Lakeland College
P.O. Box 359
Sheboygan, WI 53082-0359

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Persuasive Writing

 

Do you enjoy voicing your opinion?  Do you like using examples and authoritative information to illustrate your point of view? If so, this is the class for you.  And if not, well, you will still learn how to do it effectively.  Persuasive Writing is all about perfecting your argument on paper.  Through integrating argumentation, rhetoric and research, you will learn how to develop a persuasive argument and support it with evidence.

 

Objectives of Persuasive Writing are:

  • To reinforce and extend skills with sentences, paragraphs, thesis statements or an idea, organization, expansion, and patterns of development

  • To teach the skills necessary to write a lengthy college-level research paper (library skills; note taking; organizing and outlining a large body of material; paraphrasing, quoting, and summarizing; and responsible documentation).

  • To teach the skills necessary to write a persuasive essay (detection and avoidance of logical fallacies, deductive and inductive reasoning, implementation of persuasive appeals--and selection of appropriate levels of diction).

Tips for success from the professors.

 

 

General Tips:

  • Buy and become familiar with the writing handbook.  This book will serve as a useful tool in helping you plan and document you research paper, and it will serve you well in future courses and in you career.

  • Plan ahead.  Carefully note the due dated on the syllabus and allow time for each step in the writing process.  Do NOT try to crank out a research paper in a night or weekend.

  • Use resources.  Lakeland College offers help, so use it.  Your instructor, the Academic Resource Center, the librarians and your advisor are all hoping you'll call on them for assistance.

  • Learn something.  Open your mind to the possibility that research will take you in new directions and perhaps overturn opinions which you've long held.  Gathering information and reading with the intent of supporting previously held convictions is not really research.  Embrace your topic, become an expert, and enjoy the scary possibility that you'll change.

 

Writing Tips:

  • Work in stages.  Think of writing as a process in separate stages--brainstorming, reading, note-taking, organizing, writing, editing, and proofreading.  For example, don't try to write the introduction to your paper after you've only read one or two sources.  Read widely, take notes, think, develop an argument plan, and then write.

  • Know about plagiarism. It's more complicated than you may think.  There are sections on plagiarism in the writing handbook and in your Lakeland student handbook.  Be aware, for example, that it is not enough to note the source if you take a passage word-for-word from a source.  You need to use quotations as well as note the source.

  • Avoid the big pro-or-con debates.  This is a class about constructing written arguments, not about debating.  If you want to write thoughtful and interesting arguments, stay away from questions that can be answered "Yes" or "No." (Look for "Why" and "How" questions instead.)

  • Anytime you present a claim and support it, you are making an argument.  Ultimately, any paragraph or paper that does not have a claim is not making an argument--no matter how interesting the information is.

  • Make sure that each claim appears UP FRONT and is EXPLICIT.  Don't hide your great ideas at the end.  Put your claims where your reader wants to see them, and make them twice as detailed as you think they need to be.

  • Claims only exist on the page.  If you can't circle you claim, it's not there, and you're not making an argument.  (Your paper's Main Claim is often called you "thesis," but practically every paragraph should have a claim that you can circle.)

  • All claims must be contestable-- but especially your main claim.  Can you imagine a smart reader disagreeing with your claim--or at least need to see some support before he/she accepts it?  If not, you have nothing to argue about.

  • Evidence is never self-evident.  You need to set up, explain, and interpret every piece of evidence you provide.  If your evidence is so obvious that it explains itself, then you probably don't need it in the first place.

  • Stay away from summary.  If you don't have contestable claims supported by reason and evidence, you're probably just summarizing--and that's bad.

  • Use your introductions to motivate your reader-- to make him/her want to keep reading.  Introductions are not tables on contents; they are there to answer these questions: "So what?" and "Why should I care about this problem?"