English Persuasive Essay Proposal

Persuasive Essay

Prof. Skoglund

Length: 4 pages minimum

Paper format & citation/documentation style: MLA

Audience: Diverse adult readers in an academic context.

Genre of essay: Argumentative Essay

Research: For this essay, you will be required to use FIVE (5) additional scholarly sources to support your argument. These sources will most likely deal with your topic specifically but can be anything that will contribute meaningful information to your paper.

Topic: The purpose of this assignment is to persuade your readers to agree with your position on a subject that has more than one side to it. You will need to state your position in a clear, firm manner and convince the reader to agree with you. Your position statement and the reasons for your stance will compose the majority of the essay. You will have to do some research on your subject to get material for the details that are necessary to prove your position.

This evidence may consist of: anecdotes, descriptions, facts, statistics, specific events, etc. 


Your evidence may be taken from: books and journal articles, expert opinions, news, world or local events common sense, personal experience, etc.

You will need
to use your judgment to organize your evidence in the order of importance --- what should come first and second, third, etc. in your essay. You will also need to include a counterargument and rebuttal paragraph to address what the other side’s arguments will be. You are also expected to make use of the rhetorical appeals that we have discussed in class (ethos, pathos, logos). You must be sure that your support is specific, logical, believable, and reasonable.

Be sure to provide several examples from secondary sources to support your claims. Be sure to focus your argument so that you do not wander off into supplementary information/claims that do not support your thesis and weaken your paper.

Objectives: This assignment will give you an increased exposure to the elements of argumentative writing and will prepare you for the analysis to be done in your final paper. This essay will also give you experience critically analyzing a specific piece of text (and/or media) in-depth and expose you to different writing and argumentative styles, rhetorical appeals, and opposing viewpoints.