Throughout this topic, you learned that by using the elements of the Rhetorical Triangle, you can write an effective persuasive paper. The purpose of persuasive writing is to inject an opinion which you are going to support with evidence in order to convince the audience to agree with you. In the process, you will prove the superiority of your argument over any opposing views with both emotional and rational appeals. All of your reasoning will end with a logical conclusion. When writing a persuasive essay, you must always first conduct research into the topic; this will give credibility to your argument.

In this assignment, you must come up with the topic, or thesis statement, for a valid persuasive essay. Remember that the thesis statement is the purpose, or focus,  of the essay. You can view an example of a thesis statement in the image on this page. Before you write your thesis statement, think about the following tips:

• State your thesis in no more than one sentence.
• Choose a topic that is current and controversial.
• List the opposing views to your thesis statement.
• List the appeals or counterarguments for any opposing views to your thesis statement.

Before you begin, review the Persuasive Thesis Template and Checklist to make sure that you include all of the items required for full credit. You may need to use resources outside of this course to complete this assignment. If so, please submit a Works Cited document. If you need assistance, visit the Developmental Module for information on citing any resources that you used.

Once you have completed your persuasive thesis, please submit your work to the dropbox.