How to Write a Persuasive Essay for High School English

Writing a persuasive essay is a skill that is useful in many areas of life after high school. Developing effective persuasive writing skills during high school will make it easier to persuade people of a specific point of view or solution later. It is also useful for college essays.

Instructions

1. Research the topic enough to know what the arguments are on both sides. To persuade the reader, you will have to have a good grasp of each side and what their main arguments are.

2. Keep emotion out of it. Most persuasive essays will persuade the reader best when the arguments are based on fact. That's where you research comes in handy. Use facts and figures and anecdotes about what the positive results of your method have been in the past.

3. Open the persuasive essay with an introductory paragraph. This will be an introduction to the problem and why it needs to be solved. It should mention your solution as being the best way to solve the problem.

4. Talk about the other side's argument. You have to be able to take apart the counter argument and prove the each part of it is the least desirable of the possibilities. Your solutions are the ones that are superior, and those will have to be supported point by point.

5. Write in clear, active language. Use plenty of active verbs and make sure that all of your arguments are as clearly written as possible. Passive language will not call your reader to action, nor will points that are convoluted by too many words.

6. Build the entire essay toward a clear conclusion. This conclusion will be point in the persuasive essay where all of your arguments will be restated to make the strongest point. With all of the persuasive points restated together, the reader leaves with a strengthened idea about how your solution will best solve the problem.