How to Handle Argumentative Essay Topics

You find yourself in the midst of a heated argument with a colleague or classmate and you are tempted to rip them apart in an apoplectic display of anger. You, however, decide to pacify yourself and think about the power of the pen over the sword. In a well-written email, you choose to express yourself and your point of view, not forgetting to acknowledge your colleague’s point of view. What was once a hostile environment turns friendlier as you decide to bury the hatchet and adopt a similar or sometimes dissimilar point of view coupled with a mutual understanding. This is much the same as what happens when your lecturer hands you an argumentative essay topic. In your mind, a battle of words ensues, you try to reason on which approach would be best for you as you approach a topic and eventually, you decide to pick a side and write on it. You skilfully try to arrange your paragraphs along a line of thought and hand it over to your lecturer when done. While you may have written an argumentative essay before, you may wonder what it takes to achieve top marks for your essay and we are here to help. Below, we describe in a detailed guide, everything you need to handle the next argumentative essay topic the instructor dishes out on you.

What Is An Argumentative Essay?

To ace the argumentative essay test you need to know exactly what you are dealing with. For an argumentative essay, you will need to investigate your given topic, collecting knowledge and evidence that you will evaluate to come up with a plausible position on the given topic. An argumentative essay topic should, however, not be confused with an expository essay. While the two types of essays may share elements, argumentative essay topics often require more in-depth arguments backed by extensive research and evidence. Additionally, argumentative essays are complex, often a final project or capstone in the first year of college while expository essays are shorter and more often used as tests and writing exercises.

Writing on an argumentative essay topic may, therefore, require you to perform an extensive literature review to establish what is already known on the topic, or to perform empirical research that gives you the evidence you will use to back up your arguments. There are some perks to performing empirical research. Apart from learning about the topic, you will also get to understand different points of view, enabling you to make more detailed and informed choices of the side you will lie on based on sound reason. It is even easier to write your essays with custom-writing services such as onlinewritingexperts.com that allow you to describe the details of the argumentative essay then leave the content generation to us.

Structure of an Argumentative Essay

• Introduction and thesis

As you advance in your quest for knowledge, you will come to understand the role of a thesis statement in writing. A clear and concise thesis statement is the glue that holds an essay together. In the introductory paragraph, set the premises of argument in the rest of the essay by outlining the thesis towards the end of the paragraph. The thesis statement should be within the confines of the assignment guidelines. Also, remember to include the exigency of the topic.

•Body paragraphs

Your body paragraphs should be laden with evidence. Additionally, each paragraph should support its idea to create an ease of readability. Remember that these paragraphs should all support your thesis statement logically. The thesis statement can additionally be supported by the evidence you collected during research. The evidence you present can be anecdotal, statistical, factual or logical.

As you progress, remember that what sets argumentative essays apart is the different points of view that may exist on one topic. If the length of the assignment allows, you can discuss conflicting opinions and tell the reader why the other point of view is misinformed. Additionally, you can argue that these points of view are out of date and show evidence of the same as well. However, it is not wise to state that these other opinions are wrong without evidence. The number of paragraphs you will write depends on the length and complexity of your argumentative essay, so there is no limit.

• Conclusion

As you finish your argument, you need a conclusion that will help create an impression in the mind of your readers. Ensure that your conclusion, just like the introduction, is logical and effective. Refrain from introducing anything new in this section. Instead, deliberately restate the points in your essay by restating why the topic is important. Further, restate the essay’s thesis and synthesize the main arguments you made in your work. You may make a recommendation, for instance, on what should be researched further with regards to your topic.

Tips that you can use to effectively write your argumentative essay

• Ensure you make a complete argument. A complete argument, in this case, means that your argument should eliminate any questions that may arise. Think of yourself as having a conversation or debate and then argue out your points as if convincing the other party.

• Check the evidence you put in place. As mentioned above, evidence can be factual, anecdotal, logical or statistical. Qualify your evidence further by putting in place references where need be and steadily explain your evidence.

• Make logical transitions. As you continue to write, ensure that your transitions are flawless, avoid making arguments that make the argument look disorganized, follow a logical thought process and write down your points the same way. Preferably, use transitions as a means to wrap up the idea in the previous section or to introduce a new idea as well.

• All along, keep the needs of your audience in mind. Consider what they may believe, how your point of view is similar to theirs, how it may differ and how you want to work to pitch them to your line of thought. If you still have other problems and you are unable to complete your argumentative essay, you can find us at onlinewritingexperts.com; we may be the extra push you need to complete your assignments.