Argumentative Essay: Full Guide With Examples

Argumentative essays are the perfect way to convince the audience of an opinion or idea. Forming an argument is a skill that needs to be applied with copious amounts of evidence and research. One needs to have facts to back up their arguments and make them convincing to the audience. It can be quite a challenge to write a good argumentative essay, but this is why we are here to take you through an argumentative essay format, provide you with advice, tips and also a couple of argumentative essay sample pieces to help you understand. With our help, you’ll have everything you need to write the perfect essay for yourself. It is easier said than done but then again, nothing worthwhile is easy.

What is an argumentative essay?

When we look at arguments, we are dealing with opinions and evidence. An argumentative essay simply takes the opinion of the writer and then it is their job to make the argument convincing to the audience. Mary coming up with an argument isn’t going to be sufficient. One has to carry out a lot of research and have things to back up their arguments with. It is quite a craft, but it is certainly something that can be achieved. Moreover, it is a lot of fun to try and put an argument together coherently and win over the audience.

Writing an argumentative essay

Argumentative essay structure is important when writing – the essay needs to be coherent and read well, otherwise arguments will not be understood by the audience. Any argumentative essay topic which has been chosen needs to be appealing to the reader. Once you have chosen a topic, you can develop some sort of arguments surrounding it and think about different opinions across the board. The argumentative sections of your essay need to contain evidence that supports your initial statements and ideas. It is much like a court case many people might know that the criminal is guilty, but without proof, there will be no guilty verdict. What exactly are you arguing for and how are you going to prove that it is true?

One needs to remember that their personal experience can provide interesting detail, yet it should not be the backbone of an argument. As an alternative, one needs to get their evidence from other credible sources. The most credible sources around are usually scientific journals, reputable publisher’s books, government data and peer-reviewed information. It is important to take sufficient care about the data that you are going to use in your essay.

Argumentative essay format

The structure of your essay is very important and you should take the time to plan. When you are planning, jot down as many arguments on both your side and the opposing side and see how you can structure the points to make your arguments in the body. It is worth taking time on structuring your essay because the format will determine the legibility and impact of your work. It is quite easy to get carried away and start working immediately, however writing an essay format and plan will actually make things easier for you.

Argumentative essays follow a basic format:

1. The introductory paragraph

2. The body section, comprising of at least three strong arguments

3. A section in the body to present opposing arguments

4. The concluding paragraph

It may seem very basic, however, this really is all you need to know. Follow this structure and you’ll be sure to have a coherent essay that will get you marks.

Taking an opposing viewpoint

If you look at every topic, there is always an alternative view and you need to take this into consideration. One is to demonstrate their analysis around the topic and this includes looking at the refutations to one’s argument. It can be easily demonstrated in the underlying research that you do. Make sure that you take into account opinions that are not of your own. Some of the best examples will be when you take a topic and come up with evidence on the contrary. As with both your view and the opposing view, make sure that there is evidence for both sides.

DO: presented both viewpoints, i.e. your view and an opposing view.

DO NOT: present more evidence for the opposing view than the view that you hold.

Refusing the opposing viewpoint

One needs to find the most evidence they can for their claims. After assessing opposing views, it is essential to acknowledge your own view and also any evidence surrounding both viewpoints. After all, if you don’t have any evidence for your argument then your argument will be nonsense. How can you expect anyone to take you seriously if there is no evidence for your claims?

The more statistics, logic, quotes and facts that you have, the more strong this makes your essay. One can really take in arguments seriously if there are numbers and facts to back it up with. Make sure, as previously discussed, that the sources of information are credible. It is very important to do ample research in order to gain enough facts and evidence. Also, one has to exercise their creative abilities so that they can come up with ways to make arguments convincing. One may have all the data at their hands, but how are they going to present it in a succinct and logical manner that reads well? Research is key and creativity is also important.

DO: backup your arguments with evidence.

DON’T: get your evidence from sources that are not credible.

In essence, an argumentative essay is all about dealing with your viewpoints and opposing viewpoints. One can put these in all sorts of orders, but it is recommended to talk about opposing viewpoints in the second or third paragraphs. One needs to make sure that they reference their work in every section so that people know where the evidence is coming from.

The introduction

How to start an argumentative essay is very important. Every great introduction should be succinct and to the point. One needs to keep the introduction short and easy to read because this is what is going to get the reader’s attention from the get-go. It is useful to include a hook, some relevant statistics or a quote in order to get the reader’s attention straight away. The introduction should contain a thesis statement, i.e. a summation of your arguments in a succinct couple of sentences max. The thesis statement will help the audience know what your arguments are all about.

DO: present information in a succinct manner.

DON’T: labour the point.

