Month: August 2020

There’s always a point where you’ll need the skill of persuasive writing, either as a college or high school student. You might also find your knowledge useful at some point in your career.

In persuasive writing, it is vital to find an exciting topic you and your audience will like. This feat might not prove easy sometimes. So, how do you decide the right topic amidst so many options?

How to Decide on the Right Topic

You’ll need to pay attention to some simple facts while choosing a topic, and that would make it easy to decide on the right topic.

• Choose A Topic You’re Familiar and Genuinely Interested In

Your first step is to choose a topic you’re passionate about. It will make it less tedious while researching it. You’ll enjoy writing about it, and your audience will feel your enthusiasm while you present it. However, you must ensure the topic will interest the readers, too, so you don’t lose their attention while presenting.

• Make It One That Your Audience Can Relate With

Once it’s one that your audience cares about, they’ll easily relate to it. People mostly care about topics that directly affect their community or country.

Here’s A List of Topics to Choose From

We’ve made a list of persuasive speech topics on different categories to help you write the next speech perfectly.

Education

• The best ways to stop bullying in schools
• How to improve students’ learning interest
• Should uniforms be compulsory in schools?

Economic

• Should payments to interns be mandated?
• Should tipping in restaurants be compulsory?
• Why it’s best to buy goods from local producers

Arts/Culture

• Should students be mandated to learn an instrument?
• Should citizens pay to access national museums?
• Should classic literature contain offensive language?

Religion

• Should praying be done publicly in schools?

Science/Environment

• Should testing of animals be banned?
• Should the cloning of humans or animals be allowed
• Should stores sell food genetically modified

Sports

• Should colleges pay their athletes?

Technology

• Why would you or wouldn’t let your little child use a Smartphone?
• Do video games help children develop cognitive skills?

Health

• Will exercise alone combat obesity?
• Why insulin dependents should get it for free
• Should assisted suicide be legalized?

Ethics

• Why we should or shouldn’t go to war
• Why testing products on animals should be banned
• Why we should abolish the death penalty

Other Useful Tips for Your Persuasive Speech

Here are other tips to help you create a good speech

1. Pick A Stand

As you start writing, state your stand on the topic strongly. State clearly, from your opening paragraph, why you choose your position on the subject.

2. Be Aware Of Your Audience

As you write your speech, consider your audience, as you’ll have to persuade them. Focus on areas they might already know or care about, concerning the subject.

3. Research Facts

You need to be able to defend your position with clear facts. Proper research will help you uncover facts and help you strengthen your persuasion while you write.

Conclusion

You can write a great persuasive speech, once you’re aware of your interests and that of your audience. Researching facts to support your position will help you to do a great job, and you’ll present your speech with confidence.

You know it’s essential to choose the right argumentative topic. What topics are you supposed to write on? You don’t want to select a topic that some other people are already done. You wouldn’t also want to pick a topic where sourcing for data and information will be difficult.

How then do you choose a topic to avoid all of these potholes? Let’s look at some of the criteria that determine the right argumentative essay to choose from.

Criteria for Choosing the Right Argumentative Topics

When choosing an argumentative topic, the utmost criteria are that the subject must be interesting to you as the writer and to your readers. Other significant measures include;

• It has to be interesting to the writer

An argumentative essay is majorly about finding the right facts to back up your line of reasoning. Therefore, you would be doing a lot of reading, researching, and in-depth writing, you cannot afford to pick a boring topic.

• Have some idea or firsthand information about the topic

You need to have prior knowledge about the subject, no matter how little. The more knowledgeable you are about the topic, the easier it is for you to understand and gather the needed information.

• Feel free to take on controversial topics

The best argumentative essay topics are mostly controversial. If everyone agrees on the same line of thought and there is no conflict, then it wouldn’t be an argumentative essay in the first place. Therefore, be bold to take up controversial topics.

Some Interesting Argumentative Topics

Argumentative essay topics can be classified. Let’s look at some of the categories we can have and the few examples of topics under them.

