argumentative essay examples british council

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A music review

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Unit 6: Process writing

When we write in ‘real life’, what kind of process do we follow? We usually need to think first, write a rough draft, review, amend ... and then produce a finished piece.  

How about if we followed this natural process in the classroom? What results would we see in the written texts our learners produce?

This video shows a process writing class in action, demonstrating how the natural process of formulating a text can be followed in the classroom and integrated with other skills. This example shows how the ‘process’ approach gives learners of all ages the tools to produce successful written work at curriculum and exam level, as well as a motivating and rewarding learning experience.

Part 1 shows all the key stages of a process writing lesson in action.

Part 2 examines the students’ reaction to the lesson, focusing on learning points and goals.

Download the session notes below the videos. The notes contain discussion, video-viewing and reflection tasks. Follow the tasks by going through the video in sequence. The video and session notes are designed as self-study resources to be worked through together. Techniques are transferable to other classes in other contexts.

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Part 1: A process writing lesson

Part 2: Lesson feedback: learning points and goals

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Research and insight

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British Council

How to win an argument, by hitham elhimmali, 02 march 2017 - 16:24.

stevepb, licensed under CC0 and adapted from the original .

We asked Hitham Elhimmali, a young doctor in Tripoli, Libya, who is a debating champion and trainer in the British Council's Young Arab Voices programme.

Make a logical case.

Winning an argument depends on three things: logic, charisma, and team work (in a debate, when you're part of a team).

Logic is one of the fundamental pillars of constructing an argument. If your argument is not logical, you won't convince your audience. What's more, your opponent may spot your flawed logic and target it as a weakness.

Be aware of your body language

It also helps to be charming. Charismatic speakers tend to catch and hold people's attention. If you can get people to listen to you, you have already done almost half the job of winning them over to your side.

You can appear to be more confident by practising your body language and gestures. Some people are blessed to be born with natural confidence, but that doesn't mean that you can't learn to be more charismatic.

Keep your emotions in check and stay calm. Fidgeting or responding in an agitated way to an opponent's claims may be interpreted as weakness. Worse, you might come across as disrespectful. Remember that people will judge you based on how you come across, as well as your argument.

Instead, ask your opponent specific questions about a point of weakness in their argument. This can expose a lack of evidence for their argument, false information, or made-up claims.

A few don'ts

Never make it personal. Don't attack the person you're debating with. Focus on their argument or the case they have presented. Your attitude defines who you are: never call your opponent names, or say he or she is a liar, even if they did lie.

Prepare before you speak

For a public debate , where the topic is announced in advance, you need at least two days to prepare. That's the minimum amount of time you need to hunt for detailed information about the subject and check all the facts. You have to put in this effort if you want to build a solid case, reinforced by evidence-based arguments.

If you're in a team, hold a brainstorming session in which you discuss the logic, structure and evidence for your argument, consider counter-arguments that your opponents might make, and think about your individual role in the debate.

Study your opponent

You should spend about a third of your preparation time on studying your opponent. It’s like taking defensive measures before a battle. Instead of studying unfamiliar terrain, you examine the opposing view of your case; and instead of studying the enemy's weapons, you analyse your opponent's tactics - for example, watching videos of previous debates done by your opponent's team. 

You can Google your opponent, but I find it more helpful to watch a video of them debating, arguing, or being interviewed. That gives me a sense of who I am facing: how they talk, and what tactics they use when they argue. I pay attention to how they respond to questions, how they make rebuttals, and what role they play in a larger group of people.

In a debate tournament, you only get a limited time to prepare, usually 15 to 20 minutes. The best way to use that time is to quickly test ideas with the other people on your team, so you can construct the best possible argument.

Try to put yourself in your opponent's shoes

Put yourself in the other person’s perspective and study their point of view. This helps you spot and understand any weaknesses in your own argument.

You might even agree with a fundamental idea underlying your opponent's argument, but disagree with your opponent's strategy to make their case. 

Be careful when arguing at home

Arguing during a debate is totally different from arguing with your friends and family. In the throes of a formal debate, the competitive spirit focuses you on totally undermining your opponent’s ideas. It would be impossible to use the same tough tactics when arguing with close friends or relatives, as it might make them uncomfortable.

Debating skills are useful when you want to convince people of an idea, advocate for a cause, or advance in your career. But it would not be practical for every daily conversation to become a debate that you don't want to lose.

