Argument Essay

By Anonymous (not verified), 12 March, 2026

Writing an Argument Essay

You've researched controversial topics in your school, community, nation, and world. You've stated a position and explored reasons for and against it. You've even outlined your argument and responded to objections. Now it's time to write your first draft. The following activities will guide you.

Writing the Argument Beginning

The beginning first needs to grab the reader's attention. Then it should introduce your topic and provide background leading up to your position statement. To get started with your beginning paragraph, you can experiment with different lead-writing strategies.

Write a lead sentence.

Write a different lead sentence(s) for each strategy to capture the reader's attention. Use the examples as inspiration.

Ask a provocative question.
Why is gender such a taboo subject in high school?
Provide a fascinating quotation.
"True equality means holding everyone accountable in the same way, regardless of race, gender, faith, ethnicity, or political ideology."
― Monica Crowley
Provide a surprising fact.
Did you know more than half of female students in grades 7-12 report experiencing some form of sexual harassment?
Directly address the issue.
Recently a wave of women's empowerment has swept across the country, but it hasn't seemed to reach high schools.

Write your beginning paragraph.

Start with your lead, and then provide background and develop a paragraph leading to your position statement.

Writing the Middle Paragraphs

Develop a middle paragraph for each reason that supports your position statement. Organize these paragraphs using your outline (for a receptive audience) or follow a pattern for a resistant audience.

By Anonymous (not verified), 12 March, 2026

Prewriting for Argument Essays

To write a narrative argument, you first have to create two separate compositions—an argument essay and a narrative. You will need to complete the steps of the writing process for both before combining the pieces into a narrative argument. What form you begin with is up to you, but we recommend completing your argument essay first since it will form the basis of your final paper. If you wish to start with your narrative, skip ahead to the "Prewriting for Narratives" lesson and circle back to this one after you've completed your narrative.

The prewriting activities in this lesson will help you plan your argument essay—identifying a controversial topic, researching the issue, developing a position about it, and gathering reasons, evidence, and responses to objections.

Prewriting to Consider Controversies

Effective argument essays focus on controversial issues. A controversy is a subject about which people disagree. Facts don't leave much room for disagreement because they can be directly proven. Controversial topics involve the following:

Opinions are personal preferences such as the best U.S. president or the most important qualities of a video game. One person states an opinion and provides reasons to support it, but someone else can have an opposing opinion.
Proposals are suggestions about what should be done in the future. Since no one knows for certain the future outcome of any action taken now, proposals cannot be directly proven until after they have consequences.
Hypotheses are explanations for how something might be working. They are "educated guesses" about what is going on. Arguments and experiments can provide reasonable support for them, but hypotheses only become scientific theories or laws after extensive experimentation.

You can think about controversies locally, at your school and in your community, or more broadly, in your country and around the world. What do people feel about the controversies? What opinions, proposals, or hypotheses are most commonly linked to them? One student jotted down the following controversial positions that he encountered at school, read about in local and national newspapers, and discovered on Google News.

By Anonymous (not verified), 12 March, 2026

Writing for Assessment

A writing assessment gives you a short time to write in response to a prompt.

"Imagination is more important than knowledge." —Albert Einstein

How can this quotation be true? As a child, you spent much time immersed in imagination, but now as a high school student, you've spent 13+ years pursuing knowledge. What's the relationship between imagination and knowledge? Write an essay that defines each term and tells how they relate. Explain Einstein's position but then state your own position, supporting it with logic and evidence.

To do so, you should use a shortened form of the writing process:

Prewriting (5 Minutes)

Answer the PAST questions.

Purpose? Define imagination and knowledge, tell how they relate, explain Einstein's position and state and support your own.

Audience? The reader of the test

Subject? Imagination and knowledge

Type? Position/argument essay

Write a focus statement.

Imagination and knowledge are like energy and matter: the knowledge is the solid stuff, and the imagination sets it into motion.

By Anonymous (not verified), 12 March, 2026

Editing and Publishing Argument Essays

Editing Argument Essays

After you complete major revisions to your argument essay, you should edit it to make sure every word and punctuation mark is correct. Among other issues, you'll make sure that you have correctly used pronouns and commas. The activities that follow will help. You'll also use a checklist to finalize your editing.