Concluding your essay

All good essays finished with great conclusions and the best conclusion is one which, much like the introduction, is succinct and slick. One needs to refer back to their thesis statement and show how the arguments have been presented throughout the essay. Before one concludes, they need to present a precise summary of all of the arguments and there needs to be a strong emphasis on the actual topic. All conclusions should be fairly short, much shorter than the body. A lot of students make the mistake of putting new ideas into their conclusion, however, one should never do this. If you are writing your essay and you find that you have some new ideas left over, go back and try structure these into the main body of the essay.

Argumentative essays were so the audience just how you can convince them to adopt certain ideas in a professional manner. One needs to pay attention to their evidence and facts which they can use to back up their claims. Without any of this, the essay will not be very interesting, nor will it be particularly useful. When writing, it is also very important to adapt your style to suit your argument.

DO: make references to your initial thesis statement.

DON’T: bring in any new ideas into the introduction.

Final checks

When you’ve reached the end of your essay, by no means is it over just yet! It’s not good to hand it in as soon as your pen as finished the final sentence, instead, one should go over and polish the essay off. Scrutinise your essay for any schoolboy errors, such as grammatical or spelling mistakes. Go over and see if the style is suitable for making your arguments and your case. One should always spend a lot of time editing their work, particularly to make it coherent. As a tip, read the essay back to yourself and if you ever feel like you need to stop all the arguments are not coming through to you, make some amendments.

DO: give yourself time to make final checks.

DON’T: skip on the editing process editing is very important to improve the coherence of one’s argument.

Argumentative essay examples

Next, we are going to look at argumentative essay example pieces. It is much better to look at some examples so that you know how to do things for yourself. While you read, take note at what makes the argument stand out and things that you want to adopt in your own essay. By studying other work, you can see what needs to be done. The two following topics are highly useful to today and they should provide interesting reading. Take a look and see for yourself how to write a great essay.

Argumentative essay example 1: Do we pay our CEOs too much money?

One can really look back at 2008 and breathe the desperate sigh – we all know what went wrong in the financial crisis. It is an example of the enormous disparity of wealth between CEOs at the top and everybody at the bottom. Moreover, it shows a disregard for other people’s finances – as long as there is money to be made by a CEO, that is all that matters to them. Other than CEOs role in this crisis, wages received by those at the top have been a talking point in contemporary media. Even in today’s society, people believe that capitalism has enabled CEOs to received excessive amounts of money when they really don’t need it.

Are they really getting paid too much? Today, top CEOs only work around three days in order to make a median salary, around £30,000 in the UK. one can find other evidence by looking at the FTSE 100 companies, CEOs salaries are almost a hundred and 20 times greater than the employees below. If one looks at the evidence, a CEO can expect to receive an average payment of £4 million and this has increased significantly over the years, going up from £3.5 million in 2015. The WPP group founder, Sir Martin, as one of the highest-paid CEOs in the UK today, bringing in a salary in excess of £80 million. It’s staggering to think that people can earn so much money when there are so many people who would struggle to get £1 million in their lifetime.

One can look at research conducted by Stanford Graduate School in the USA which has found out that 75% of Americans believe CEOs are paid way too much. In fact, around the world, there is a widespread consensus that CEOs are paid much more than employees on their factory floors, and they do much less work. Whether or not one chooses to believe this, it is certainly true that the disparity of wealth between the top and the bottom is enormous in today’s society. It is no wonder that CEOs pay has been the subject of widespread media attention. Pay gaps have widened in the last three decades – in the 1940s, as CEO could be expected to make 40 times less than an average CEO in today’s society. This figure is also adjusted for inflation.

So what direct impact does all of this have? CEOs pay certainly impacts on the company’s performance in the stock exchange. There are two different ways that impacts can be made. If one looks at Steve Jobs’ death, this caused Apple to lose about 5% of its stock market value, whereas Microsoft’s shares to increase by around 7% when their CEO stepped down from the job. Clearly, there are many factors to consider and a company’s performance is based upon who is in charge. Many CEOs today may decide to leave that job because of some bad press and this can have an effect on the stock market value of the company. There are a lot of greedy people out there who will run the company through the ground.

Many stock-market traders and analysts can attest to the fact that CEOs have direct impacts on the performance rates of their companies, thus a CEO certainly affects everybody below them. It really does depend on the leader’s vision and what kind of impact this can have. With such huge levels of responsibility under a CEO’s shoulders, there is a lot at stake and a lot that can improve or fail, yet should they be paid so much to do their job?

Maybe we can rest easy knowing that there are some people who will make more than us? It is unlikely that people will be sympathetic to the enormous and exaggerated wage packets CEOs gain, so what can be done about payment? Many employees in companies are very discontented by the remuneration packages of their CEO. A lot of people think that salaries should be capped at a certain limit in order to make things fair for everybody. Can this be a good thing and can it actually happen? Almost certainly, this will be a fair choice for everyone on board, including the people at the top. People deserve to be paid for the work that they do and to take their line share of the profits. Why should someone at the top get everything and the people below doing the majority of the work get much less?

