In college, you deal with many essay types: term papers, book reports, and personal narratives — all are important to write for a high final grade. Persuasive writing is the trickiest one:

It requires a lot of research and writing strategies to structure your work so you convince readers to agree with your point of view. Not only do you share information, but you also persuade the audience, using solid arguments and evidence in your paper.

In this article, you’ll learn how to write a persuasive assignment and what writing strategies can help you make it worth the highest grade.

What is Persuasive Writing?

Persuasive writing refers to any text aiming to convince the reader of a writer’s opinion. It can be an academic essay, a political or social speech, sales copywriting work, a marketing blog post, etc.

Unlike other writing forms meant to share information, persuasive texts include solid evidence and logical arguments. They appeal to emotions and need to be compelling enough to influence readers and make them agree with an author’s point of view.

What is the Purpose of Persuasive Writing in College?

When a professor assigns persuasive writing in college, they want you to craft a paper where you’ll use logic, solid arguments, and evidence to convince readers.

It’s critical to understand the difference between persuasive and argumentative essays here:

While both require research and arguments, a persuasive essay is about choosing a side and providing evidence only about that chosen aspect. You mention counterarguments here but explain why they don’t work.

Argumentative essays are about representing both sides of a topic. You don’t convince anyone here but describe arguments and counterarguments for readers to decide which side to choose.

What can you use as evidence to persuade the audience of what you say?

• Academic research
• Statistics
• Expert quotes
• Case studies with examples
• Logical reasons

And now, to practice:

How to Write Persuasive Assignments

Choose a Topic

Given that persuasive essays aim at convincing the readers, their topics are to be polemical. In other words, you take an issue with at least two points of view in society. No one needs a persuasive article on “People need air to breathe:” It’s common knowledge, and there’s nothing to prove here. But “People need cannabis for better health” might work: It’s an issue someone would agree while others would disagree with.

Some professors assign a particular topic for persuasive essays, but often they ask you to choose it. (They want to check your critical thinking skills and the ability to prove your point on polemical issues.)

If you want your essay to succeed, consider topics in spheres like animal rights, politics, gender issues, or climate change. However, ensure you write about what worries you and have enough arguments and evidence to persuade readers of your position.

Here go some topic ideas for your persuasive writing:

1. Nuclear weapons are effective to prevent foreign attacks.
2. Every American should learn a foreign language.
3. Feminism is no longer a struggle for women’s rights.
4. The power of kindness is in its weakness.
5. It is necessary to cancel the mandatory exams in schools.

Two rules here:

(1) Consider topics that inspire you personally, and (2) take topics that are up-to-date and with enough discussion in literature and online: It won’t be problematic to research and find evidence on them.

Do Research

You won’t write an efficient persuasive paper with no research on the topic. Given that you need to convince readers of your opinion, you should understand the topic from multiple angles and decide what side you choose to prove in your writing.

So, once you choose a topic, it’s time to gather the information: Consider academic studies, relevant media news, expert opinions, and historical examples. You’ll need to examine and evaluate them to see what the world already has about this issue and which resources you can use as references in your essay.

Here’s how to evaluate sources: Consider those fitting the five following criteria.

1. Current: check the publication date.
2. Relevant: check if the info answers your question and is deep enough to cover the issue.
3. Accurate: check where the info comes from (educational or governmental resources, reputable organizations, etc.).
4. Authoritative: check the authors’ credentials.
5. Purposeful: check the purpose of the resource (educate, entertain, persuade). Is their information based on facts? Is their point of view objective?

Choose Your Opinion

Remember the core difference between argumentative and persuasive writing:

Argumentative is about describing both sides of the issue and letting the audience choose which one to support. Persuasion is about convincing the audience of your opinion on the issue.

So, you need to choose a polemical topic and decide whether you agree or disagree with it. Which side are you going to support in your essay?

When choosing, ensure you have enough evidence in your references to prove your point to readers. You’ll need credible arguments to sway the audience to your side.

