DISCURSIVE WRITING

Higher Folio
Persuasive or Argumentative?
A persuasive essay begins with a boldly
expressed point of view and then the rest of the
essay presents arguments (examples, proof,
logic) to support that point of view. It should at
least refer to opposing arguments but
demonstrates that these are weak.
A argumentative essay presents both sides of an
issue in a balanced way. In the end though it
usually comes to a conclusion. The writer can, at
this point, state what they think.

Persuasive Writing
The main requirements of a persuasive essay are that it
will:
Have a sense of conviction, commitment or belief
through using a deliberate tone of writing
Make use of persuasive techniques, such as
manipulating information, claiming necessity,
flattering, employing technical jargon, rhetoric, etc.

You have to prepare thoroughly before writing.
Therefore, it is best to choose a topic which you
genuinely are passionate about as you will spend a
great deal of time researching and writing about it.

You must also submit a plan before you begin to write your
essay. The following plan STRUCUTRE is the most
straightforward:
Paragraph 1 State your opinion
Paragraph 2 Present your first point in support of your
position and develop the paragraph with evidence,
quotations, etc.
Paragraph 3 State your next point in support of your
position and develop.
Paragraph 4 State your next point in support, etc.
Paragraph 5 Introduce an argument/arguments
against your position but refute this argument, countering
it with appropriate, balanced arguments.
Paragraph 6 Restate your opinion. Draw on some of
arguments/summarise your strongest points in order to
finish in the strongest possible way.

Marking criteria
Techniques your marker will be looking for in
persuasive essays:

Formal language
Emotive language
Linking words and phrases
Persuasive words
Facts, opinions, statistics, quotations
Direct language

Argumentative Writing
The main requirements of the argumentative essay
are that it will:
Communicate a clear line of thought
Present two sides of an argument
Convey a tone which is measured, reasonable yet
carries personal conviction

You will have to prepare thoroughly before you
begin. Be sure to choose a topic you are
passionate about, research it and plan it.

The following plan for argumentative writing is most straightforward:

Paragraph 1 Introduce your subject and outline the issues you intend
to discuss. You could even open with a strong fact, opinion or
statistic.
Paragraph 2 Introduce one side of the argument, give evidence to
support it, and comment or evaluate the evidence. (FOR)
Paragraph 3 Introduce another argument to support this side of the
argument, give evidence and comment or evaluate. (FOR)
Paragraph 4 Introduce the opposing side of the argument, give
evidence to support it and comment or evaluate. (AGAINST)
Paragraph 5 Introduce another argument that opposes the argument,
give evidence and comment. (AGAINST)
Paragraph 6 Summarise the opposing viewpoints and balance out
your evidence. Conclude your essay coming to some sort of opinion.
You do not have to take a side, your decision can be neutral.
(OR your plan can be FOR, AGAINST, FOR, AGAINST. As long as it is
balanced!)

Marking criteria
Techniques your marker will be looking for in
argumentative essays:

Formal language
Linking words
Facts, statistics, quotations
Persuasive language
Objective tone

Give reasons for your opinions!
It is often easiest to put your topic in the form of a question!
Avoid topics that are done to death. You cannot, generally,
come up with new or unique ideas that are completely your
own. Abortion, animal cruelty, fox hunting, etc. all may be good
topics in which you are interested, but there are newer, more
lively debates in the media.
Avoid arguments that you cannot possible argue two sides of!
Child abuse, child labour, etc. is never something that you can
argue for. Prevention of these areas can maybe be discursive,
but you will soon run out of arguments.
Choose a topic you genuinely care about. This way you will
naturally express yourself subjectively or objectively. You will
also be spending a lot of time on this NAB, you do not want to
bore yourself!
Topics should be topical and up-to-date. Look at newspapers,
news websites, etc. You can use these for quotations and
information, but you will need more than one source.

Smoking Pollution
Smoking ban Gambling
Nuclear power Substance abuse in sport
Nuclear arms Arming the police
Animal experiments Bigfoot: real or hoax?
Euthanasia Stem cell research
Capital punishment Cervical cancer jab for teens
Vegetarianism Designer babies (to prevent disease)
Third world debt MMR jab
Scottish independence Cigarette companies advertising abroad
Iraq war Fox hunting
Legalisation of cannabis NHS vs Private Health Care
Private Education Immigration
Asylum Seekers The car
Computer games Arranged marriages
Marriage relevant today Having children is not always a good thing
School uniforms Climate change
Religious dress Violence on TV
Genetic food engineering Military/community service for all school leavers
Boxing Sex education in schools
Gay marriage Prison
Loch Ness Monster Man landing on the moon

Bibliography/Referencing
You must attach a bibliography to your essay. It is essential that you do this
as it proves to your teacher/SQA that you have not plagiarised the work.
You must put words that are not your own in quotation marks and put a
reference in brackets (author and date of source). Your bibliography will
contain the author, title and year of the book/source.

