Argumentative essays

An argumentative essay involves making some statement about some issue (any issue), and then defending it with discussion and evidence. The aim of an argumentative essay is to convince your reader that the point you’re making is a good one. You’re trying to bring them around to accepting your opinion on some topic.

An argumentative essay can defend any issue you want, even something as simple as this:

People should eat more healthily.

This is an example of a thesis sentence, which is where you state the point you’re trying to make. Although this is an opinion you have, you don’t have to write in the first person:

I believe people should eat more healthily.

Using the first person is, in general, not the way to go for an argumentative essay. It generally looks not as professional and hence not as convincing as using the third person. One exception to this would be in a very simple argumentative ‘essay’ written by a 7-year-old kid. In this case, using the first person could help get across the very personal nature of the writing by a 7-year-old. For instance, say a kid’s dog had bitten a person and the council was deciding whether the dog needed to be euthanised (put down). A very convincing ‘argumentative essay’ might be:

Although very simple, this is an argumentative essay - it has a thesis sentence at the beginning, and then three sentences attempting to support the thesis sentence.

Click here to move on to the next topic: What to argue about