organizing your PERSUASIVE essay
English 095
Learning Objectives
In order to write your best persuasive essay you need to:
Recognize organizational/structural methods
Identify your argument's strengths and weaknesses
Analyze essays to determine the best order for your ideas
Reorganize and revise papers based on that analysis
Methods of Organization
Chronological (best for narratives,
sometimes okay for argument)
Inverted Pyramid (best for news and editorials,
sometimes okay for argument)
The Five Paragraph Essay (what you probably know best,
sometimes okay for short argument)
Persuasive (best for argument)
Chronological
Best for narratives, but when focusing on
arguments in history, chronology is okay
(For instance, an argument about propaganda might discuss
how it has become more prevalent over the last 100 years)
Often there are better ways to include history
than straight chronology, but it's a starting point
Inverted Pyramid
Mostly used in news stories
This is fine with shorter arguments (newspaper length or about 600 words / 2 pages in MLA format)
The stoplight colors are deliberate on my part. Newspapers expect readers to stop reading before the article is done, which is why they frontload so much information. The Five Paragraph Essay
A halfway decent foundation
Intro, three detail paragraphs, conclusion
BUT
Problems with Five Paragraph Essay
Lack of substance
Five paragraphs are not enough to do your topic justice
Order
Most important fact at the start? Lose your reader
Most important fact at the end? Not enough depth
Most important fact in the middle? Just weird
Fixes for Five Paragraph Essay
Explode your essay
More paragraphs!
Each of your big points will have subpoints
(if they don't, then you need to think harder)
Those subpoints are your new paragraphs
This Leads into
Persuasive
The secret to Persuasive Organization
There is no secret (but there are tricks)
We were probably taught to outline first, then write
That works for some people
BUT NOT EVERYONE
Get your first draft down
Think about the order, but don't waste too much time on it yet
Draft before order?
Yes!
Writing is thinking
Again, think about order, but don't waste too much time on it yet
After your first draft is done
Now is when you should spend time with an outline
It sounds counterintuitive, but it's not
Mark out your paragraphs
Maybe even print each paragraph on a separate page!
This is an actual thing that many writers do. I do this with some frequency.
Number them from least important to most important
Now play
Yes, play
Set your intro all the way to the top (or left) and the conclusion all the way to the bottom (or right)
Take the rest of your paragraphs and throw them into a pile
Shuffle them like cards
You might get sick of reading your paper
Most writers do, but revision and rewriting
are where the real work gets done
Seriously, don't skimp here
Find the best order for your arguments
After exhausting combinations
Now try something like
There is a psychology behind this as people
are more likely to think of things as important
when they're first and last.
When you make your important details
show up in important locations
you win all around.
Is that order always ideal?
Of course not
Nothing is always ideal
Organization
Now that you have the order down
you need to do the rest of the revision process
and that means making your arguments stronger