Bibliographies should be in alphabetical order of author
Year of publication comes in brackets after this
Title of the text followed by a comma
Publisher followed by a colon
Place of publishing
List of websites and date you viewed them in brackets

Example
Flanagan, Larry (2003) English Intermediate 2 and Higher Course Notes, Leckie
and Leckie: Fife.
www.learningandteachingscotland.gov.uk (6
th
July 2008)
Example Topic Outline
Euthanasia, legalisation of?

Para 1 Growing popularity and support

Para 2 first and foremost its a human right. Develop argument
about humans having the right to choose anything. Give other medical
examples.

Para 3 Dignity in death. Case studies? Ending life without dignity.

Para 4 Aside from individual arguments in support, significant
potential advantage for society. Saves money for NHS. Facts and figures
for terminal care costs.

Para 5 Comparison of UK to other countries where euthanasia is
legal. Statistics, quotations, safeguards and laws.

Para 6 Objections from moral and religious points of view?
However

Para 7 Conclusion.

Consider...
a) Is this an example of a persuasive plan or an
argumentative plan?

b) In your group, can you rework this plan to
change it into a persuasive or argumentative
plan instead? You can add other arguments if
you can think of more.

Activity
Look at the following structure of an argumentative essay
on handguns:
Introduction The issue of handgun ownership. A)
Some believe individuals should not own handguns B)
Others believe it is a personal right like any other
Disadvantages Both adults and children can have
accidents. People can use guns for crime.
Advantages People can protect themselves from
intruders. People may want to use them for
recreational purposes.
Conclusion Summarise and evaluate. Accidents and
crime could be prevented so this would make any
arguments for handgun ownership very hard. Gun
ownership should not be allowed in order for a better
society to be created.

Using the above structure as a rough example
of a plan, you are going to draft a discursive
essay about car use. You will be given the
arguments for and against. THIS EXAMPLE IS
ARGUMENTATIVE, providing two sides of the
topic.

Step 1: GATHERING/SORTING INFORMATION


Read through the following notes.

Identify the arguments FOR car use with a
tick.

Identify the arguments AGAINST car use with
a cross.

Not restricted with timetables and schedules as you
are with public transport
Comfortable (spacious and cool, radio, etc.)
They cause air pollution/contributes to global warming
Roads deface natural landscape & wildlife habitats
Fast/less time-consuming
Car parks take up valuable space which could be used
for better things
Cheap to run
Car accidents cause death and injury
Modern fuel is getting cleaner
Traffic jams lead to stress and road rage (road rage
stats & crimes committed?)
Cars contribute to a faster pace of life, causing high
blood pressure and heart disease

Now that you have sorted the arguments into for and
against you can divide your whole essay into advantages
and disadvantages. Both sections need further divided
into topics. Each topic will become a paragraph. Some of
your arguments from Activity 1 will be topics/paragraphs in
themselves, but some will be combined into paragraphs
with other similar topics.

Take the advantages (all of those with a tick) and arrange
them into two topics:
1) convenient and
2) efficient

Take all of the disadvantages (all of those with a cross) and
arrange them into two topics:
1) bad for the environment and
2) stressful and dangerous

Step 2: MAKING ARGUMENTS FLOW/LINK


More sophisticated paragraphs begin with topic
sentences and linking words. This contains the main
ideas of the paragraph that is about to follow. It must
then be followed by illustrations or examples
(quotations, statistics, facts, cases studies, etc).

Write a topic sentence for each of your headings in
Activity 2 (Convenient, Efficient, etc). For example,
Cars are extremely possible because they are so
convenient

Do not be satisfied with the first thing you write. Share it
with your group, reword each others, pick the best
one.

