Writing Workshop
Writing a Persuasive Essay
Feature Menu
Assignment
Prewriting
Choose an Issue
Write an Opinion Statement
Consider Your Purpose and Audience
Gather Support for Your Position
Plan Your Draft
Practice and Apply
Writing a Persuasive Essay
Assignment: Write a persuasive essay on a topic
about which you have a strong opinion.
Do you ever hear yourself saying, “I don’t think that’s
right” or “I agree” or “I’d like to see that change”? You
probably express your opinion on one issue or another
almost every day. Which issues do you care about the
most?
To share your views and convince others to agree with
you, try writing a persuasive essay.
[End of Section]
Writing a Persuasive Essay
Prewriting: Choose an Issue
What situations make you and other people angry,
sad, or enthusiastic? What issues do you feel
strongly about?
• Talk with friends and family
members.
• Look in the editorial section
of your local newspaper.
• Think about what’s going on
in your community and in
your school.
Writing a Persuasive Essay
Prewriting: Choose an Issue
You’ve probably come up with a number of good
ideas. Now, choose one issue for your essay topic.
Make sure it meets the following criteria:
1. You have strong views about the issue.
2. You can gather enough evidence about it to
defend your position.
3. Other people find the issue interesting or have
strong feelings about it.
Essay Length
[End of Section]
Writing a Persuasive Essay
Prewriting: Write an Opinion Statement
Where do you stand on your issue? Share your
perspective, or point of view, by drafting an
opinion statement. Clearly state both the issue
and your position, or opinion, on it.
Issue
Position
The number of homeless pets
can be greatly reduced through
spay-neuter programs.
Clear Opinion Statements
[End of Section]
Writing a Persuasive Essay
Prewriting: Consider Your Purpose and Audience
Purpose
In a persuasive essay
your purpose is to
convince readers to share
your opinion or to take
the action you suggest.
Writing a Persuasive Essay
Prewriting: Consider Your Purpose and Audience
Audience
To persuade your audience, you must first
understand them. Ask yourself
What will make my
audience care about
this issue?
Put yourself in your
readers’ shoes. Think
about ways in which this
issue affects their lives.
Writing a Persuasive Essay
Prewriting: Consider Your Purpose and Audience
What concerns might my audience have?
Consider how the issue looks
from their point of view, or bias.
Some readers may already have
opinions about your topic. Take
any objections, or
counterclaims, into account.
Writing a Persuasive Essay
Prewriting: Consider Your Purpose and Audience
What will my audience expect from my
essay?
Readers will expect you to provide the information
they need in order to make an informed decision.
Provide background information if necessary.
[End of Section]
Writing a Persuasive Essay
Prewriting: Gather Support for Your Position
Give at least three strong reasons to support your
opinion statement (thesis). Your reasons should
also include rhetorical devices (persuasive
appeals):
• logical appeals (logos)—speak to readers’
common sense and logic
• emotional appeals (pathos)—speak to
emotions such as fear, love, and pride
• ethical appeals (ethos)—establish yourself as
a credible source; address readers’ sense of
right and wrong
Making Appeals
Writing a Persuasive Essay
Prewriting: Gather Support for Your Position
Make a chart with your opinion statement and at
least three reasons to support it.
Opinion Statement: Spay-neuter programs are the best
way to reduce the number of homeless pets.
Reasons
1. Spaying and neutering attack the problem at its source.
(logical appeal)
2. The suffering and death of thousands of animals each
year could easily be prevented. (emotional appeal)
3. Humans domesticated cats and dogs, and it is our
responsibility to care for them properly. (ethical appeal)
Writing a Persuasive Essay
Prewriting: Gather Support for Your Position
Provide at least two pieces of evidence to support
each of your reasons. Make sure your evidence is
relevant, or clearly related to your issue.
Evidence for Persuasive Appeals
Analogies
Comparisons that show similarities between otherwise
unrelated facts or ideas
Neglecting to spay and neuter our pets is as irresponsible as
leaving a fire unattended.
