A GUIDE TO PERSUASIVE WRITING (5 minutes)

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On this page:

• Class 1: Choosing an issue, describing your readers, and identifying your arguments
• Class 2: Writing the first draft
• Class 3: Revising your draft
• Class 4: Editing your revision

CLASS 1

People disagree about all kinds of things: how good a certain movie is, what makes a good school, how to lose weight, how good a job the President is doing, the fastest and cheapest way to solve the energy crisis, how valuable a certain self-improvement program or religious view is, whether America has a promising future.

Our lives and our times and our communities are full of controversial issues about which there are strongly held differences of opinion. Fortunately, people don't have to agree about everything, and yet there are times when it is useful and important for people to discuss controversial issues, in order to see whether agreement is possible, or at least in order to understand opposing views. At these times, writing becomes critically important for stating a position on a controversial issue and for circulating that position widely. Arguments, especially, need to be written down so they can be studied, thought about, and argued against effectively.

One way of approaching an argument is to set out to win at any cost by proving that you are right and your opponent is wrong. No holds are barred in this approach, and you are probably familiar with some of the tricks people use shrillness, sarcasm, emotional appeals, oversimplifying, evading the issue, etc. Instead of trying to beat your opponent into submission, there is another approach to argument that is much more likely to achieve a productive result.

This approach to persuasive writing aims to get your readers to agree with you by showing them that you understand their point of view and that you share enough basic values with them to be able to reach an agreement. It makes sense. After all, if you attack people, they usually defend themselves, but if you approach them with respect and understanding, they will be more likely to listen to you. This is the approach to persuasion we will use in this course. The next piece of writing you do will be a persuasive paper in which you try to persuade your readers that your view of a controversial issue is the correct one. To do this, you will need to state your opinion and support it with several reasons. You will also need to be aware of your readers' concerns and find areas in which you can agree.

1. CHOOSING A CONTROVERSIAL ISSUE (8 min.)

Your teacher may give you an issue to argue about, or ask you to choose one of your own. The issue may be personal, social or political. Look the following list over for a few minutes and then choose a topic you feel is important enough to you to be worth arguing about and trying to convince others of your point of view any controversial issue at your school any controversial issue in your community:

• your rights as a teenager
• religious beliefs
• pollution
• how to solve personal problems
• unemployment
• your judgments about a book, movie, TV series, celebrity, political figure, or teacher
• money spent on defense
• the draft
• advertising
• issues in personal friendships-- loyalty, generosity, fairness, etc.
• sexism and equal rights
• health foods vs. junk foods
• marriage vs. living together
• buying foreign or domestic
• lower drinking ages
• alternative energy sources
• immigration
• rock/new wave music
• divorce...

Now that you have chosen an issue, please do the following things: (5 min.)

• The controversial issue I have chosen is:

Write a few sentences describing your view of the issue. State clearly and directly your opinion about the issue.

2. DESCRIBING YOUR READERS (guided identification, 15 minutes)

The object of this paper is to change the opinions of your readers, so it is vital to know as much as you can about them. Read and respond to the following questions; give yourself time after each question to jot down some quick responses. You may want to use complete sentences, but you don't have to. You can use phrases or even words. Try to put down everything that occurs to you as you think about each question. Remember, for this essay it is safe to assume that your readers do not agree with you about the central point you are trying to make.

1. What are your readers like?

 

 

2. How old are they?

 

 

3. What do they have in common?

 

 

4. What sources of information do they have to back their opinions?

 

 

5. What reasons do they give for their opinions?

 

 

6. Where do they express these opinions?

 

 

7. Are there any factors in their opinion that may need careful attention historical, political, traditional, religious, racial, moral?

3. LISTING YOUR REASONS (guided listing, 10 minutes)

You have now decided on a controversial issue, described your opinion on it, and noted as many details as you can about your readers and theiropinions. With those readers in mind, give yourself ten minutes in which to list as many reasons as you can to support your opinion. Your argument will be stronger if you can think of different types of reasons, some personal, some historical, some based on facts and evidence, and so on. Write down any reason which has even the remotest chance of being included in the firstdraft of your essay. The purpose of this activity is to help you produce the largest possible list of reasons you can think of. They should be reasons appropriate for the readers you have described above. As soon as the ten minutes are up, you will share your list with a partner.

Please list any personal reasons, experiences, beliefs, personal knowledge which have helped you to develop this opinion.

Please list any reasons supported by fact or evidence that have helped you form your opinion. Please list all of the reasons you can think of which are based on historical considerations or precedents.

