Argumentative compositions are therefore, compositions that are written to convince or to persuade the reader to accept a certain claim, idea or proposition. Different people have different opinions on the same topic. It is the strength of your opinion that will make your point/argument accepted or rejected. When writing an argumentative essay, it doesn’t matter whether the point given is true or not. What matters is a point with a strong convincing power.
PARTS OF A POWERFUL ARGUMENTATIVE ESSAY
- a) Introductory Paragraph
This is the attention grabber. It should provide a strong statement or thesis statement that’s to be argued on.
It is in this paragraph that the writer is expected to declare his/her stand on the claim
Take the claim below as an example:
“Massive failure in form four national examinations is contributed by the teachers.”
Now read the following introductory paragraph:
Example
For the past two years, there has been massive failure in form four national examinations. Several explanations have been fronted to explain this trend. However, this essay is presenting a claim that the massive failure among the form four candidates has been contributed to by the teachers.
b) Body Paragraph
Each body paragraph is about one argument.
Each body paragraph must begin with a topic sentence.
Detail sentences support the topic sentence and may contain quotes, statistics, and facts.
c) Conclusion Paragraph
The writer should restate the claim to summarize his/her argument. Counter-claim and rebuttal should be used before a recommendation is made.
Example
In summary, teachers should be blamed for the massive students’ failure. However, it should also be noted that other than teachers, there are some other factors like lack of laboratory equipment, lack of books in libraries and understaffing in some schools could lead to failure among students as well. The stakeholders should therefore solve these problems in order to look forward for excelling in examinations.