Writing an Opinion Essay: A Step-by-Step Guide for Students, Apuntes de Comunicación

¡Descarga Writing an Opinion Essay: A Step-by-Step Guide for Students y más Apuntes en PDF de Comunicación solo en Docsity! WRITING One essential skill for writers of any age is learning how to write an opinion essay that shows you know how to back up your opinions with evidence. Whether you’re in 5th grade, middle or high school, and even college, being able to write a well- organized opinion essay will help you score a great grade and get your point across about important topics. 1.Start with an awesome opinion essay topic The first step in writing an opinion essay is to choose a topic you really care about. Pick a topic about which you naturally have an opinion. It should also be something you can research easily. If you can’t think of an idea right away, try one of these great opinion essay topics: • Is it morally wrong to use animals for medical testing? • Is distance education better or worse than regular school? • Should public schools be open all year round? • Is it better to be a vegetarian than it is to eat meat? • Should people have to pay to go to the doctor? • What kind of animal makes the best pet? • Should parents be responsible for the consequences of their kids’ behavior? • What factors cause too much stress for students? • Who is the best musical performer or band? • Does homework help kids learn? 2.Use opinion essay phrases to write your opinion Once you have a great topic, you can write your opinion as a sentence. This sentence will become the thesis statement for your opinionated paper. Your thesis statement is the main idea of your essay. In an opinion paper, this statement will be your view on the topic. There are certain opinion essay phrases you can use to make writing this statement easier. Try starting with one of these: “I believe….” / “I think….” / “The best….” / “The worst….” / “My favorite….” / “In my opinion….” 3.Come up with supporting details You know what your opinion is, and now it’s time to support it. Saying what you think is important, but the point of an opinion essay is to show that you know how to give supporting details to make your opinion more convincing. For example, imagine your opinion or thesis statement is, “I believe it is better to be a vegetarian than a person who eats meat.” You might choose supporting details like these: UNIT 1 REVIEW: OPINION ESSAY (I): STATING YOUR IDEAS • Eating meat is bad for the planet because it creates more greenhouse gases to feed animals than it does to simply eat plants. • Eating meat is inhumane because it requires that animals be raised and killed for their meat. • Eating a vegetarian diet fulfills all the nutritional needs people have. After you have some supporting details, you may need to find some evidence to support them. Look for journal articles and other good sources to show that your supporting details are true. 4.Make an opinion essay outline Now that you know the main idea for your opinion essay, you can write an outline. An ‘outline’ is a plan for what your essay will include. You can make it very detailed or keep it simple, but either way, there are a lot of reasons an outline makes your essay better. It helps you stay on topic and makes it easier for the reader to follow your thinking. It also helps you put your ideas in order. Here’s a basic sample opinion essay outline for you to use: • Introduction: Get the reader’s attention and state your opinion. • Body: In about two or three paragraphs, give the supporting details for your opinion and the evidence you have found to back them up. • Conclusion: Summarize your opinion. 5.Write a great opinion essay Introduction Your introduction is one of the most important parts of your essay. It needs to capture your reader’s attention right away using a hook. Here are some ideas to help you write a hook for an opinion essay: • Give a surprising statistic that matches your opinion. For example, you might start an essay about being a vegetarian with the fact that there are 375 million vegetarians worldwide. • Ask the reader a question that leads into your opinion. For instance, if you’re writing about being a vegetarian, you might ask the reader about the last time he or she ate a meal that was entirely plant-based. • Tell an anecdote that relates to your opinion. For example, in an essay about vegetarianism, you might share about a time you visited a farm and interacted with the animals. about the work. • Avoid including direct quotes from the work within your summary. Rather, present the main points in your own words. • Close your summary by restating an overview of the work in one sentence. An agree or disagree essay is the most common type of essay in EFL. Essentially, a debatable opinion will be presented to you, and you have to propound a discourse either supporting or opposing it. There are multiple ways of going about with agree or disagree essay questions. You can agree with the statements whole-heartedly or totally disagree with the claims. Likewise, you may decide to agree or disagree to a certain degree. All this depends on your perspective as well as the arguments you can think of during the task. One of the most common and important uses of technical writing is to provide instructions, those step- by-step explanations of how to assemble, operate, repair, or do routine maintenance on something (McMurrey 2019: source). In business writing and other forms of composition instructions are written or spoken directions for carrying out a procedure or performing a task. It is also called instructive writing. Step-by-step instructions typically use the second-person point of view (you, your, yours). Instructions are usually conveyed in the active voice and the imperative mood: Address your audience directly. UNIT 4 OPINION ESSAY (II): AGREE or DISAGREE? UNIT 6 INSTRUCTIONS Instructions are often written in the form of a numbered list so that users can clearly recognize the sequence of the tasks. Effective instructions commonly include visual elements (such as pictures, diagrams, and flowcharts) that illustrate and clarify the text. Instructions intended for an international audience may rely entirely on pictures and familiar symbols. (These are called wordless instructions.) Observations and tips "Good instructions are unambiguous, understandable, complete, consistent, and efficient." (John M. Penrose, et al., Business Communication for Managers: An Advanced Approach, 5th ed. Thomson, 2004) ➢ BASIC FEATURES Instructions tend to follow a consistent step-by-step pattern, whether you are describing how to make coffee or how to assemble an automobile engine. Here are the basic features of instructions, but not all of them must appear in the same document: • Specific and precise title • Introduction with background information • List of parts, tools, and conditions required • Sequentially ordered steps • Graphics • Safety information • Conclusion that signals completion of task ➢ CHECKLIST FOR WRITING INSTRUCTIONS 1. Use short sentences and short paragraphs. 2. Arrange your points in logical order. 3. Make your statements specific. 4. Use the imperative mood. 5. Put the most important item in each sentence at the beginning. 6. Say one thing in each sentence. 7. Choose your words carefully, avoiding jargon and technical terms if you can. 8. Give an example or an analogy, if you think a statement may puzzle a reader. 9. Check your completed draft for logic of presentation. 10. Don't omit steps or take shortcuts.