4. LEARNING WHETHER YOUR ARGUMENT IS CONVINCING (peer feedback, 10 minutes)

Your teacher will now pair you with a partner. Switch computers and read by scrolling down through everything that your partner has written so far in his or her writing journal under the main heading, "Notes for a Persuasive Essay." Each partner should understand that the other might not have thought of all the possible reasons yet, but each will try to answer the following questions for the other.

Now that you are sitting at your partner's computer, read from his or her text. It begins on the next screen. At the end of his or her text a series of questions will appear. Answer them for your partner. You can scroll back through your partner's file in order to reexamine his or her response to each specific question. The cursor will be present at the bottom of the page allowing you space to write while you read. Once both of you have completed the list, switch back to your own machines.

The following list represents your partner's response to what you have written so far. (Change computers, use email, or record for one another.

1. Does your partner's description of his or her readers and their views sound realistic?

 

 

2. Do the reasons your partner listed sound suitable for these readers?

 

 

3. Are there any more reasons that you think could be added?

Now wait until your partner has also reached this point and then go back to your original machines. Use the down arrow to go to the next page when you are ready.

Now scroll up through your partner's response and read his or her suggestions and reactions carefully. Remember that your partner is not there to oppose your views but only to help strengthen your argument. His or her answers to the questions cannot be "wrong." Your task is to find out what your notes communicated to your partner. "Listen" carefully in order to understand what your partner is saying. Once you have read their remarks, scroll back down to the position you just left and write further notes to yourself about changes and additions you want to make to the description of your readers and the reasons you list.

5. BRIDGING THE GAP BETWEEN YOU AND YOUR READERS (guided identification, 15 minutes)

You are writing to persuade readers who hold an opposing view that your view of this controversial issue is correct. This means that getting them to read your paper is absolutely crucial. To change their views, you have to understand them, and you need to demonstrate that you understand by pointing to areas where you are in agreement with them. You have already given a general description of an opinion that disagrees with yours, and you have said as much as you can about the reader who might hold this view.

Now you need to go a little deeper to see what basic links there are between you and these readers. Read the following, giving yourself time to note down quick responses to this set of questions which asks you to focus on the assumptions and values you share on this issue with your reader.

1. What are the broad beliefs that you and your readers both hold about the issue? Do you share any common goals?

 

 

2. What kinds of personal experience do you share?

 

 

3. How do you think you might persuade your readers that you understand and care about their point of view?

 

 

4. Are there any particular parts of their argument that you agree with and can point out in order to show your shared interests?

 

 

5. What are their main concerns? What kinds of reasons would be most likely to persuade them?

 

 

6. SELECTING AND STRENGTHENING YOUR REASONS (guided selection, 10 minutes)

The list of reasons you made in section 3 will appear on the next screen. Go through them again and choose 5 to 8 of the best which you will then enter after going through your list.

1. Select the best reasons and list them here in their order of importance. Begin with the strongest reason, the next and so on down to the weakest reasons.

 

 

2. For each important reason, list possible sources of further information.

 

 

3. Review all of the writing you have done for this project so far and use the following as a check list to help you prepare for the next phase of this writing process.
• Do you have all the facts you need?

 

 

• Will some of your supporting reasons need more research? In the library? In books or magazines you already know?

 

 

• Is there an expert close at hand to whom you would like to talk? How will you arrange to interview this expert?

 

 

When you have finished this set of instructions, load "Cooper Persuasive 2" from your storage disk and keep moving ahead with the assignment.

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CLASS TWO (for work done in MS Word)

What follow are instructions that will guide you through the next phase of this writing process. Read the explanations and writing prompts presented here below; perform the tasks as they occur and then review them once more before starting your draft.You will be asked as well to review the work you did in the previous class session and to write several new and brief statements. All of these anticipate and prepare you to begin writing your first draft. The places designated for your written response are set off below by arrows ( > ). Write in each of those slots and then scroll ahead, reading and preparing for your next response.

After you have proceeded through these preparations, you will have focused and organized, laid the foundation for the first complete draft of your persuasive essay. You can save your draft and any of the brief responses by deleting the text we have introduced into this file.

By erasing our instructions you will leave only your responses and your draft. That will enable you to rewrite the draft and develop it into your finished paper. If your first responses are fully incorporated into the text of your first draft and you have no qualms about erasing everything above your own writing, you can select it and delete or backspace. All that is selected will disappear.

