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How to Write a Persuasive Essay: Step-by-Step Guide

persuasive writingWant to know how to write a persuasive essay, so you can convince your audience to change their attitudes, values, or beliefs to match your own?

Persuasive writing relies on a combination of logic, emotion, and credibility to show the audience that you have made a convincing case.

However, the art of persuasion can be a difficult one to master, especially for students who are more used to the academic writing style of research papers, which tend to be impersonal.

If you need help writing an essay from real academic experts, we asked our friends from WriteMyPaperHub to share some tips to show you how to master writing a persuasive essay.

How to Write a Persuasive Essay: Step-by-Step GuideHow to Write a Persuasive Essay: Step-by-Step Guide

Let’s take a look at a few of the ways you can develop strong persuasive writing skills.

1. Research your topic before you choose a side.

It’s important to do your research before you start writing. Read a lot about your topic and understand it from every perspective. The more you research, the more likely you are to find an angle that will be persuasive and effective.

You don’t want to start writing only to discover that halfway through you arrived at a dead end or discovered a fact that completely negates your point of view. Have the facts at hand before you begin so you can make an informed choice as you write your thesis statement. 

2. Evaluate your sources.

One of the big keys to researching your topic: use effective, accurate, and credible sources.

With this in mind, you need to evaluate your sources. You want to make sure you are using sources that your audience will find trustworthy and believable.

It doesn’t matter how good a source is if the people you are trying to persuade think it’s untrustworthy or biased. Try to use the most appropriate and credible sources for your topic. In academic writing, that’s often scholarly journal articles. But it will vary depending on your topic.

3. Identify your audience.

Every persuasive essay has to persuade someone. But they don’t all try to persuade the same people. You want to make sure you know who you are writing for, so you can tailor your argument to their interests, needs, and values.

For example…

You’d want to use a very different approach to appeal to an audience of high schoolers than you would an audience of retirees.

The more specific you can be about your audience and what they value and believe, the better you will be able to tailor your approach to appeal specifically to them.

4. Write an effective thesis statement.

Your thesis statement will tell the audience what you will demonstrate or prove. In order to make it effective, you need to do more than simply assert what you want the audience to come away believing. You need to indicate some of the specific lines of evidence that you will use to help them come to this conclusion for themselves.

A powerful thesis may not be convincing by itself. But it will intrigue the reader and make the reader interested enough to want to learn more about the topic.

Ask yourself whether your thesis would make you want to know more. If the answer is “no,” you need to revise more.

5. Structure your arguments like stairs.

Throughout your persuasive essay, you should introduce new arguments that build on what came before. Your goal should be to persuade your audience by asking them to accept one argument based on the evidence, logic, or reasoning. Afterwards, you should use that argument as a stepping-stone to the next level of your analysis.

As you move from the beginning of the essay to the end, your argument should be growing in complexity and sophistication. In the end you should ask your reader to accept the basic facts and reason you laid out at the beginning. Basically, your conclusion should feel inevitable.

6. Address counterarguments in your paper.

Be sure you address potential rebuttals or counterarguments. In other words, you should not only show why your position is right – but also why the other side is wrong. Demonstrating that the other side isn’t right will help to make your position stronger in the eyes of your readers.

If you still aren’t able to create a truly persuasive essay after trying all of these steps, you can pay someone to write a persuasive essay or any other paper for you online. Paper writing websites have expert writers who can craft well-developed essays that will show you the best way to approach your topic and develop a persuasive argument. 

If you want to write a persuasive essay, remember:

  • Persuasiveness isn’t achieved by emotional reasoning. You convince someone solely through using valid arguments.
  • Do in-depth research so you can collect and write impressive persuasive arguments.
  • Make sure to address counterarguments.
  • Once you’re done with writing, pay attention to the form.
  • Spend enough time on proofreading, to prevent omissions, typos and any mistakes.
  • Double-check cited sources.

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