Writing an Argumentative Essay - What You Should Avoid

Writing an Argumentative Essay - What You Should AvoidYou have been asked to write an argumentative essay for a college entrance exam. The purpose of the essay is to express your views and to make your opinions known to the reader. It is not enough that you understand the subject matter of the subject. You have to be able to persuade the reader to agree with your view.As writers, you have to be aware of your own ideas and how they will come across to the reader. But what can you do? You are struggling against a great deal of pressure from your parents, classmates, teachers, and most especially, the student body. And all of them want you to fail. They will help you, of course, but you cannot afford to slack in any way!Try to write from the point of view of a naturalist. This does not mean that you have to go overboard in ridiculing the theory makers. It means that you should know your own theory and find ways to defend it.To win the love of the crowd, you have to say something that is less than big and bold but still has a small word of truth in it. So you might say something like: 'Under the right conditions, man can survive on the planet Earth.' You may also say something like: 'If we can make intelligent machines, then the human race can live forever.' Or you may find something that comes out as a contradiction between theory and observation, but a large enough word that will make a change in the minds of the students who believe what you are saying.For example, let us suppose that you say: 'The Earth is round, but if you take a rough, scaly object and bring it into a vacuum chamber and cool it, it turns into a flat disk with a slightly thicker rim than it originally had.' A tiny and light thing like this would be considered a contradiction in terms, but the large word and the slight word will be much more convincing. Your argumentative essay will also strike a chord with the reader because of the gentle spirit that your words evoke.This is the reason why you need to get to know your topic first and find out about the mind of the reader. If you have to deal with a crowd, you will have to remember the difference between truth and common knowledge and why it is important to express your views in a natural way.Try to think out of the box as much as possible. A blank page is more appealing than one where you have to write a paragraph every few minutes. You can think of certain sentences or paragraphs that are common sense and they are going to save you a lot of time. But when you really have to write an argumentative essay, remember that you must remain above the masses, but try to understand their minds.