If you want to replace the file containing our instructions from which you have just excerpted your actual draft, then name your new file with the same name as the file we had asked you to load and the original file will be replaced by your new one. If you want to preserve both files, then give your new one a new name.

You might want to use the Split Screen function as it will be of particular use to you when you want to look back and continue writing at your present position. To split the screen all you have to do is pull the little bar down from the top of the scroll bar. The screen will divide where you release it. The half containing the cursor will receive your new prose, the other will remain static. The screen with the cursor also can be scrolled through. Switch the cursor to the other half where you want to enter the new text. You can toggle, switch back and forth between upper and lower screens by placing the cursor in either field. It will automatically switch from one screen to the other as you insert the cursor. The advantage of the split is that you can respond to what you have already written before, refreshing your mind about a previous or subsequent point, while still writing in the appropriate place in your text. As you don't always have a print out in front of you, this feature proves very useful. To turn off the split screen simply push the small bar back to the top of the scroll bar.

Writing the First Draft

How to FREE WRITE: Free writing is a special kind of writing that lets you use the act of writing itself to discover what you already know. It works only if you write without planning and without looking back at what you have already written. Write nonstop, breathlessly, recklessly. Write as fast as you can. Write so fast your fingers feel tired. Write down anything you think of. If you reach a point where you can't think of anything, write down your last word over and over. Just don't let your pencil stop moving. Write down as many words as you possibly can.

1. FREEWRITE (10 minutes)

Now choose the two best reasons on your list and free write about each for five minutes apiece. Even though you feel now that you will later want to do further reading and research on these two best reasons, in this FREE WRITE try to get down in writing everything you presently know about them. The order isn't important here; just tumble out anything you can think of to say about your reasons. The idea is to close the gap between thinking and writing.

2. LEARNING WHAT YOUR NOTES COMMUNICATE ABOUT YOUR ARGUMENT (10 minutes)

Find a partner who will work with you and read to him or her everything that you have written so far in this class under the subheadings "Bridging the Gap" and "Refining the Reasons." Your partner will listen carefully and try to answer these questions for you:

• Do you make a fair description of your readers' beliefs?
• Do you share enough common aims with your readers to be able to convince them that they could accept your opinion?
• Does your list of reasons sound broad and strong enough?
• Will you need to gather more information to support any of them?
• Are the two reasons you selected your best?
• Have you developed these two reasons sufficiently?

3. WRITING THE FIRST DRAFT OF A PERSUASIVE ESSAY

So far you have accumulated in your JOURNAL quite a bit of information about the argument you will be presenting. The prewriting you have done yo this point has allowed you to classify the two sides of the controversial issue, by exploring reasons for your opinion and reasons that your readers are likely to have for theirs. You know which are your strongest reasons and which areas you and your readers agree upon.

Right now take time to reread these pieces in your journal:

• Notes for a Persuasive Essay
• Describing Your Readers
• Listing Your Reasons
• Bridging the Gap
• Refining the Reasons

You may be able to use details and facts from these pieces in your draft. However, your draft will be a completely new piece of writing. It is hard to predict just how much of your journal prewriting pieces you will be able to use, or just where you will be able to use them. They are nevertheless very important background for your draft, even if you don't consciously include elements from them. Now you are ready to begin writing your draft.

4. PERSUASIVE ESSAY WRITING TASK

Before you launch into the actual draft, it will be helpful both to you, and to the partner who will help you revise the draft, if you first describe your "writing situation:" what you are writing about, who you are addressing, and why. The tasks below will help you accomplish this.

The Writing Situation

1. Write down "Readers" and briefly describe your readers.

READERS

 

 

2. Your "purpose" is to write an essay in which you try to persuade your readers that your view on a controversial issue is the correct one. Write this down, identifying the controversial issue.

CONTROVERSIAL ISSUE

 

 

3. Write down "Thesis Statement" and then write out what your proposition is. This should be a sentence or two that states:
• your opinion (the view, course of action, or solution you are proposing)
• your main reason (supporting your opinion, either your strongest reason or a summary of all your reasons, as in the example below)
• your bridge (the common belief or assumption that you share with your readers

 

 

4. Now you might want it to look something like this:

Thesis statement: More money should be spent (opinion) on researching alternative energy sources, because mineral fuels have severe problems and limitations (main reason). Energy is indispensable to society (bridge), and our demands for it are increasing all the time.

Combine your responses above into a thesis statement. (Try the Split Screen here. Scroll up to see your responses. Then switch windows back and forth, moving from response to response always switching back to the lower window to write your thesis statement in this space.)

