course, you’ll learn about different types of argumentation, the logical structures that make up strong arguments, the art of researching other arguments and incorporating them into your own, and the elements that make up a powerful conclusion. You’ll then be asked to find your own topic and start drafting an essay on this topic. We’ll be with you every step of the way as you work through the drafting process. We invite you to join us as we put our tools to work.

2. Structuring Your Argument: The Components of a Strong Essay

Your essay’s or paper’s introduction and conclusion are the easiest parts of the paper, so those are the logical places to begin and end your writing, because those parts emphasize what is most fascinating about your writing and why. The most important part of any paper is its argument: this is why you are writing the paper in the first place. Your argument should be made clear in your thesis statement, and when you write, you should endeavor to score points for this argument. Argumentative essay writing is more than just collecting a few scattered thoughts on paper. You need to take a stand, communicate your stance in relation to other viewpoints, and supply the evidence students need to support your thesis. In other words, unless you understand the argument that you need to make and whom you are trying to persuade, you need to further define the key elements in your work. The concept behind the argumentation remains unchanged irrespective of medium or occasion. An essay is written with the objective of convincing readers of the thesis through the author’s logical contemplation. An argument would have been advanced in the essay by the author as a result of a solid reasoning foundation.

Writing an argumentative research paper or essay is a task that can strike fear into any student’s heart. It is not as easy as you might think it is, not only because it is hard to come up with an idea that can fill six to ten pages of double-spaced writing, but also because supplying the evidence to support your thesis and figure out the essential components of a successful argument (whether in written or oral form) is a complex process. At its most basic level, every well-crafted argument, whether you are discussing a character in a book or the meaning of an event or artifact, has five essential components: an introduction that provides some of the necessary background information so that readers understand your argument, a thesis statement that calls for a specific course of action or conclusion, the argument itself, evidence to support the thesis, and a conclusion that reiterates the most important points.

3. Research and Evidence: Building a Solid Foundation

The evidence you provide in your argumentative essay should be meticulously selected, concluding whether or not it may effectively be utilized within the logic of your argument. It must be relevant to help convey your point while being familiar and appealing to your audience, allowing them to understand the significance of the evidence in support of your argument. In addition, it is critical to both relate the foundational principle being expressed and facilitate the readers’ ability to comprehend how arguing a certain way may be beneficial. The statistics you provide are also a kind of evidence, making persuasive appeals stronger by relying on verifiable facts of a case. For the persuasive argument to remain congruent and powerful, the year of issue of a specific book, newspaper article, or magazine stated in the argumentative essay must be cited to illustrate that the source’s information is current and therefore applicable.

Selecting appropriate sources to help in establishing your points is one of the most difficult but essential tasks in writing an argumentative essay. Not only are the majority of internet resources dubious, edited by amateurs, or wholly fictive, but so too are a number of average, everyday published sources like newspapers. Relying on an article from a magazine is allowable, but it would be foolish to base your paper on one author’s uncorroborated opinion; instead, connect that insight to a book or a journal article or some other more credible source. Conducting thorough research is the key to identifying valid and effective sources, and strong essays show that their authors have read complicated texts carefully, without oversimplifying them.

4. Counterarguments and Rebuttals: Strengthening Your Position

Use the fact that you have already argued against other perspectives to explain, at a deeper level, why your own perspective is the best to take. Relate your previous points back to your argument, answering the question “so what?”. An effective rebuttal may look like this: some people may argue that participating in tracking can preserve the security of children or provide opportunities to catch potential wrong-doers, but tracking measures create a slippery slope, a dangerous trend toward allowing the government to monitor every move made by any one of us. It is true that the safety of children must be a top priority of any society, but not at the expense of privacy and personal freedom. This potential for abuse is precisely why the government must not be allowed to participate in private affairs, and is why we must all be partly responsible for the safety of children by alerting the authorities if we see or have troubling suspicions about any of our companions. By relying solely on the government to solve inner issues, suspicion rises and the very safety we hope to ensure is cut off at its knees.

One of the most effective ways to address the hesitations of your audience is to outright state their concerns and answer with sound reasoning and evidence. Dedicate a section to the reverse of your argument: what are some of the reasons an audience member would side with the opposing viewpoint? Providing a rebuttal does not mean compromising your stance, nor does it mean dismissing the opinions of your opposition. Quite the contrary, when done correctly, incorporating counterarguments and rebuttals actually strengthens your position. You will have established yourself as a writer who not only knows their topic and position but one who is aware of and able to neutralize the perspective of their opposition.

5. Crafting a Compelling Conclusion

Simply summarizing your argument and proving that you’ve made your case is not enough. While it is critical that you revisit your thesis here, you may do so alongside a call to action or a challenge to all of your readers to consider your argument and its significance more seriously. This is also a good place to identify the implications of the action that you have been arguing for. If you have proved why something should or should not occur, the conclusion provides a space for you to demonstrate what will happen if your argument is ignored. Finally, while conclusions are often written to reinforce the thesis, they can also be effectively written to address what the thesis could or should have been. If someone disagrees with your thesis, you can offer an alternative but also explain why, from your point of view, an alternative and supported thesis does not exist.

Just as the introduction is a critical component of an argumentative essay, a strong conclusion is no less important. The conclusion is an opportunity for you to craft one final persuasive statement. Even though you can use this space to express your opinions more frankly, it is critical that everything you say here is rooted in the research and analysis you’ve provided throughout your essay. While it is the final part of your essay, it is also the part that is most likely to be effectively remembered. How you choose to end your essay can make the difference between a persuasive piece of work and one that is practically forgettable.