Write an Outline

Okay, now you have a topic, you’ve chosen the side to prove, and you’ve done research to find solid references that will help support your arguments. It’s time to outline your essay so you don’t miss anything when writing.

Persuasive essays have a standard structure:

1. Introduction, with a hook, background, and thesis statement.
2. Essay body, with 1-2 paragraphs describing your arguments and evidence + 1 paragraph describing your opponent’s arguments and your counterarguments why you disagree with that opposite point of view.
3. Conclusion summing up your points and restating your thesis for the audience to have food for thought after reading your essay.

You are welcome to use the below template for outlining your persuasive essays. Once you fill it in, it will be much easier to write your paper step by step.

Write and Edit Your Persuasive Essay

Now you have everything to sit and start writing your persuasive essay’s draft:

• In the introduction paragraph, describe the issue and state the point you’ll support throughout your paper.
• In body paragraphs, remember to include evidence from credible resources to prove your point and convince readers to agree with you. You can also represent the opposite point on the issue but still provide arguments for why you disagree.
• In the final paragraph (conclusion), wrap up your points and restate your thesis once again for readers to remember it. You can finish with a question for the audience to think about.

Once your essay draft is ready, don’t hurry to submit it to a professor. Wait for a couple of days — and then reread it with a fresh eye to proofread and edit it if necessary.

Re-check your arguments again, and ensure the essay structure is logical and all the paragraphs are clear and coherent. Are your points and evidence solid enough to persuade readers of your opinion? Remember to check your essay for grammar and style errors: Apps like Grammarly or ProWritingAid can assist you.

10 Successful Persuasive Writing Strategies

Here at CopyCrafter, our writers deal with many persuasive essays daily. They’ve shared several practical tips on how to work on your writing assignment so that it turns out successful and A-worthy.

We know you don’t have much time to deal with long reads, so the given persuasive writing strategies go in brief. 😉

1 — Choose a Topic You’re Passionate About

We bet you’ll agree with us on this one:

It’s much easier to research and write about something that is interesting to you. If your professor doesn’t assign any particular topic but invites you to choose yours, think of issues that bother you and that you’d like to share with the audience.

First, it will be easier to research such topics because you already know some facts and evidence about them. And second, they’ll motivate you to examine the question deeper and learn new facts rather than sit and hate your professor for assigning it.

2 — Know Your Audience

To persuade people of your opinion on the topic, you need to know who will read your essay. Do you know their age, interests, or background? What do they know and think about the issue you’re going to represent?

Depending on the audience, you might consider different arguments and evidence for your essay. Also, it will help you understand what words to use and what emotions to appeal to for readers to believe you.

3 — Speak Directly to the Reader

Speaking to the reader is an effective writing strategy, so do your best to address your audience directly as “you:” It makes your writing feel more like a conversation than teaching, encouraging readers to lower their objections and listen to your points.

4 — Research, Research, Research Both Sides

Let’s face it: No one cares about opinions if they don’t follow E-A-T (expertness, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness). Today, we all are online, with personal blogs and social media, sharing thoughts and trying to communicate something to the world. But why should the world care?

In persuasive writing, the depth of research and information matters. As an author, you need to know both sides of the issue to have enough arguments and evidence to prove your point.

So, don’t hurry up to write until you examine and evaluate the facts. For that, do not be lazy to research the topic you’re going to represent in your writing.

5 — Write a Clear Thesis Statement

A thesis statement is the central idea of your writing. It introduces your point of view to the audience and helps them understand what you’ll try to communicate in your paper. That is why it should be clear and transparent.

A clear statement is your weapon to avoid confusion. Otherwise, readers won’t understand the purpose of your essay and will leave disappointed.

6 — Hook the Reader from the Start

Get your audience interested in your writing: Think of a so-called hook to grab their attention from the very beginning. The first sentence of your essay can be an intriguing question about the topic you’ll cover, a quote from an expert sharing some controversial information, unexpected statistics, an interesting fact, etc.