Editing to Correct Pronoun Usage

A pronoun is a word that stands in the place of a noun or another pronoun (its antecedent). The most familiar pronouns are I, me, my; we, us, our, ours; you, your, yours; he, she, it, they, their, theirs. A pronoun needs to agree with its antecedent. That means both need to have the same person (first, second, or third), the same number (singular or plural), and the same gender (masculine, feminine, neuter, or indeterminate).

Agreement

Carlos brought his guitar. (Carlos and his are both third person, singular, and masculine: they agree.)

I played my bass. (I and my are both first person, singular, and indeterminate.)

The band members practiced their parts before rehearsal. (Members and their are both third-person, plural, and indeterminate.)

Sometimes a singular pronoun replaces a word such as anybody, anyone, everybody, everyone, nobody, no one, somebody, or someone. Notice how these words are third person, singular, and indeterminate, but English has no such personal pronoun to replace it.

Agreement Errors

Someone left their assignment here. (Someone is singular but their is plural.)

Someone left his assignment here. (Someone is indeterminate but his is masculine.)

You can fix the problem by using alternate pronouns (her or his) or rewriting the sentence to avoid the problem.

Corrected Agreement

Someone left her or his assignment here.

I found someone's assignment here.

Students should make sure they didn't leave their assignments behind.

Most pronouns change form to create possessives. A personal pronoun with an apostrophe s is a contraction, not a possessive. Make sure to use the correct form.

Possessive Pronouns

your, its, their, whose

Contractions with Pronouns

you're, it's, they're, who's

Fix pronoun use.

In each sentence below, fix pronoun usage. Afterward, review your essay and correct any pronoun errors that you find.

By Anonymous (not verified), 12 March, 2026

Revising Argument Essays

During a verbal argument, you have to respond in the moment, so you often have regrets afterward: "I wish I had said ________. I wish I hadn't said ________. " In an argument essay, you don't need regrets because you can add whatever you left out and remove whatever you shouldn't have said. That's revising. You can also eliminate any faulty logic and make sure your voice is persuasive. The following activities will help.

Revising to Avoid Logical Fallacies

From the first Greek philosophers to today, thinkers have been on the lookout for specific flaws in reasoning—logical fallacies. These errors crop up constantly in advertising, political debates, and lunchroom discussions. You should learn to recognize the following forms of fuzzy logic in the thinking of others and eliminate them from your own thinking.

Logical Fallacies

Ad Hominem Attack

"Ad hominem" is Latin for "to the person." An ad hominem attack goes after the person making the argument instead of the argument itself. Keep personalities out of the issue and instead focus on the controversial topic.

Fallacy: It's not surprising Jake from Jake's Roadhouse opposes food trucks since Jake is a selfish crook.

Better: It's not surprising restaurant owners oppose food trucks, but they should not be allowed to prevent fair competition.

Appeal to Ignorance

An appeal to ignorance cites a lack of evidence as if it were evidence. Support your argument with actual facts, statistics, examples, and so on.

Fallacy: No one has any idea whether food trucks would cause a problem in Waterford, so we can't outlaw them.

Better: Upper Forks, a city about the size of Waterford, passed a balanced food-truck ordinance, and five years later, their brick-and-mortar restaurants are thriving due to the new foodie culture.

Bandwagon

Long ago, people promoting a specific cause would put a band on a wagon and march through town with it, handing out pamphlets urging people to join the cause. The modern bandwagon fallacy is telling people they should do or believe something because everyone else is. Remember, a mob is often wrong. Instead, use careful logic and truthful examples to show why your position is strong.

Fallacy: All of our neighbor cities allow food trucks, so we should also.

Better: We can study the food truck ordinances and operations in our neighbor cities to learn what works and what doesn't before we create our own law.

Broad Generalization

A broad generalization occurs when one limited case is taken to represent all cases everywhere. Instead, present a complete picture of the situation.

Fallacy: Every student at my lunch table would rather eat from a food truck than have another cafeteria meal, so all of Waterford is crying out for this change.

Better: A recent survey by the Waterford Examiner showed that 73 percent of citizens polled indicated a desire to have food trucks available within the city.