Citing Sources
Writing a Persuasive Essay
Prewriting: Gather Support for Your Position
Evidence for Persuasive Appeals
Anecdotes
Personal examples or stories that illustrate a point
When my friend’s cat had kittens, his parents tried very hard
to find homes for them all, but two of the kittens had to go
to the shelter.
Case studies
Examples from scientific research
Researchers studied one town that implemented a spayneuter program. They noted a one-third reduction in the
number of homeless pets over just five years.
Writing a Persuasive Essay
Prewriting: Gather Support for Your Position
Evidence for Persuasive Appeals
Commonly accepted beliefs
Ideas that most people share
Most people would like to see the problem of pet
overpopulation solved.
Examples
Specific instances or illustrations of a general idea
For example, a spayed female dog will never get uterine or
ovarian cancer and is also far less likely to develop breast
cancer.
Writing a Persuasive Essay
Prewriting: Gather Support for Your Position
Evidence for Persuasive Appeals
Expert opinions
Statements made by recognized authorities on a subject
According to Joshua Manning of the Prevent-a-Litter
Foundation, “Widespread spay-neuter programs are the only
way to bring pet overpopulation under control.”
Facts
Statements that can be proved true; facts often take the
form of statistics, or numerical information
One female cat and her young can conceivably produce up to
420,000 kittens in just seven years.
[End of Section]
Writing a Research Paper
Prewriting: Find Sources
Gather information from both primary and
secondary sources.
Primary sources
• contain original, firsthand
information that is unfiltered
and unedited
• include legal documents,
letters, diaries, eyewitness
accounts, literature and
surveys
Writing a Research Paper
Prewriting: Find Sources
Gather information from both primary and
secondary sources.
Secondary sources
• provide indirect or secondhand information
• include encyclopedia
entries, newspaper
articles, documentaries,
and biographies
Writing a Research Paper
Prewriting: Find Sources
To find sources, use area libraries and other
community resources, such as
• local, state, and national government agencies
• local newspapers
• museums, historical societies, and service
groups
• video stores and audiotape rental stores
• credible websites
[End of
Section]
Writing a Research Paper
Prewriting: Evaluate Sources
Determine how credible, or believable, your sources of
information are. Ask yourself,
Is your source up-to-date?
• If information on your topic is constantly
changing, make sure your sources are current.
Writing a Research Paper
Prewriting: Evaluate Sources
Determine how credible, or believable, your sources of
information are. Ask yourself,
Does the source seem factual?
• Check its information against your own
knowledge and against other sources.
• If you find a discrepancy, or difference,
between sources, check additional resources to
determine which information is most accurate
or most useful.
Writing a Research Paper
Prewriting: Evaluate Sources
Determine how credible, or believable, your sources of
information are. Ask yourself,
Does the source provide explanations?
• Look for explanations that might help you and
your readers understand the complexities of
the topic.
Writing a Research Paper
Prewriting: Evaluate Sources
Determine how credible, or believable, your sources of
information are. Ask yourself,
Do the sources cover different perspectives?
• Some sources may be biased, or slanted,
toward one point of view.
• You may find that different sources present
varying perspectives on the same subject.
[End of
Section]
Writing a Research Paper
Prewriting: Prepare Source Cards
Keep track of all the sources you use in your
paper.
• Write source information on a 3- x 5-inch index
card, and number each card.
• WE WILL USE
Noodletools TO DO
THIS!!!
[End of
Section]
Writing a Research Paper
Prewriting: Take Notes
Take accurate and coherent notes of facts and details that
support your thesis.
Note-Taking Methods
Quote the information directly, writing the author’s
exact words.
Paraphrase the information by restating all of the
author’s ideas in your own words.
Summarize the information by briefly restating only
the author’s main idea and most important details.
Other types of
evidence
Writing a Research Paper
Prewriting: Take Notes
Direction quotation note card
Heading and
source number
Places
“The days Robert Frost passed in solitude
Direct
quotation
on the Gully farm in South Shaftsbury,
Vermont, following the death of his wife on
March 20, 1938, were as grim as any of his
entire life.”
Page number
page xv
Writing a Research Paper
Prewriting: Take Notes
Paraphrase note card
Heading and
source number
Places
The days Robert Frost spent by himself on
Paraphrase
his farm in South Shaftsbury, Vermont,
after his wife died were the most dismal
of his life.