Give them a reason to continue reading your work. What’s so special about it? What’s in there for them? Why should they care? But please do not manipulate readers’ emotions and do not lie: Use straightforward language, be concise, and choose words that sound persuasive. (More on that below.)

7 — Choose Words Carefully

Word choice is critical in persuasive writing because they help emphasize your points, evoke emotions, and convince readers that your opinion is correct and worth trusting. Words are your instrument to build connections and personal relationships with the audience, so do your best to use strong language in your essays.

What does it mean?

Use active verbs, the right tone of voice, and power words (those descriptive and helping the readers understand what you want to say). Avoid redundant adverbs, slang and jargon, and wateriness: be precise.

Don’t repeat linking words and sentences; say no to irrelevant information. If the reader can’t follow your thoughts or you make too many immaterial points, you will lose your reader’s interest and have no chance of persuading them.

8 — Emphasize Your Point

Make the most of exaggeration and hyperbolic statements to express urgency or support your point. It doesn’t mean to lie in an attempt to impress readers: It’s a great persuasive technique when you want to convey an impactful image for readers to “hear” you.

Another writing trick to try is appealing to emotions. Readers are more likely to believe you if they feel you understand them and can relate to their experience. Thus, you’ll target their sensitivities and provide arguments for why their opinions on the discussed topic may change.

9 — Repeat Your Arguments

We speak about strategic repetition here, when you find different ways to make the same point: metaphors, rephrasing, storytelling, and other literary devices. Don’t ignore them while writing:

They’ll prevent you from using monotonous language and the same patterns. Readers won’t think anything like, “Oh my, s/he has mentioned it several times already,” and you will be able to reinforce your point without annoying the audience with repetitiveness.

10 — Ask for Feedback

When you think you have completed your writing, read through it thoroughly and check every part. Invite a few friends or family members to check it and give you their honest opinion, take feedback from unbiased people, and use their comments to make any final and effective changes.

Ready to Write an Essay That Persuades Readers?

Writing persuasive texts that have the potential to change someone’s way of thinking is not an easy task. If you want to succeed here, you need to know your audience, state your point of view clearly, and support it with arguments you can prove with evidence like research, quotes from experts, statistics, and relevant emotional appeals.

More than that, it would help if you could anticipate and respond to objections your opponents might have.

We hope this article has answered all your questions on persuasive writing, its purpose, and how to craft it when assigned. Still in doubt? Feel free to contact our professional writers for assistance.

Some students believe short story writing is the least challenging assignment they can get in college. They think it won’t take much time and effort to complete it because… well, it’s short, after all.

But there’s a catch:

Shorter doesn’t equal easier. Do you remember Mark Twain saying to his friend, “I didn’t have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead?” This writing form requires more diligence and clarity: You need an intriguing opening to hook readers, powerful words to communicate your character’s goal and conflict, and a compelling ending to wow readers and make them remember your story.

Short story writing’s structure reminds the format of a personal narrative, but here you don’t write about yourself. You craft fiction with all the components of storytelling in it.

Seems too challenging?

This article will help you learn how to write a short story. No time to read as the due date is coming? Ask our online assignment help to assist you with short story writing.

What Is a Short Story?

Because of their length (1,000 to 5,000 words), short stories are less complex than longer narratives like novellas (typically 30,000 words) or novels.

In a short story, you can build a world and have multiple characters, but this world won’t be as extended as in a novel, and every character won’t have a backstory or a meaningful character arc like you’d provide in a lengthier work. So, here go the restrictions:

• No big worlds or intricate plots like in The Lord of the Rings.
• No backstories or meaningful character arcs like in Harry Potter.
• No subplots or complex narratives like in Game of Thrones.

Okay, what’s in there in a short story instead?

Short Story Components

Your story is short, but it doesn’t mean its theme is less profound than a longer work’s theme. While you have fewer words, characters, and a simpler setting for writing a short story, it still needs to impact readers.