1. Argumentative Essay Topics for College
   • Do men earn more than women in corporate society?
   • Should the college curriculum still include the study of Shakespeare?
   • Are test scores the best way to judge student’s competence?
   • Is getting a college degree worth the cost?
   • Modern-day students face more social pressure than it was in the past.
2. Argumentative Essay Topics for High Schools
   • Is homeschooling the best compared to the public school education system?
   • Do smartphones help the learning process?
   • Do teenagers feel more comfortable talking on social media than face-to-face?
   • Does the school system prepare a student for the real world?
   • Subjects that should be removed from the high school program
3. Education Argumentative Essay Topics
   • Should school uniforms be made compulsory?
   • Does technology benefit the educational system?
   • Must all students learn a foreign language?
   • Should sex education be done in classrooms?
   • Studying in a single-sex class is better than learning in a mixed one.
4. Social Topic Issues
   • Should male workers receive a paternity test too?
   • Should torture be acceptable?
   • Should there be punishment for failed parenting?
   • Should a candidate’s appearance be considered for job hiring?
   • Could boredom be the cause of getting into trouble?

 Other categories with which we can classify an argumentative essay topic include;

5. Argumentative Essay Topics for Social Media; e.g.
   • Social media had destroyed real-life communication.
6. Argumentative Essay Topics on Technology; e.g.
   • Is spy application an invasion of privacy?
7. American History Argumentative Essay Topics; e.g.
   • What effect did European colonization have on Native Americans?
8. Argumentative Research Paper Topics; e.g.
   • Should the government look to reduce child care costs?
9. Modern-day argumentative Essay Topic; e.g.
   • Are fast foods making America fat?
10. Argumentative Essay Topic on Animals; e.g.
    • Hunting for fun and sports is unethical and should be banned.

Final Thoughts

Your mind would probably start suggesting additional topics for an argumentative essay when you are done reading our list. Keep a journal of the ideas that come and see which one will be best to work on based on the criteria given above.  

A narrative essay, like every other essay, contains three main parts: the introduction, body, and conclusion. The primary purpose of this essay is to tell a story. More often than not, these stories are from personal experiences.

What every good writer tries to do is make their stories emotionally appealing to the reader. This emotion makes the experience come alive. There could also be some level of humor or seriousness to keep the readers engaged. 

Taking an analysis of every top-notch narrative essay, there are some essential characters they always have:

1. There is a general point.
2. Such essays are detailed to prove the point.
3. It follows a suitable arrangement and organization.

Steps involved in the essay construction

Depending on one’s preference, essays could be as long as a whole page, while others could be just five paragraphs short. Whether long or short, what matters is that the narrative essays have the same outline.

• Introduction: This is the first part of your essay. It usually contains a piece that captures your reader’s attention. That part is commonly called the hook. Then, you have a topic that will lead to other parts of the essay.
• Body: This is an essential part of the essay. It contains the message you are trying to pass across. It can about three to five paragraphs long. One important thing to note is that every paragraph should have an example or an event that accentuates the main topic.
• Conclusion: This is the concluding part of the essay. This part makes a summary of the points in the body and bring a close to your narration. You could spice up your conclusion with an epilogue.

Great topics for narrative essays

While a lot of people have difficulty choosing a topic for their essay, you can make it easy for yourself. Go for a happening which you can narrate in a clear and organized fashion. Below are a few topics you can choose from:  

1. An unforgettable experience
2. A date that went wrong
3. Your first time in a strange place
4. A memorable journey
5. A good deed
6. A near-death experience
7. Your first time away from home
8. Your first time in your dream country
9. A strange encounter
10. Your first time on a ship cruise

Other Types of Essays

Apart from narrative essays, there are three major types of essays. They are:

• Argumentative: These essays usually involves a lot of research and analysis. Their purpose is to convince the readers to agree on a particular opinion about a topic.
• Descriptive: The writer could write objectively or subjectively. As the name sounds, this essay describes or defines a thing, a person, a place, or an event in detail.
• Expository: This type of essay is similar to the argumentative essay. The writer relies on research and analysis to write well-informed essays. The difference from argumentative essays is that it is not directed towards changing the readers’ mind about something but rather to inform them.

Conclusion

Writing a narrative essay should be problematic for you now. You know what it entails from introduction to conclusion. You also know the other types of essays that you can try to write.