Former writing center tutors please keep in mind that these are only general guidelines always defer to your professor's specifications for a given assignment. If you have any questions about the content represented here, please contact the writing centers so that we can address them for you. one of the greatest tools we have as writers is the power of persuasion. The most important thing to remember as you are writing an argument essay mdash or any essay for that matter mdash is your intended audience. The main purpose of an argument essay is to persuade your audience to see your point. Academic, scholarly, and professional expectations and standards require writers to explain, support, and advance their arguments by adding evidence, logic, and careful reasoning to formal settings.

In order to write a convincing argument, you will need a strong thesis statement, sources to support your argument, and a counter argument. The thesis will help you focus your paper so that you don rsquo t go off on tangents, and it should make the rest of the paper logical and cohesive. Before you write your thesis, though, it is important to come up with some well focused points of inquiry or research questions to help guide your research for credible sources, which we will discuss further in the next section. These questions should stem from your essay topic, and they should be answerable so you can effectively argue for or against the questions later.

These questions will eventually feed into your thesis writing after your research has helped you hone your argument. For more information on writing a strong thesis statement, check out ldquo how to write a thesis statement , written by the indiana university writing tutorial services. When writing an argument essay, it is important to remember that you are not just arguing your personal opinion but also you are supporting your argument with credible sources. It rsquo s easy to argue without substantiated support, but to make your argument valid, supporting it with quotations, statistics, and other data can help persuade your audience. In other words, you will most likely need to find sources if you don rsquo t already have them. Typically, these sources will need to be academic in nature and hold some weight more often than not, professors will advise you to stay away from wikipedia.

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So, depending on the argument, you can use statistical data and/or charts and graphs. More complex arguments may require more evidence and it is always a good idea to vary your sources. Refer to your prompt and consult your professor regarding which sources will be most beneficial to you and most appropriate for your paper. Check out the purdue owl for a list of source categories along with brief descriptions. Your search for appropriate, compelling, and credible sources begins even before you fully form your argument. In order to avoid ldquo dumping quotes rdquo inserting quotes in your paper without explaining why they are being used , choose carefully.

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Be sure to check out your sources rsquo bibliography, works cited page, or foot notes to add to your own sources. Also, the depaul libraries are a great resource when searching for scholarly articles and books. The libraries have subscriptions to a variety of databases including lexisnexis, jstor, and others.

Essay on Utility of Reading Books

Remember those research questions that helped you find your sources? go back to those and discover whether you have answered them with your research. With sources usually comes, depending on the paper, a bibliography or works cited page. If you use outside sources, your professor will want to have the information to access the sources and check the authority of each. Basically, in addition to your point, you are offering a counter point or counterclaim. Ask yourself, what point or points can be made in attempts to disprove my argument? what doubts or questions might my audience have? after you pose the counter argument, contest it. Here are some tips to have handy on how to construct and where to place your counter argument. The introduction of your argumentative essay should definitely grab your readers rsquo attention.

Emotion pathos will add that extra element to avoid making your argument sound dry and uninteresting. You don rsquo t, however, want to go to the other extreme and incorporate too much opinion to the point where it sounds like you rsquo re screaming at the reader to see things your way. The evidence you provide should sustain your argument, keeping that healthy balance you will need to make your argument sound more rational and less emotional. Your body paragraphs should each have a topic sentence, aka focus sentence, which relates back to your thesis statement s. You want to make sure that each topic sentence supports your claim the writing centre at the university of ottawa provides tips that will help you generate great topic sentences that keep your paragraphs neatly focused on the argument at hand.

Furthermore, the topic sentences should follow each other logically when separated from the paper and placed in sequential order. In order to keep your paper well organized, limit one thought or idea to each paragraph. Keep building upon your argument with each paragraph until you reach your conclusion. Your conclusion, essentially, brings your argument to a close, and your audience should be left satisfied and convinced. According to the owl at purdue, ldquo a conclusion that does not simply restate the thesis, but readdresses it in light of the evidence provided rdquo. If someone is not convinced, your paper should inspire further research on the topic. The purdue owl explains the difference between an argumentative essay and an expository essay.

Man And Nature Essay

At some time in your undergraduate career, you’re going to have to write an essay exam. This thought can inspire a fair amount of fear: we struggle enough with essays when they aren’t timed events based on unknown questions. The goal of this handout is to give you some easy and effective strategies that will help you take control of the situation and do your best. Essay exams are a useful tool for finding out if you can sort through a large body of information, figure out what is important, and explain why it is important. Essay exams challenge you to come up with key course ideas and put them in your own words and to use the interpretive or analytical skills you’ve practiced in the course. The most successful essay exam takers are prepared for anything reasonable, and they probably have some intelligent guesses about the content of the exam before they take it. How can you be a prepared exam taker? try some of the following suggestions during the semester: do the reading as the syllabus dictates keeping up with the reading while the related concepts are being discussed in class saves you double the effort later.

go to lectures and put away your phone, the newspaper, and that crossword puzzle!. If this is not your strong suit or the conventions for a particular discipline are different from what you are used to, ask your ta or the learning center for advice. participate in your discussion sections this will help you absorb the material better so you don’t have to study as hard. organize small study groups with classmates to explore and review course materials throughout the semester. As long as what you write on the essay is your own work, formulating ideas and sharing notes is okay. As an exam approaches, find out what you can about the form it will take.

This will help you forecast the questions that will be on the exam, and prepare for them. Remember that you can’t cram weeks of information into a single day or night of study. So why put yourself in that position? now let’s focus on studying for the exam. You’ll notice the following suggestions are all based on organizing your study materials into manageable chunks of related material.