By Anonymous (not verified), 12 March, 2026

Writing an Argument Essay

You've researched controversial topics in your school, community, nation, and world. You've stated a position and explored reasons for and against it. You've even outlined your argument based on whether your audience is receptive or resistant. Now it's time to write your first draft. The following activities will guide you.

Writing the Beginning Paragraph

The beginning first needs to grab the reader's attention. Then it introduces the topic and provides background leading up to your position statement. To get started with your beginning paragraph, you can experiment with different lead-writing strategies.

Write a lead sentence.

Write a different lead sentence for each strategy to capture the reader's attention. Use the examples as inspiration.

Ask a provocative question.
What if Waterford had more dining options, including exotic foods from Africa, the South Pacific, and the Middle East?
Provide a fascinating quotation.
“If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.”
― Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast
Provide a surprising fact.
Food trucks have evolved from ice cream and hot dogs to Kobe steaks and calamari.
Directly address the issue.
Most people would agree that special interest lobbies meant to restrict competition result in unfair laws—except when the topic is "food trucks."

Write your beginning paragraph.

Start with your lead, and then provide background and develop a paragraph leading to your position statement.

Writing the Middle Paragraphs

By Anonymous (not verified), 12 March, 2026

Prewriting for Argument Essays

When two people have opposite opinions about a controversial topic, a loud argument can result. A logical argument also involves a controversial topic but uses reasoning instead of shouts. These activities will help you find a controversial topic, research the issue, develop a position about it, and organize your supporting reasons.

Prewriting to Consider Controversies

In the warm-up to this unit, you thought about three different types of controversial positions: opinions, proposals, and hypotheses. You thought about controversies you encountered among friends, family, and teachers. In search of a topic for your argument essay, you should also consider controversies farther afield.

One student thought about the following controversial positions that he encountered at school, read about in local and national newspapers, and discovered on Google News.

Controversies

	Opinions (People think . . .)	Proposals (People should . . .)	Hypotheses (Something is happening because . . .)
School News	Students think we have too many tests.	The school should shift to online textbooks.	Teacher morale is low because society undervalues them.
Local Newspaper	Restaurant owners think allowing food trucks would be a disaster.	The city council should allow food trucks into our community.	Flooding downtown is becoming more frequent because of new developments along the river.
National Newspaper	People think they need to choose a side politically, but the middle is where work gets done.	We should consider the Australian model in addressing our gun-violence problem.	Lax restrictions on lobbying and campaign finance make our country open to the highest bidder.
Google News	Europeans think they can no longer count on the U.S. as an ally.	We should fill the many diplomatic vacancies in the U.S. State Department.	The shift toward nationalism in many countries is caused by a large influx of refugees from neighbors.

Write down one controversial position that interests you:

I'm interested in the food-truck controversy. People at school are talking about it, and the local paper had a long article about a city council meeting where the topic blew up.

What reasons do people give to support this position?

Young people want food trucks for new, affordable food options. Restaurants don't want them because of competition and parking.

Do you agree or disagree with this position? What reasons do you have?

I don't know my position yet. I like the idea of more options for eating and attracting more people to our city, but I also see the point of restaurant owners who have a big investment here. I'll have to do further research to make up my mind.

By Anonymous (not verified), 12 March, 2026

Reading an Argument Essay

To understand how an argument essay works, you can read an example written by another student. He uses logic to build his case, and his voice shows investment in his position but at the same time fairly treats the views of others.

Reading a Student Model

Read the following argument essay and respond to the reading afterward. In the beginning paragraph, the student grabs the reader's attention and delivers the position statement. The middle paragraphs provide strong reasons in support of the position and answer objections from opponents. The ending paragraph sums up the argument and encourages the reader to agree with the position. Click on the side notes to study the features of this essay.

Listen to "Ballot Boxes and Band Aids"

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By Anonymous (not verified), 12 March, 2026

Warm-Up for Argument Writing

Not all arguments are created equal. Some involve people screaming at each other and throwing chairs. Others involve people rationally and logically analyzing an issue in order to come to an effective conclusion. When you write an argument essay, you need to do the latter, not the former. Tantrums only convince readers that you are a child. A logical argument that recognizes all sides but presents and supports a specific position can convince readers about an important issue.

Argument Essay