Personally, I keep my debate persona at bay when I am at home. Life is all about making compromises to get along with people, so I compromise with my family and friends.

Not all arguments are productive

Sometimes, having an intellectual argument can be fruitful and stimulating: it helps you understand both sides of a situation.

But arguing with people who have an extreme or narrow-minded point of view can be dangerous, especially where I live in Libya. So, depending on the person and their ability to listen to and respect another person's point of view, I make a decision: either we have a healthy discussion, or I withdraw from an argument that would be a waste of time and might create more harm than benefit.

Set ground rules with your opponent

In a team debate, you don't have to bring your opponent to accept the same debating rules, as the rules are enforced by a committee.

For daily arguments, it is more difficult. You could agree on some ground rules, like a verbal contract of some sort, that both parties will listen to each other, respect one another, will have a similar amount of time to present their case, and will have the right to respond to each other's argument.

Hitham is the founder and president of the Libyan Organisation of Debates. 

Find out more about our Young Arab Voices programme in Libya.

You might also be interested in

• How to become good at debating
• How to overcome your fear of public speaking
• Why we should care about Libya's cultural heritage

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Life skills essay.

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Argumentative Essay Examples to Inspire You (+ Free Formula)

Table of contents

Meredith Sell

Have you ever been asked to explain your opinion on a controversial issue? 

• Maybe your family got into a discussion about chemical pesticides
• Someone at work argues against investing resources into your project
• Your partner thinks intermittent fasting is the best way to lose weight and you disagree

Proving your point in an argumentative essay can be challenging, unless you are using a proven formula.

Argumentative essay formula & example

In the image below, you can see a recommended structure for argumentative essays. It starts with the topic sentence, which establishes the main idea of the essay. Next, this hypothesis is developed in the development stage. Then, the rebuttal, or the refutal of the main counter argument or arguments. Then, again, development of the rebuttal. This is followed by an example, and ends with a summary. This is a very basic structure, but it gives you a bird-eye-view of how a proper argumentative essay can be built.

Writing an argumentative essay (for a class, a news outlet, or just for fun) can help you improve your understanding of an issue and sharpen your thinking on the matter. Using researched facts and data, you can explain why you or others think the way you do, even while other reasonable people disagree.

Free AI argumentative essay generator > Free AI argumentative essay generator >

What Is an Argumentative Essay?

An argumentative essay is an explanatory essay that takes a side.

Instead of appealing to emotion and personal experience to change the reader’s mind, an argumentative essay uses logic and well-researched factual information to explain why the thesis in question is the most reasonable opinion on the matter.  

Over several paragraphs or pages, the author systematically walks through:

• The opposition (and supporting evidence)
• The chosen thesis (and its supporting evidence)

At the end, the author leaves the decision up to the reader, trusting that the case they’ve made will do the work of changing the reader’s mind. Even if the reader’s opinion doesn’t change, they come away from the essay with a greater understanding of the perspective presented — and perhaps a better understanding of their original opinion.

All of that might make it seem like writing an argumentative essay is way harder than an emotionally-driven persuasive essay — but if you’re like me and much more comfortable spouting facts and figures than making impassioned pleas, you may find that an argumentative essay is easier to write. 

Plus, the process of researching an argumentative essay means you can check your assumptions and develop an opinion that’s more based in reality than what you originally thought. I know for sure that my opinions need to be fact checked — don’t yours?

So how exactly do we write the argumentative essay?

How do you start an argumentative essay

First, gain a clear understanding of what exactly an argumentative essay is. To formulate a proper topic sentence, you have to be clear on your topic, and to explore it through research.

Students have difficulty starting an essay because the whole task seems intimidating, and they are afraid of spending too much time on the topic sentence. Experienced writers, however, know that there is no set time to spend on figuring out your topic. It's a real exploration that is based to a large extent on intuition.

6 Steps to Write an Argumentative Essay (Persuasion Formula)

Use this checklist to tackle your essay one step at a time:

1. Research an issue with an arguable question

To start, you need to identify an issue that well-informed people have varying opinions on. Here, it’s helpful to think of one core topic and how it intersects with another (or several other) issues. That intersection is where hot takes and reasonable (or unreasonable) opinions abound. 

I find it helpful to stage the issue as a question.

For example: 

Is it better to legislate the minimum size of chicken enclosures or to outlaw the sale of eggs from chickens who don’t have enough space?