5. After the thesis statement, write down any reservations you may have, any cases where your thesis statement would not apply.

RESERVATIONS

Having identified at the top of your page your readers, purpose, thesis statement, and reservations, you are now in a strong position to begin writing the draft itself. Your opening paragraph should include your thesis statement as you have just written it, but it should also make clear to your readers the direction in which you are going to lead them. Before you launch into your list of reasons, which will form the bulk of the paper, make sure that your readers know what the main point of the essay is. It is hard to convince people about anything if they are confused. As with every other kind of writing, there is no single best way to organize persuasive writing. However, the most obvious and logical method is to use the list of reasons that you made in your journal after you described your readers. You may want to change the order of the list, but it will be a good idea, as you write the draft, to look back at it as a simple outline for the essay. To remind you, here is a checklist of things you should do in your persuasive essay:

• clearly define the controversial issue and engage the reader's interests;
• show throughout the paper that you understand and respect the reader's opinion and arguments;
• build a bridge of shared concerns, values, principle, and assumptions between your reader and yourself;
• define the key terms you use and be as specific as you cane make clear transitions between your main arguments or points so that your reader can easily follow your reasoning;
• summarize the main points at crucial stages;
• make an effective conclusion.

Without overdoing it, you should win the reader's trust by showing that you are thoughtful and reasonable and that you know your facts.

The kinds of facts you supply include:

• your own observations;
• those of other trustworthy people; and
• reliable statistics.

(Use this last section of instructions as a checklist as you write your first draft here below. When you have finished this draft, you can scroll up with the arrow key and using select text/Control X to erase our instructions from this file. You can save the draft portion of this as a separate file by following the steps laid out above for saving a portion of a file. You may want to use a new file name for your text so that in case you want to look back over the original instructions, they will still remain on your disk. Once the paper is finished, rewritten and memorialized, you can delete all files relating to it from your disk, though you will want to keep the one containing your finished paper.)

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CLASS 3

Revising Your Draft (40 minutes)

At this point you have a chance to find out how effective your assembled argument might be. Your teacher will assign you to a partner. You and your partner will now exchange print outs of your drafts. To help you revise your papers, you and your partner need to give a careful, thorough, and honest response to each other's draft. Take about 40 minutes to give your partner's draft a REALLY close reading. As you read, imagine you are one of the readers that the writer has identified above the draft. Your job now is to tell your partner how persuasive you found the essay. To help you do this, there is a list of questions below that will remind you of what to look for in the essay. Answer them as carefully as you can here. You will put your remarks on your partner's disk. Switch machines and follow the procedures laid out for you below.

1. Read the thesis statement and opening paragraph, and tell the writer if any of these essential features are missing:
• opinion;
• reason;
• bridge;
• reservations.

 

 

2. Does the thesis statement seem to set out a clear and compelling view of a significant controversial issue? Does the writer seem to know what he or she is talking about?

REASONS

1. Skim the paper quickly and make a numbered list in pencil of the reasons that the writer uses to support the main opinion. Use a piece of scratch paper for this. Identify each reason with a short phrase. Now, using the computer, type and fill out the handwritten list.
2. Tell the writer whether he or she has developed and supported each reason using the following: personal anecdote, illustration, statistics, testimony (someone else's statement).
3. Now tell the writer more precisely whether each is developed according to the following standards. If any of the reasons don't seem to you to be well developed according to these standards, tell the writer how he or she might make improvements.
• Personal anecdote should be relevant, interesting, easy to follow, not too self-referring or sentimental, and should not undermine the writer's believability.
Illustration should be reliable, detailed, and representative (rather than unique). Each illustration in the draft has a different importance, which should be indicated by words like these: typical, convincing, good, better, best, etc.
• Statistics should be current and from reliable sources.
• Testimony should be from reliable sources.
4. Has the writer successfully "built a bridge of shared concerns" to the readers? Tell the writer how he or she has shown an understanding of the readers' values and opinions. Indicate places in the draft where this works best.
5. Has the writer anticipated what his or her readers' replies and counter arguments might be?
6. Try to write down a list of counter arguments the readers might use, counter arguments the writer hasn't anticipated. This list can be very helpful to the writer in revising.

WRITER'S AUTHORITY

This is vital in persuasive writing. To change a reader's mind, the writer must seem reasonable and believable.

