To write a good essay, you need to use engaging language, clear sequencing, proper structuring, solid reasoning, and quality sources to back up your facts.
In other words, you need to get the reader hooked from the beginning until the end.
In this guide, I will talk about how you can write a solid argumentative essay. But before we delve further into the nitty gritty, let’s first understand what an argumentative essay entails.
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What Exactly Is an Argumentative Essay?
An argumentative essay is a type of writing meant to take a stance on a particular issue. As you compose your piece, you want to convince the reader to grasp and support the point you’re trying to put across.
This writing genre requires you to investigate a particular topic, collect information, generate ideas, evaluate the evidence, and establish your stance on the subject. You’ll need to be concise when arguing your case.
An argumentative essay involves detailed research, meaning that your essay will be lengthy. That’s why such essays are assigned as final projects in advanced composition courses or at the end of the course year.
Assignments for argumentative essays may also require you to conduct surveys, interviews, or experiments and gather enough data to explain and prove your point of view.
A clear thesis and sound reasoning are a must. When writing your argument, you need a proper outline to make it flow.
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Types of Argumentative Essays
An argumentative essay is more like a debate. If you were to discuss a controversial topic and its effects, you’d have an intro, middle, and end to your discussion. Your essay has to be logically complete, leaving the threshold without a doubt about its argument or intent.
There are two types of argumentative essays:
1. The 5-Paragraph Essay
The five-paragraph argumentative essay approach includes an intro paragraph, three evidential body paragraphs consisting of discussions with opposing views, and a conclusion.
This type has been a standard formula for curating argumentative essays. It is a straightforward and easy essay to follow.
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2. The Long Argumentative Essay
The long argumentative essay discusses complex issues that need in-depth, detailed research. It includes various research sources and will consist of more than five paragraphs.
In the essay, you’ll discuss the context surrounding your essay topic, your information sources and their credibility, and the various opinions on the particular issue. Most of these factors will depend on the specifications of your assignment.
The long argumentative essay should have different sections with headings to make it readable. Each paragraph should cover an idea or topic.
Start your paragraph with a topic sentence. The ideas in each of your paragraphs should contribute to the overall essay argument.
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3. Outlining Your Argumentative Essay
Properly structuring your argumentative essay will make it easy for the reader to grasp and follow. Here is the structure of an excellent argumentative essay outline:
4. The Introduction
Your essay’s introductory paragraph should have the topic and background information about your paper. In the intro, you want to help the reader understand your argument. So, you have to hint about the evidence you’ll be presenting and also state your thesis.
5. The Thesis Statement
A thesis statement should be part of your introduction, usually written at the end of the introduction. Make it concise (just a sentence) because it’s only a summary of your claim and main point.
6. The Essay Body
This is where all the juicy details of your argument can be found. You’ll need three to five (or more) paragraphs to put your argument across. Once you’ve stated your reasons, you have to explain why you support the thesis.
Each of these paragraphs will have different ideas and evidence. Let them have a topic sentence to explain to the reader why they need to concur or agree with your stance. This is when you’ll back up all your claims with text citations, statistics, studies, research, and examples.
Tackle all the opposing views, disprove them, and explain your disagreements. State and present your facts and address them from every angle to add credibility to your arguments and gain the reader’s trust.
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The Conclusion
The conclusion should reflect all the arguments in your essay body.
In your conclusion, restate your thesis and summarize your arguments. Never introduce new facts or arguments in your conclusion. Make it more appealing to your reader’s emotions. You can use personal anecdotes to explain to the reader how this particular topic has affected you personally.
For longer essays, you are allowed to explain your argument’s strengths and weaknesses. You can even suggest other topics for research in the future. In every conclusion, always stress the importance and relevance of your argument.
Starting Your Argumentative Essay Right
To start your argument intro, you have to set the context by generally reviewing your essay’s topic. Explain why this topic is important and why the reader should care or be concerned.
Present your thesis statement here by narrowing it down according to the guidelines given in your assignment.
The intro part of your essay is vital to making the rest of the paper effective and persuasive enough. It is meant to capture the interest of your readers by offering background information on the topic. In longer essays, the intro will summarize the body’s structure.
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Writing Your Thesis Statement
A thesis is a one-sentence summary of your argumentative part. It’s essential to make the most out of this single sentence because it summarizes your arguments in the essay. It also primes readers on what you’ll be writing about.
Here’s how to polish your thesis statement and get the point across to your readers:
- Use the topic as a question, and then give the answer immediately. Using a question in your essay’s title or intro sentence can help you build an answer in the thesis statement. An intriguing question will draw the reader’s attention and spark their interest in reading more to know the answer.
- Another way to present your thesis statement is to state an argument and refute it. If you have a contrasting idea, introduce it and then explain to the reader why you disagree with that particular idea. This method utilizes evidence and, at the same time, demonstrates your credibility in refuting the contrasting idea.