Page number
page xv
Writing a Research Paper
Prewriting: Take Notes
Summary note card
Heading and
source number
Summary
Page number
Places
Robert Frost spent his most dismal days
alone on his farm after his wife died.
page xv
[End of
Section]
Writing a Research Paper
Prewriting: Write a Thesis Statement
Write your thesis statement—the main idea of your report and
the answer to your research question.
Thesis: Robert Frost got many of the ideas for his
poems from the places where he lived and the
natural areas nearby.
Be sure your thesis statement has a formal tone.
[End of
Section]
Writing a Research Paper
Prewriting: Organize Information and Develop an Outline
Organize your note cards using one of these methods:
• Chronological order presents events in the
order that they happened.
• Logical order groups related ideas together—
explaining the parts of a whole or comparing
two subjects, for example.
• Order of importance places the most
important ideas first and moves to the least
important (or vice versa).
Writing a Research Paper
Prewriting: Organize Information and Develop an Outline
Create an outline of your key points and support.
• First, make an informal outline that includes the
major headings and broad categories of
support.
• Then, use your informal outline as a guide to
create a more formal outline that shows the
hierarchy of ideas.
[End of
Section]
Writing a Research Paper
Prewriting: Document Sources
Give credit to your sources of information.
• Cite sources in the body of
your paper.
• List sources at the end of
your paper.
Warning: If you fail to cite your sources, you are
committing the serious academic offense of
plagiarism—claiming someone else’s words or
ideas as your own.
Writing a Research Paper
Prewriting: Document Sources
Citing Sources in the Body
What to credit:
• If the same information is found in several
easy-to-find sources, it is considered common
knowledge. You do not have to document it.
• However, any information that you obtain from
outside sources that is not common knowledge
must be documented.
Writing a Research Paper
Prewriting: Document Sources
Citing Sources in the Body
What to credit:
• If the same information is found in several
easy-to-find sources, it is considered common
knowledge. You do not have to document it.
• However, any information that you obtain from
outside sources that is not common knowledge
must be documented.
Writing a Research Paper
Prewriting: Document Sources
Citing Sources in the Body
How to credit:
• You will cite sources in the body of your
research paper using the parenthetical
citation format recommended by the Modern
Language Association (MLA).
• Please see Purdue OWL at
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/ for
instructions on using parenthetical citations and
preparing a Works Cited list.
[End of
Section]
Writing a Research Paper
Prewriting: Integrate Quotations
Integrate direct quotations to make your paper more credible.
• Synthesize the ideas in each quotation. Connect
the quoted words with your own thoughts, or
provide your own interpretation of the
quotation.
• Be careful when inserting quotations that you
don’t interrupt the paper’s flow of ideas.
Avoiding overuse of
quotations
Writing a Research Paper
Prewriting: Integrate Quotations
Type of
Example
Quotation
phrase or
clause
Frost’s images of New England were considered
part of “a great American tradition” (“Robert
Frost Dies” 5).
short
quotation
(four lines
or less)
One newspaper account of Robert Frost’s death
says, “he exemplified a great American tradition
with his superb, almost angular verses written
out of the New England scene” (“Robert Frost
Dies” 5).
Writing a Research Paper
Prewriting: Practice and Apply
Use the preceding prewriting information to plan your
research paper.
• First, choose a topic and develop research questions.
• As you research, create source cards and note cards.
• Then, develop a thesis and form an outline.
Writing a Persuasive Essay
Prewriting: Plan Your Draft
Organize your essay so that it
moves smoothly and
logically from one idea to the
next.
Readers tend to remember
ideas presented at the
beginning and end of an
essay. Try putting your two
strongest reasons in the first
and final body paragraphs of
your paper.
Body Paragraph 1
second-strongest
reason
Body Paragraph 2
another good
reason
Body Paragraph 3
strongest reason
[End of Section]
Writing a Persuasive Essay
Prewriting: Practice and Apply
Choose an issue for your persuasive
essay, write an opinion statement, and gather and
organize reasons and evidence to support your
opinion.
[End of Section]
The End