However, it is not as easy as that. There are complications for adding wage caps. It is difficult to interfere with free-market capitalism without causing significant opportunity cost. For example, if the CEOs wage was capped at a certain level, what’s to stop them from packing up their whole operation and moving to a country that doesn’t have such wage can? It would be an easy endeavour and it would be highly rational in the CEOs mind because they could make much more money. Some people say that people wouldn’t want to do this, because they have their lives invested in the city where they work, but wouldn’t you move somewhere if you could make a few million pounds more a year? The incentive to make money that free-market capitalism provides is important and it is the reason why a CEOs wage is so high – the market allocates their wage to be large because there is a lot of demand to become CEO. Everybody wants to earn millions of pounds a year, don’t they?

Government intervention could also reduce the wage of CEOs, requiring companies to reinvest their money or pay more taxes. These interventions could reduce the wage of a CEO, forcing them to pay more tax. In this way, this could redress some income inequality and bring the gap between the highest and poorest owners closer together. This is certainly good, yet it could lead CEOs to move their company abroad once again. Companies could move to tax haven countries and earn high wages. As CEO is also unlikely to take a wage cut, even if they need to pay more tax, so they could compromise the pay of people below them or reduce the quality of their products/services in order to keep their high salary. There are problems to be dealt with regarding government intervention.

In conclusion, the level of income inequality in our world is off the chart. High-ranking employee or CEO makes an enormous amount more than a basement-level employee. We need to work towards improving companies so that this enormous disparity of wealth is reduced. Government intervention, wage caps and other methods can be used to do this. CEOs can also accept that what they are receiving is unacceptable and plough their wage back into investment in their company and the people below them, however, this is up to them and not us.

Argumentative essay example 2: Are we all too dependent on our mobile phones?

Go around, look around and count the number of phones you can see. Whether you like it or not, the mobile phone is absolutely everywhere! Even five-year-old kids at school are playing with their mobiles in the playground. The common phone is completely central to the lives of many and not just for their function as a phone either. After they were invented as devices that could connect people together and use Apps, they have grown substantially in their popularity around the world. One can now listen to music, watch a video, play games and so much more. However, many people are hinting at the fact that some of these devices are beginning to occupy larger roles in our lives, up to the point where mobile phone addiction is becoming a sentence that we can add in our dictionary.

So why exactly have mobiles grown so much in popularity over the years? There are many reasons, but mainly it is all about the way that communication has changed over time. A mobile phone permits one to communicate in many different ways and this has made the world a smaller place in essence. Rather than simple vocal communication, one can use their mobile to send pictures, location info, videos and a lot more in order to be able to communicate. There is really something for everyone with a phone. As far as long-distance communication is concerned, a mobile is a godsend – only now can people communicate across the planet. People can even accomplish business assignments in remote locations.

So are we all becoming much too dependent on these devices? Our modern society today has certainly embraced the mobile phone but has this come at some cost to us? Today we only carry around one tiny little device that can bring us everything we need. We are ever-increasingly becoming dependent on our mobile phones for even the most basic of activities, such as knowing what the time is. It is true to say that mobile phones have become some of the most multifaceted devices this ever to be in existence.

In addition, phones have become such a big problem that people are essentially glued to them, even when they are not communicating in any way. A lot of people regard their phone as a hub for receiving all sorts of entertainment throughout the day. It is made worse as content creators advertise and push through different entertainment options to mobile phone clients.

There are a number of different problems which are created by an excess of mobile phone use. Recently, the World Unplugged Project decided to see how long individuals could go without their device and the results were not promising. People were asked to not use their mobile phones and stay away from them for 24 hours – those that did ended up developing all sorts of psychological problems and some even displayed certain physical problems as a result of this.

The impact that mobile devices have had can be summed up with one single action – people checking excessively to the point of habit. Even when someone has not received a call or message, people turn to their phone and think about receiving new things such as content from social media and apps. In essence, this can have problems for society.

In conclusion, it is true to say that mobile phones have made our lives more convenient, however, they have created a plethora of health problems for ordinary citizens. On a superficial level, mobile devices do appear to make improvements to the quality of life of people, yet they slowly consume society in general. It is not entirely feasible or possible to put away one’s mobile phone, yet people should see how serious problems can ensue from phone use.

Best of luck with your essay

An argumentative essay is actually more simple than you think. As long as one remembers to put into practice everything that we discussed throughout this article, they should easily be able to convince the audience to follow their viewpoint. As a final reminder, make sure to use credible sources of information and evidence to make your arguments convincing and your viewpoint stronger. Be sure to provide factual evidence on both sides of the argument, helping to refute the opposite side and make your argument look strong. Make use of good analytical skills and writing a coherent style. If you ever need help with your essay writing, our team will be happy to assist you at any time of the day. We have credible experts that can generate ideas and write all of an essay for you.