When planning your story, ensure to think of the following elements:

1. Mood or feeling. What do you want to evoke in readers? Is it an emotion of joy, grief, or loss? An idea concerning some life lessons or morals? Do your best to define the clear goal of your story: It will help you decide on the language, plot, and other instruments for writing it.
2. Descriptive language. Your story is short, so every word needs to be clear and essential to the concept, context, and plot development.
3. Point. What do you want to say with your short story? You need to know a clear point before writing your story so you could reflect on it throughout the text.

Speaking of short stories, we often mean a traditional storytelling technique: setting, hero’s journey, conflict, resolution, and all this stuff. It works for a short story writing assignment in the college, either. However, if you write a fiction story outside your academic life, feel free to break the rules and play around with conventions:

You are welcome to try writing flash fiction or microfiction, aka stories under 1,000 words. Or, practice anecdotes, aka short narratives with a moral lesson. Regular writing of fables, feghoot, sketches, or vignettes can be a good practice, too: They are short scenes that can become a part of your massive literary work later.

In the literary world, all these numbers are nominal. Take the famous, “For sale: baby shoes, never worn,” for example: In six words, the author provides all five elements every short story has:

1. Character: a person, an animal, or a creature who does an action in your story.
2. Plot: a series of events to illustrate the conflict of your story.
3. Theme: the central message of your story, a point you want to communicate to readers.
4. Conflict: what drives your story’s plot; the obstacles a hero overcomes or the goal they want to reach. A conflict can be internal or external.
5. Setting: the time and place where your story occurs.

The above short story about baby shoes is a palmary example of how critical language patterns are for communicating the point. That story relies on the reader extrapolating meaning from the words, and it succeeds.

What’s in a Short Story College Assignment?

When it comes to college assignments, a six-word story is not an option, of course, but it’s a great way to practice your writing skills! Also, it may serve as a warm-up before you start working on a short story or any other assignment.

A short story college assignment is not that different from traditional short story writing. A professor will ask you to craft a 500-1,000 word piece that includes storytelling elements.

So, you will need to:

• Choose a theme as the basis of your story.
• Decide on a setting and a plot to communicate the theme to the audience.
• Create a character who’ll have a goal and a conflict.
• Use indirect characterization and descriptive pictures to bring your characters to life and make them and your whole story believable.
• Think of a conflict resolution at the end of the story and the emotion (thought, idea) you want to evoke in readers. In other words, what’s the point of your short story?

Yes, the whole process looks challenging and time-consuming. No worries! Below is your step-by-step guide on how to write a short story.

Hint:

The prewriting phase is the most difficult one, and it takes much more time than writing a draft.

Reminder:

If you don’t have time and energy for short story prewriting and writing, you can ask professional academic writers for help. Here at CopyСrafter, we are ready to assist you 24/7.

How to Write a Short Story

1 — Decide on the Idea

Short story ideas are numerous. It’s a self-contained work of fiction, so do your best to mine imagination and craft an engaging story that evokes emotions from the audience.

It’s critical:

Before you sit and write a story just the way it goes in your mind, you need to decide on the theme and mood you want to convey. What idea or point of view do you want to communicate with your story? How will you represent it?

All the elements in your short story will work together to give your idea to the readers. What kind of story do you want to tell, and why? Start your brainstorming session — and write down the genre of your story (humor, horror, drama, romance?), its theme (a central message you want to convey), and the emotion you want to evoke (joy, grief, compassion, anger, etc.).

If you already have ideas on the setting and characters for your short story, write them down too. The key plot points are also worth noting: They’ll help you fill in details later.

2 — Think of a Character’s Goal and Conflict

Please don’t move on to outlining and writing a short story before you have a protagonist and a conflict. You need to know them beforehand; otherwise, you won’t understand what to write and how to move your story’s plot to the end (resolution).

A conflict is what shapes your characters, drives your plot, and allows you to communicate your theme to readers.

As you remember, your story is short and has a limited word number. That’s why one main character with one conflict is a great way to start. Think of the goal your protagonist wants to reach and a few obstacles they will overcome to succeed.

The following worksheet can help you create a character for your short story:

If your story has several characters, try describing each of them with the above worksheet. It will allow you to understand each hero better and craft their words and deeds accordingly.