Should snow removal policies focus more on effectively keeping roads clear for traffic or the environmental impacts of snow removal methods?

Once you have your arguable question ready, start researching the basic facts and specific opinions and arguments on the issue. Do your best to stay focused on gathering information that is directly relevant to your topic. Depending on what your essay is for, you may reference academic studies, government reports, or newspaper articles.

‍ Research your opposition and the facts that support their viewpoint as much as you research your own position . You’ll need to address your opposition in your essay, so you’ll want to know their argument from the inside out.

2. Choose a side based on your research

You likely started with an inclination toward one side or the other, but your research should ultimately shape your perspective. So once you’ve completed the research, nail down your opinion and start articulating the what and why of your take. 

What: I think it’s better to outlaw selling eggs from chickens whose enclosures are too small.

Why: Because if you regulate the enclosure size directly, egg producers outside of the government’s jurisdiction could ship eggs into your territory and put nearby egg producers out of business by offering better prices because they don’t have the added cost of larger enclosures.

This is an early form of your thesis and the basic logic of your argument. You’ll want to iterate on this a few times and develop a one-sentence statement that sums up the thesis of your essay.

Thesis: Outlawing the sale of eggs from chickens with cramped living spaces is better for business than regulating the size of chicken enclosures.

Now that you’ve articulated your thesis , spell out the counterargument(s) as well. Putting your opposition’s take into words will help you throughout the rest of the essay-writing process. (You can start by choosing the counter argument option with Wordtune Spices .)

Counterargument: Outlawing the sale of eggs from chickens with too small enclosures will immediately drive up egg prices for consumers, making the low-cost protein source harder to afford — especially for low-income consumers.

There may be one main counterargument to articulate, or several. Write them all out and start thinking about how you’ll use evidence to address each of them or show why your argument is still the best option.

3. Organize the evidence — for your side and the opposition

You did all of that research for a reason. Now’s the time to use it. 

Hopefully, you kept detailed notes in a document, complete with links and titles of all your source material. Go through your research document and copy the evidence for your argument and your opposition’s into another document.

List the main points of your argument. Then, below each point, paste the evidence that backs them up.

If you’re writing about chicken enclosures, maybe you found evidence that shows the spread of disease among birds kept in close quarters is worse than among birds who have more space. Or maybe you found information that says eggs from free-range chickens are more flavorful or nutritious. Put that information next to the appropriate part of your argument. 

Repeat the process with your opposition’s argument: What information did you find that supports your opposition? Paste it beside your opposition’s argument.

You could also put information here that refutes your opposition, but organize it in a way that clearly tells you — at a glance — that the information disproves their point.

Counterargument: Outlawing the sale of eggs from chickens with too small enclosures will immediately drive up egg prices for consumers.

BUT: Sicknesses like avian flu spread more easily through small enclosures and could cause a shortage that would drive up egg prices naturally, so ensuring larger enclosures is still a better policy for consumers over the long term.

As you organize your research and see the evidence all together, start thinking through the best way to order your points.  

Will it be better to present your argument all at once or to break it up with opposition claims you can quickly refute? Would some points set up other points well? Does a more complicated point require that the reader understands a simpler point first?

Play around and rearrange your notes to see how your essay might flow one way or another.

4. Freewrite or outline to think through your argument

Is your brain buzzing yet? At this point in the process, it can be helpful to take out a notebook or open a fresh document and dump whatever you’re thinking on the page.

Where should your essay start? What ground-level information do you need to provide your readers before you can dive into the issue?

Use your organized evidence document from step 3 to think through your argument from beginning to end, and determine the structure of your essay.

There are three typical structures for argumentative essays:

• Make your argument and tackle opposition claims one by one, as they come up in relation to the points of your argument - In this approach, the whole essay — from beginning to end — focuses on your argument, but as you make each point, you address the relevant opposition claims individually. This approach works well if your opposition’s views can be quickly explained and refuted and if they directly relate to specific points in your argument.
• Make the bulk of your argument, and then address the opposition all at once in a paragraph (or a few) - This approach puts the opposition in its own section, separate from your main argument. After you’ve made your case, with ample evidence to convince your readers, you write about the opposition, explaining their viewpoint and supporting evidence — and showing readers why the opposition’s argument is unconvincing. Once you’ve addressed the opposition, you write a conclusion that sums up why your argument is the better one.
• Open your essay by talking about the opposition and where it falls short. Build your entire argument to show how it is superior to that opposition - With this structure, you’re showing your readers “a better way” to address the issue. After opening your piece by showing how your opposition’s approaches fail, you launch into your argument, providing readers with ample evidence that backs you up.

