Not every essay is the same. There are different types of essay writing everybody should know. Moreover, depending on what kind of essay you are undertaking to write, you should choose different patterns to follow. Today we would like to shed some light on how to write an argumentative essay. However, before we ever get to that, we should first define what this type of writing is all about. Argumentative essays are somewhat similar to persuasive essays although there are some differences between these two as well. Typically, this type of writing assumes an investigation of a topic, collecting, evaluating, and presenting evidence, and establishing a position on a particular subject. These are things you go through when writing an argumentative essay. This type of writing calls for extensive research to collect and evaluate the evidence to support a particular point of view. Now that we have established what this genre of writing is all about, we can move on to argumentative essay writing tips.
How to Write an Argumentative Essay?
At this point, we are not going to list good argumentative essay topics or provide a 7-step guide on how to write this kind of paper. Those are things you can easily find online without our help. Additionally, the process of writing argumentative essays isn’t much different from writing any other type of essay: plan->write->revise. It is as simple as that. It stands true for most academic papers and people use this pattern for developing various articles and research papers throughout the world. The actual planning and writing stage would be different because of the things you will be thinking about. However, the fact that you have to choose the topic first, write a thesis statement, develop an outline, and then write main body paragraphs, introduction, and conclusion are pretty much well known to students today. Therefore, instead of repeating this information over and over again, we have decided to list some of the dos and don’ts of this genre of writing. We believe they will make much better tips for writing an argumentative essay.
DO: aim for cogency. Don’t think that including long-winded sentences will help you sound more scholarly. It is not about how long the sentences in your essay are, but rather about conveying your argument succinctly. This type of essay needs to be formal, but it should also be forceful.
DO: cite experts. It is most likely you are not an expert in the field you are writing your essay about. Hence, it is better to base your point on the experience and expertise of those who have achievements in the sphere you’re investigating. That is how you can make your arguments sound more convincing – by backing them up with the words of experts.
DO: provide facts. You have to provide more than just the opinions of some experts. If you want to sound solid, you need to present some evidence and statistics to support your opinion.
DO: provide reasons. Not only facts and expert opinions are important but your explanation of why you believe they are true and topical is no less relevant.
DO: refute the opposing side’s claims. You have to assume that the readers may have a different perspective on the topic and, therefore, you have to address the opposing side’s potential arguments in your essay.
DON’T: use sentence openers like “I feel”, “It seems to me”, “I believe”, etc. This is how you can weaken the relevance of your essay. Argumentative essays are not about feelings, but about arguments.
DON’T: assume that it is enough to express your opinion. In other words, don’t claim to be an expert when you are not one.
DON’T: use religious claims only to support your arguments. This is bad support for your arguments and, therefore, should be avoided by all means.
DON’T: assume the readers will agree with you by default. Quite the opposite, you should always assume the audience will stick to counter-arguments that you have to address in your essay.
DON’T: discredit anybody just because you don’t like what he/she says. It is always a bad tone to make others (with whom you don’t agree) look ignorant. Instead, you have to explain (provide specific reasons) why you have chosen the other side.
Conclusion
As you can see from the tips provided above, writing an argumentative essay isn’t that easy. You have to conduct extensive research first to be able to develop strong arguments, which are essential for this type of writing. Nevertheless, even though it is not easy, it can be quite engaging as well, especially if the chosen topic is of interest to you. We hope that the given tips for writing an argumentative essay will help you develop a good paper your teacher will be delighted with.