1. As one of the readers that the writer is addressing, say in a sentence how the writer sounds to you. You might use terms like these: authoritative, sympathetic, well informed, trustworthy, thoughtful, modest, confused, rational, reasonable.
2. Reread the paper quickly and tell the writer briefly where his or her authority and believability are established. Has this been stressed enough? Overdone? Make specific suggestions if you think changes are needed.

ORGANIZATION

1. Read the introductory paragraph(s) again. Has the writer made a clear forecast of the direction and reasoning? Can you suggest specific improvements?
2. Check the introduction for any of these flaws:
• shrillness
• too long wind up or background
• excessive aggression
• no context provided
• inflation of the issue
• readers ignored
• excessive generalization
• apologies.
3. Is the introduction readable and engaging or flat and dull? Does it need more background or human interest? Suggest specific ways to improve the introduction.
4. Skim the paper to identify the transition sentences that link the reasons into a coherent argument. Usually these will be the first sentences in paragraphs. Mark them with a large "T" in the margin. Tell the writer if any did not tell you clearly what was coming next. If you find any places that need transitions, mark these with a big "NEED T."
5. Read the concluding paragraph(s).The conclusion should restate the opinion that the body of the paper has proved. Tell the writer if the conclusion does this clearly.
6. Like the introduction, the conclusion must be readable and engaging. If it seems flat or hurried, tell the writer how it could be improved.

GENERAL RESPONSE

Before you give the paper back, read it through once more, quickly, as if you had encountered it in a newspaper or magazine. Say what you think about it. Even if you have to be quite critical about the paper, don't hold back. The writer needs honest feedback before revising this first draft. First tell the writer whether you found the paper interesting and readable.

Give your first impression. It can be quite personal. Just make a few quick comments. For instance, is the paper ambitious? Has the writer tackled something difficult or just played it safe? Does the paper reflect creative, independent thinking? Does it strike you as new and surprising or predictable and ordinary?

You have done your best for one another, now switch back to your own machines and transfer these remarks onto your disks so that you can write your revisions and produce a polished and finished paper.

FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS FOR WRITING YOUR REVISION

Now you are ready to begin your revision, a completely new draft of your persuasive essay. It may look quite a bit different from your draft. It may be organized differently and it may contain new information about the controversial issue. What you learned from your partner's response to your draft should guide you in the writing of your revision.

Rewrite your essay following the advice of your peer editor. Use your notes and those made by your peer editor to guide your revision. Pay close attention to the checklist and to the remarks made about:

• Thesis statement
• Reasons
• Readers
• Writer's authority
• Organization
• General response

Your revision will be graded and discussed. The material you developed through this process must also be handed in as it too will be taken into account in determining your final grade.

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CLASS 4

Editing Your Revision (peer feedback, 20 minutes)

Exchange revisions with a partner so that you can proofread and edit each other's papers. For this purpose, you will use the Proofreading and Editing Guide below.

PROOFREADING AND EDITING GUIDE

Read your partner's paper and do the following editorial tasks. Use a pencil so that other readers or your teacher can change your editorial decisions, if they seem questionable.

• Circle any spelling mistakes.
• Circle any usage mistakes. Usage includes agreement of subjects with verbs, agreement of pronouns with their antecedents, correct verb forms and consistency of verb tense, and correct word choice. There are many different kinds of usage mistakes; you will learn more about them in this course and in later classes. For now just do the best you can, circling any usage mistakes that look like mistakes to you. If you suspect there may be a mistake, be safe and circle it.
• Cross out with an X any unnecessary punctuation.
• Insert any needed punctuation. Add and circle any new punctuation.
• Put a line through any unnecessary words.
• Put parentheses ( ) around awkward phrases or sentences that are difficult for you to understand on first reading. The phrase or sentence may be awkward, stilted, unbalanced, or puzzling for any reason at all.

EVALUATING CHANGES FROM FIRST DRAFT TO REVISION

Before you give your draft and revision to your teacher for evaluation, you will want to evaluate your own revision. You will need to describe the changes you made in your draft, evaluate the quality of your revision, and say what you will be trying to improve in your next paper.

On a separate piece of paper, write out a thoughtful self-evaluation, following the instructions below:

Instructions for self evaluation of changes from draft to revision

• First, reread your draft.
• Then reread your revision.
• Begin your written self-evaluation by stating your main purpose in writing this essay.
• Then talk about specific changes you made from draft to revision and explain how these changes improved your revision.
• Next, say what you like best about your revision and also identify any problems you still see in it.
• Finally, state what you will be working to improve in your next essay.

© Copyright 1981 by Charles Cooper

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