What Is The Purpose Of A Persuasive Essay?

So, what is the purpose of a persuasive essay anyway? Why do we write it in school? Usually, essay writing tends to be one of many student’s worst nightmare. It can be tricky, time-consuming, energy-sapping, and demanding to write. Still, its relevance endears it to the hearts of teachers. And as a student, you must prepare yourself for it. That leaves us with the question;

What is the purpose of writing a persuasive essay? Here’s what you should know!

The reason or purpose is to learn to come out victorious in any argument, in whatever subject you are discussing. That’s what persuasive essays are there to prepare you on. You will learn the act of convincing or persuading people (readers) to believe that your assertion, opinions or claims are valid. As a consequence, you would need to provide enough details, citations, and information that anyone reading your essay can trust.

So that’s it about the purpose persuasive essays serve. However, you can continue reading to get more useful information regarding persuasive essays.

What Persuasive Essay Writing Implies

Persuasive essay involves writing. That’s the first thing to have in mind. It consists of putting different pieces of information together to arrive at a valid conclusion. This type of essay is also called an argumentative essay, and it’s a popular assignment for students.

By definition, a persuasive essay isn’t different from the reasons I gave above. It involves a form of academic writing whereby the writer is expected to use reason and logic to prove that his or her position in an argument is the right one. Facts, figures, and logic are crucial elements that play a significant role in persuading readers to take sides with you.

Now let’s move away from the definition. Two things play a significant role in making a persuasive essay to stand out from the crowd. And whether you are writing to earn higher marks (as a student) or doing it for the fun of it, you must consider them to make your write up worthwhile. The two elements are logical reasoning and facts. You need to be familiar with how to use both terms to win an argument.

Persuasive Essay Topic Ideas And Examples

Your persuasive essay would undoubtedly come with instructions on what the grader expects of you. It could be the word count or a few details to highlight or utilize in your write-up to make your essay a good read. So if you are a student, keep in mind that you must follow every instruction given for your paper. Otherwise, you may not get all the marks for that paper or have a good score.

By and large, instructions are relevant. You must read them carefully before and after you write your essay. Anyway, enough of that, let’s focus on topic ideas for a persuasive essay.

However, have in mind that a persuasive essay can be about any field or area. It could be about music, family, sports, science, environment, kids, education, politics, high school, middle school or college persuasive essay, and so forth.

Alright, let’s go over some persuasive essay topic ideas and examples. If you are planning to write a persuasive essay and you are given a chance to choose a topic, you can use the topic ideas on this post to motivate yourself.

Topic ideas

Dangers of consuming Red Bull, including other similar energy drinks
Female trainers should be the ones to mentor female athletes.
Is chess a game or sport?
Is the US military still the best in the world?
Modern pop songs are better than pop songs in the 80s.
It is immoral to hunt wild deer
Using animals in circuses and zoos should be discouraged.
It is a bad idea to keep pets indoors.
Little kids should not have their pets.
There is a need for schools to lower the volume of homework assigned to students.
Traditional schooling vs. remote education.
Mobile devices are not entirely safe to use.
Can a hobby help in one’s career?

The list goes on and on. These are topic ideas for persuasive essays, which you can choose from for your assignment. Now let’s discuss how to write a captivating persuasive essay that can earn you better marks if you are a student.

How To Write A Killer Persuasive Essay

You have your paper and pen in front of you. The instruction says, write a persuasive essay on XYZ. You have the topic and guidelines to follow. Now, how can you write a killer essay that can make your grader or reader’s head spin?

Before we proceed, note that your first step is choosing a topic, if you have the chance to choose. It should also be a topic of interest to you. Otherwise, you might find yourself struggling for ideas or have difficulty flowing.

To pick a pleasant topic, prepare a long list of topics. After that, go through your list and choose the one you find more interesting.

Let’s look at other steps you need to take to draft a persuasive essay.

Step 1: Conduct in-depth research

What does research have to do with writing a persuasive essay? Well, everything if you ask me. Remember, you need logical reasoning and fact to convince anyone to accept your point. Therefore, without research, it will be challenging to draft a killer persuasive essay.

You will also figure out if there are enough materials for the topic you have chosen. In short, it’s even advisable to research after choosing a topic before you go ahead to write or seek your professor’s approval.

So, conduct your research and write down as many points as you can. You can also bookmark the pages you find useful online. One last thing on research; your sources should be reputable ones. Do not use ideas from random blogs or websites.

Step 2: Write your first draft

Now that you have conducted your primary research, it’s time to start writing! You need to create your first draft and build from there. What’s this first draft? It is your ideas, written in no particular format. It might not even make sense to you the writer at this first instance, but don’t stop writing. The errors should not deter you at this stage.

A typical persuasive essay structure or format is;

Introduction
Body
Conclusion

That’s the format your essay will likely take. Now start writing your introduction and body. Keep in mind that there will be time to proofread and edit the paper, so focus on laying the first foundation for your essay.

For the introduction, it is best to start with a “hook.” A hook can be anything. It can be a quote, personal anecdote, question, outrageous statement, or interesting fact or statistics. But whatever hook you are using, ensure it is relevant to the topic. Using a different thing will sound confusing to your readers and divert their attention.

The hook should be in your first sentence to grab the attention of your readers, too.

Again, your introduction’s third and last part is the thesis statement. It’s usually a precise, clear, and stronger sentence. The thesis statement aims to let the readers know what your essay is. It’s more like the foundation of the essay because whatever you will include in your essay would rest entirely on it.

If you don’t know how to draft this part of your paper, you can check samples or seek professional help. You may also approach colleagues or friends for guidance on how to write it.

Now about the Body of your essay! The body is where you have to add meat to your essay. It might be about three or more paragraphs, depending on the instruction, but ensure it contains enough facts to persuade your readers. Give statistics, quotes, and state facts that support your claim. Your readers should be convinced and take sides with you after reading the body of your essay. That is even before they reach the conclusion part.

The last part of your essay would be the conclusion, which is also an essential part of the paper. Your aim here is not only to persuade but to reaffirm your points. It’s also to keep the information in the body of the paper fresh in the minds of readers.

You need to write your conclusion by re-stating the thesis, then brush through the main point. Your readers should continue their day with a different and fresh frame of mind. But then, remember to add a CTA (Call-to-action) in your conclusion. That will do the trick for you.

Step 3: Proofread and Edit the paper

After writing the conclusion, the next step would be to proofread and edit the essay ruthlessly. You need to eliminate errors and fluffs before submitting your paper because mistakes can reduce the quality of your paper. Finding errors in your writing will also not go down well with your grader.

Wrapping It Up

So, what is the purpose of a persuasive essay, in your opinion? I am sure you now understand what the term means and can draft a killer persuasive essay with the information here. It is also advisable to check as many examples as you can to gain knowledge, as this will help you to understand how to write your paper. You can check samples online or anywhere. Thanks for stopping by to read this post.

What Is The Purpose Of A Persuasive Essay?

What Persuasive Essay Writing Implies

Persuasive Essay Topic Ideas And Examples