- Outline the main points by introducing the key point and explaining how you will back it up. This will help readers understand your essay. It will be the roadmap to keeping you on track with well-organized subsequent paragraphs.
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How to Structure the Body Paragraphs?
To make your argumentative essay meaningful, your body paragraphs should have evidential support. Each of these paragraphs has to be limited to discussing a single idea. This will give direction and clarity throughout your essay.
Being concise with your body paragraphs makes the essay easy to read. You should also ensure that every paragraph has a logical connection to your thesis statement.
Most of your paragraphs should support your thesis statement directly with the evidence you have from your research. It is also vital that you explain why and how your proof is supportive of your thesis.
Depending on the essay length, you should have at least two paragraphs discussing conflicting opinions on the essay topic.
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Adding Evidential Support
An argumentative essay should be detailed and accurate, with current information that supports your thesis statement. That’s why you need to research deeper and find logical, factual, anecdotal, and statistical evidence to back up your thesis.
When gathering evidence, consider various points of view to make an all-around argumentative essay. Remember, you will also need to discuss opinions that don’t align with your thesis.
Never exclude any evidence, even if it doesn’t support the thesis. Your job is to explain the different positions available.
Presenting Your Argument: Argument Claims to Drive Your Essay
Once you have a topic and thesis statement, it’s time to present your argument. Here are different argument claims to help you with your essay.
- The value of your argument.
- Fact: Is your statement true or false?
- Cause and Effect: What is the problem’s cause, and what are the effects?
- Definition: The definition of your argument – the dictionary definition and your personal interpretation.
- Policy: Should the reader care? Why, and what should they do about it?
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Three Approaches to Argumentative Essays and How to Implement Them
While your argumentative essay needs to be objective, you need the best approach to make it more persuasive. There are three ways to structure your essay. These include:
1. The Classical Argument
The classical approach, also known as the Aristotelian approach, is a popular strategy when planning to make an argument. In this model,
- You present your main argument
- Then let your reader know your opinion
Instead of compromising, you’ll convince your readers that your stance is correct and why.
For instance, when arguing about the internet positively impacting education,
- Encourage students to use sites like Wikipedia in their academics
- Suggest they visit the site more often to master the art of citing and referencing
- Convince them that this is the best place to learn from because it is a very comprehensive source of information accessible to all. It can expose the students to different perspectives, offering a flexible environment for learning.
The classical model is simple for readers to follow. It’s effective, especially when your audience needs more information or stronger opinions about your essay’s topic. This is because your paper has outlined facts more clearly, and in a concise way.
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2. The Rogerian Argument
The Rogerian approach includes these steps.
- Present your problem and acknowledge the contrasting side of your argument.
- Highlight the problem with the opposing position.
- Point out your views, show evidence, and explain to readers why your view will benefit if they adopt them.
- Suggest a compromise.
This approach is excellent for polarizing topics, such as gun control, global warming, the death penalty, and more. It acknowledges both points of view and suggests a middle ground.
It presents a clear picture of both sides of your argument and can be helpful when there are disagreements on the topic. This way, you will be able to approach conflicting arguments with good intent.
For instance, if you are arguing about the positive impact of the internet on education, you’ll probably:
- Acknowledge the fact that students rely on Wikipedia too much to get the information they need
- Argue that tutors see sites like Wikipedia as unreliable
- Suggest that the system of citations provided by Wikipedia can help students understand referencing better
- Suggest that teachers should engage critically with Wikipedia to erase their doubts about its usefulness
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3. The Toulmin Argument
The Toulmin approach has four steps to use for your argument:
- Present your claim
- Provide evidence to back up your claim
- Justify how your grounds support your claim
- Discuss the possible rebuttals to your claim and identify the limits of your argument. Show the reader that you have considered the different perspectives.
This approach is commonly used in essays and hinges on the facts presented, making your claim challenging to contest.
For instance, when arguing about how effective workplace anti-discrimination measures are:
- Present a claim that these measures don’t offer desired results and company resources should better be channeled into other beneficial approaches
- Provide citations to back up your claim
- Explain the data and how it proves the method ineffective
- Anticipate your claim’s objection based on different data showing if the objections are valid or not and why
In a nutshell, you can use the elements of these approaches throughout your essay or choose just one.
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Structuring Your Argumentative Essay Correctly
Understanding how to structure your argument in an essay is key to better audience engagement and comprehension.
Always ensure your masterpiece has clear and logical transitions from the introduction and body to the conclusion. Transitions are the connectors that hold your essay’s foundation together.
Without having your thoughts logically placed in a sequence, your readers may not be able to follow your arguments, and your essay structure will crumble. Transitions help wrap up your previous idea while introducing the next.
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Final Thoughts
Hopefully, the principles highlighted in this guide will help you write compelling argumentative essays regardless of the topic.
If you follow the structure explained above, you should craft essays that will keep your readers engrossed and your professors happy.
Most importantly, proofread and edit your essay while considering grammar, style consistency, and referencing style.
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