As you think through your argument and examine your evidence document, consider which structure will serve your argument best. Sketch out an outline to give yourself a map to follow in the writing process. You could also rearrange your evidence document again to match your outline, so it will be easy to find what you need when you start writing.

5. Write your first draft

You have an outline and an organized document with all your points and evidence lined up and ready. Now you just have to write your essay.

In your first draft, focus on getting your ideas on the page. Your wording may not be perfect (whose is?), but you know what you’re trying to say — so even if you’re overly wordy and taking too much space to say what you need to say, put those words on the page.

Follow your outline, and draw from that evidence document to flesh out each point of your argument. Explain what the evidence means for your argument and your opposition. Connect the dots for your readers so they can follow you, point by point, and understand what you’re trying to say.

As you write, be sure to include:

1. Any background information your reader needs in order to understand the issue in question.

2. Evidence for both your argument and the counterargument(s). This shows that you’ve done your homework and builds trust with your reader, while also setting you up to make a more convincing argument. (If you find gaps in your research while you’re writing, Wordtune Spices can source statistics or historical facts on the fly!)

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3. A conclusion that sums up your overall argument and evidence — and leaves the reader with an understanding of the issue and its significance. This sort of conclusion brings your essay to a strong ending that doesn’t waste readers’ time, but actually adds value to your case.

6. Revise (with Wordtune)

The hard work is done: you have a first draft. Now, let’s fine tune your writing.

I like to step away from what I’ve written for a day (or at least a night of sleep) before attempting to revise. It helps me approach clunky phrases and rough transitions with fresh eyes. If you don’t have that luxury, just get away from your computer for a few minutes — use the bathroom, do some jumping jacks, eat an apple — and then come back and read through your piece.

As you revise, make sure you …

• Get the facts right. An argument with false evidence falls apart pretty quickly, so check your facts to make yours rock solid.
• Don’t misrepresent the opposition or their evidence. If someone who holds the opposing view reads your essay, they should affirm how you explain their side — even if they disagree with your rebuttal.
• Present a case that builds over the course of your essay, makes sense, and ends on a strong note. One point should naturally lead to the next. Your readers shouldn’t feel like you’re constantly changing subjects. You’re making a variety of points, but your argument should feel like a cohesive whole.
• Paraphrase sources and cite them appropriately. Did you skip citations when writing your first draft? No worries — you can add them now. And check that you don’t overly rely on quotations. (Need help paraphrasing? Wordtune can help. Simply highlight the sentence or phrase you want to adjust and sort through Wordtune’s suggestions.)
• Tighten up overly wordy explanations and sharpen any convoluted ideas. Wordtune makes a great sidekick for this too 😉

Words to start an argumentative essay

The best way to introduce a convincing argument is to provide a strong thesis statement . These are the words I usually use to start an argumentative essay:

• It is indisputable that the world today is facing a multitude of issues
• With the rise of ____, the potential to make a positive difference has never been more accessible
• It is essential that we take action now and tackle these issues head-on
• it is critical to understand the underlying causes of the problems standing before us
• Opponents of this idea claim
• Those who are against these ideas may say
• Some people may disagree with this idea
• Some people may say that ____, however

When refuting an opposing concept, use:

• These researchers have a point in thinking
• To a certain extent they are right
• After seeing this evidence, there is no way one can agree with this idea
• This argument is irrelevant to the topic

Are you convinced by your own argument yet? Ready to brave the next get-together where everyone’s talking like they know something about intermittent fasting , chicken enclosures , or snow removal policies? 

Now if someone asks you to explain your evidence-based but controversial opinion, you can hand them your essay and ask them to report back after they’ve read it.

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How to Write an Argumentative Essay (Part Five)

By singapore teaching centre, british council, 02 june 2015 - 15:29.

Introducing the British Council’s How to Write an Argumentative Essay animated video series. This is the fourth of five simple and easy to follow videos that will show you how you can improve your writing.

We will look at:

• Planning and question analysis
• Writing a paragraph
• Introduction and conclusion
• Counter paragraph

This series is a comprehensive online tuition guide, taking you through all the key elements you need for a good piece of argumentative essay writing. This series is particularly relevant to secondary school students struggling with their English curriculum.

Learn more on Secondary English