3 — Choose a Strong Opening

How to start writing a short story? Consider the restrictions of this format:

You won’t have a lot of room for wordy descriptions and exposition, and that is why start with a catchy opening that will hook readers and immerse them in your plot at once.

Some writers practice the in media res trick: Open your story in the middle of the action and fill in details later. In other words, take the reader straight to the central scene of your plot.

Or, you can try these ideas for opening your short story:

1. Scene-setting. A reader joins the character in a pause before the action.
2. Conflict establishment. The exact moment when a character gets into trouble.
3. Mystifier. Throw a reader into a situation without giving any details yet.
4. You, as the third-person narrator, speak to a reader.
5. You, as the first-person narrator, speak to a reader.
6. Quotation.
7. Puzzler. You set up the conflict while making a reader guess what happens here.

Here go examples of each one:

4 — Outline Your Story

Now it’s time to write a detailed outline for your short story. Fill in this plot diagram, and you won’t miss any critical moment while writing:

5 — Write a Draft

You have a character worksheet and a plot diagram at hand, so the time has come to craft a rough draft of your short story. When writing, remember that you have a certain number of words to develop a plot, communicate a theme, and resolve a conflict:

Don’t waste space.

Your every sentence should be vital for driving a story. Focus on the story’s message and ask yourself, “Does this sentence need to be here? Does it serve to illuminate the story’s mood?”

Words and syntax matter in short stories to communicate mood and emotions and help readers “see” your setting and sympathize with the characters. Writers know it as the “Show, don’t tell” principle:

Use active verbs and descriptive adjectives that appeal to the human five senses and allow readers to “see, hear, smell, taste, and feel” what happens in your story. To make it easier, prepare a so-called setting worksheet beforehand: Write down metaphors, comparisons, images, associations, and other lexical items that will help you build a story using descriptive writing.

Tip: Don’t think of including all of them while writing a draft! Your goal is to get something out on the page and communicate your story’s overall aim. So, sit and write; avoid the temptation to edit your draft while writing. You’ll have a chance to improve the language when editing.

6 — Decide on a Compelling Ending

The end of your short story is even more critical than its opening: Readers wait for an exciting resolution, and they’ll be disappointed if you spoil your beautiful narrative with a weak finale. The most compelling resolutions center on your characters:

• What has changed about the protagonist of your short story?

Your characters can’t stay the same. Otherwise, what was the reason for their journey? The changes can be positive or negative, but they should have a place.

Also, focus on the mood you planned to evoke in readers: What would be the best way to finish the story to capture that mood and convey the desired message? Ensure your ending follows naturally from where your story began, and don’t leave readers with too obvious resolutions.

7 — Edit, Edit, Edit!

So, your draft is ready. Congratulations, the hardest part of your short story writing is over! Now it’s time to re-read it several times and revise your story, if necessary.

When editing, think of the following:

• Do I give enough information for my readers to picture the story’s characters and events?
• Are my story details specific and relevant to the overall theme and mood?
• Do I use descriptive language? Do my words and sentence structures fit the characters?

For your story to get an A+, it needs a vivid and descriptive setting, named and clearly described characters with problems that are easy for readers to understand, and a logical solution to the character’s conflict. Use dialogues to bring your characters to life and add creative details to contribute to the reader’s enjoyment.

And remember to correct spelling and grammar errors before submitting your story to a professor or publishing it somewhere. Meet all the written requirements (# of words or pages, font, margins, etc.): It would be a pity to get a lower grade because of such technical details, wouldn’t it?

Need Help With Short Story Writing Assignments?

Now that you know and have everything for short story writing, it’s time to craft a masterpiece that will impress your professor and all the readers who’ll see it. Are you ready to follow the tips from this post and structure your story in the best way possible? Maybe, you already have a theme or a protagonist with a conflict to describe in your work, huh?

If you still have questions or need practical help with short story writing assignments in college, please don’t hesitate to contact us. CopyCrafter’s professional writers assist with any academic paper type — just ask.