Guide on Writting Persuasive Essays

Part 1: Introduction to Persuasive Essay – What is persuasive essay? What is the importance of persuasive essays?

What is Persuasive Essay?
In short, persuasive essay is a piece of essay writing aiming to persuade its readers to achieve some purposes. There is always a clear purpose behind every persuasive essay. For instance, the persuasive essay may persuade its reader to buy a product, join a program, make a decision, etc.

You might have read many persuasive essays before, without realizing they are actually persuasive essays. Just read the newspaper or magazine, you might come across advertisements with a full or half page description about products, you might also read through product reviews. Try visit any website, you might find out that at least two thirds of the websites have a piece of writing (essay) asking you to join their membership, subscribe to their newsletter and / or buy their products online, you name it. During English class at school, you might be asked by your teacher to write a persuasive essay (persuasive letter) in order to encourage your cousin to stop smoking.

The Importance of Persuasive Essays
Persuasive essays are very important and useful nowadays and it is true to say that most of the essays we read are persuasive essays.

In marketing industry, persuasive essay writers are hired to write persuasive essays to promote some products or services such as an apartment, a car, a book and a weight-loss programme to name a few. In online affiliate marketing, persuasive essays can help to generate tons of cash. Persuasive essays work effectively since most people often believe what they read.

In some non-profit organizations, persuasive essays are used to spread an idea such as ‘Peace No War’, ‘Green Cities’ and ‘Protect Our Children’.

In school or even during a test or examination, the students have to write persuasive essays. The persuasive essay topics may include a letter to your friend convincing him to stop smoking, a public speech on the topic ‘Stay Healthy’…

In a nutshell, persuasive essays are more and more important nowadays. You have to learn how to write a good persuasive essay to succeed in your own field, whether you are a writer, salesman, online marketer, a teacher or a student.

Part 2: Persuasive Essay Writing Guide - Writing persuasive essay. How to write a persuasive essay?

Writing Persuasive Essay
In persuasive writing, the persuasive essay writer try to convince the readers to agree with the writer's facts, share the values, accept the argument and conclusions and adopt the writer's way of thinking.

Writing persuasive essays is easy; all you need is to follow this persuasive essay writing guide. The six steps persuasive essay writing guide aims to help you to write a professional piece of persuasive essay.

How to Write a Persuasive Essay

1. Brainstorm ideas for your persuasive essay topic.
List out the facts related to your persuasive essay topic. It is easy to brainstorm ideas related to your essay topic by following the guide we have discussed before.

2. Write the outline of your persuasive essay.
Keep in mind that a good persuasive essay consists of at least five paragraphs: one paragraph for introduction, three paragraphs for body and one paragraph for conclusion.

3. Write the introduction of your persuasive essay.
The introduction of a persuasive essay is very important to catch the reader's attention. Some writing styles used by most effective writers include:
- Quotation
- Statistic or Fact
- Question
- Strong Statement

4. Write the body of your persuasive essay.
Write one topic sentence per paragraph. A topic sentence is a sentence that contains the main point. Elaborate the topic sentence or main point to be a full paragraph. Put evidence, facts, statistics and/or research in the essay body.

5. Write the conclusion of your persuasive essay.
End your essay by summarizing the most important details or points in the essay. Including your personal comment in the conclusion makes your persuasive essay more convincing.

6. Proofread your essay and do some necessary correction.
Read through your essay and correct all spelling or grammatical errors. Make sure your essay is as persuasive as it can be. Try to convince your readers by using stronger language. For instance, replace the modal verb 'may' to 'will'.

In the end, you will notice that writing a persuasive writing need a lot of facts. A piece of fact less writing is unpersuasive and dry. No one will be convinced by this kind of essays. Don't worry since you can actually gather a lot of facts related to your essay topic by doing a quick search using search engine.

Part 3: Persuasive Essay Topics - Common persuasive essay topics. More persuasive essay topics available in the Internet.

Choose your Persuasive Essay Topics
Persuasive essay topics are among the common essay topics in your examination or term paper since they can test your ability to convince the reader through your writing. It is crucial that you choose a persuasive essay topic that you really like or have interest in before you start writing your essay. Otherwise, you may end up wasting a lot of time to write a piece of unpersuasive writing.

During examination, you may choose the persuasive essay topic that you have written before in order to score high grade for you essay writing. So the more topics you have practised the higher chance to score a great grade. For practice purpose, here are the suggested persuasive essay topics.

Persuasive Essay Topics
Your parents hope that your sister to become a doctor whereas she want to be a teacher. Write a persuasive essay to either support your parents or your sister.

You are the president of an environmental club in your school. In a persuasive essay, persuade other students to join this society. Your essay will be published in your school bi-monthly magazine.

Your cousin complaining that history is a boring subject. Write a persuasive letter to convince him/her that studying history is important and fun.

Internet brings more harm than good to the teenagers. In a persuasive essay, either agree or disagree this statement.

These topics are the most common ones. You should not limit yourself to practise these topics only. There are ample of persuasive essay topics available in the Internet.


Part 4: The Characteristics of a Good Persuasive Essay - The purpose in writing a persuasive essay. The elements in a good persuasive writing.

The Purpose of Writing a Persuasive Essay
We write a persuasive essay to convince the readers to agree with our judgement and adopt our way of thinking. We as the writers try to convince the readers to accept our argument and conclusions besides to share our values. In order to achieve these purposes, we have to write a good persuasive essay with all the characteristics written below.

The Characteristics of a Good Persuasive Essay
Convincing – The readers must be able to feel your confidence through reading your essay. You must be able to communicate your persuasion in writing.

Not too long nor too short – You don’t have to write a lengthy thesis statement to deliver your messages. Readers tend to lose their interest quickly when they read a long-winded essay. A comprehensive piece of writing works best to convince the readers.

Written from a reader’s perspective – Make sure you don’t write from your own (writer’s) perspective in writing persuasive essay. Unlike other essay types, persuasive essay fails to catch the readers’ attention if it is written from a writer’s perspective. Instead, if it is written from the reader’s perspective, the persuasive essay looks interesting and persuading.

Support ideas with facts and quotes – Readers always believe the facts included in your essay. Try to include some medical reports, public surveys, newspaper headlines, etc to make your essay more persuasive. Keep in mind that none will be convinced if your essay is dull and hardly to find any fact. Quotation from famous people works equally well too!

Stat a clear conclusion – End your essay with your clear judgement or conclusion. Never end your essay without a clear conclusion or you will fail to deliver your messages. A clear conclusion of your persuasive essay will stay in the reader’s mind for a long time.