The three functions of a topic sentence are:

It introduces the new argument
It refers to the task or has the wording of the
task
It links to the previous paragraph

You should also use linking phrases and words
in order to make your essay flow well. Decide
which of these words or phrases goes under
each heading.
Copy the table into your jotter

Contrasts Reasons Results Additions Conclusions Examples comparisons
Likewise By way of illustration In the same way
Over and above Similarly In brief Inevitably
For this purpose
In spite of this On the contrary For all that As a
result
Moreover To conclude In other words In
the same way For example For instance Similarly
Finally
Additionally Besides this Accordingly
Consequently
Nevertheless Nonetheless In spite of this
But
For all that Despite this Although
Also
As a consequence Therefore
To this end Yet
However Hence
Furthermore

Step 3: STRUCTURING YOUR ESSAY

The structure of your essay will be:

Para 1 introduction
Para 2 Convenient
Para 3 Efficient
Para 4 Bad for the environment
Para 5 Dangerous
Para 6 Stressful
Para 7 Conclusion

OR you can start with the disadvantages first. It is
up to you. However, there needs to be a
structure to your introduction and conclusion
too.

Step 4: INTRODUCTION
Your introduction will state that there are advantages
and disadvantages to car use. However, this must
sound sophisticated. It makes a stronger impact if you
start with a bold or surprising statement, or even a
striking statistic. Just saying There are advantages and
disadvantages to car use and you should never say
In this essay I am going to write about the advantages
and disadvantages of car use.

Example opening:
We have become extremely dependent on cars: there
were 580 million worldwide in 2007 and it is estimated
that this figure will grow to 816 million by 2010.

You will follow this with a summary of the main arguments
contained in the essay. Present these in the order they will
appear in the essay.

Continue the example opening in your jotter by adding
sentences from the jumbled list below. Present them in the
order that they should appear, according to the plan above.

Thirdly, some people argue that they contribute to the
frantic, unhealthy pace of modern life.
On the other hand, there are powerful arguments against
car use.
Firstly, they damage the environment.
Clearly cars are so popular because they are both
convenient and efficient.
Secondly, they kill and main large numbers of people.

Step 4: THE BODY OF THE ESSAY

Now write the paragraphs out (paragraphs 2-6) from the plan
above. Each paragraph should already have a topic
sentence. Use this too. This means that you will have to
support each point with illustrations, examples and
evidence.

Example:
Cars are extremely popular because they are so convenient.
They allow us more freedom than public transport, which is
often unreliable, slow or even unavailable. Given a choice
between walking in the rain to join a bus queue or stepping
straight into the car and driving directly to ones
destination, who would prefer the latter? Furthermore, cars
are more comfortable than buses or trains since they are
less cramped and have luxuries such as an air conditioner
and a sound system. (This would be even better if you
could add quotations and a source!)

Now use the points below to complete paragraphs 3-6. On this
occasion we will not add quotations/evidence, but you can do that
in your own essay.

Fast, less time-consuming than public transport
Fairly cheap to run, especially if you use a small model
Modern fuels are lead-free and do not cause as much pollution as they used to
They cause air pollution (exhaust emissions contribute to global warming and
health problems such as asthma)
Roads spoil the natural landscape and disturb wildlife habitats
Car parks take up valuable space in cities that could otherwise be used for
recreation
Car accidents result in many deaths and injuries (approximately 125,000 people
were killed in road crashes in 1999, according to This is enough to fill 3
jumbo jets).
Traffic jams lead to stress and therefore road rage (angry drivers attacking
others)
Car use contributes to a faster, less natural pace of life that often results in high
blood pressure and heart disease

You will need to use some of your linking words and phrases from Activity 4!

Step 5: CONCLUDING YOUR ESSAY
Finally, you need a
conclusion. Avoid a
weak sitting on the
fence conclusion.
Instead, come to YOUR
conclusion, summing
up the arguments you
have already covered
and stating whether
you agree or disagree.
What argument out-
weighs the other?

It may be effective to present the arguments with the weakest
first. For example:

In conclusion, car ownership has several negative effects,
including stress, road accidents and destruction of the natural
environment. Nevertheless, we have become highly
dependent on cars because of the comfort and freedom they
offer. A total ban seems out of the question. Governments
could not afford to replace them with such an up-dated public
transport system for a start. But, for the sake of our health
and the health of future generations and this planet, we
MUST reduce our useage. Public transport systems need to be
improved in order for this to happen and common sense, such
as car pooling, surely isnt too hard to manage for the sake of
at least one persons health.



Step 6: WRITING YOUR ESSAY

You are now going to write a discursive essay of
your own choice. You will need to gather as much
information (through the internet, newspapers,
magazines, etc). This should be your homework.
When you have gathered all of your information
you should see how much you have for each side
and decide whether it will be persuasive or
argumentative.
Your teacher will show you some exemplar
essays before you begin.

Step 7: DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ARE
DOING?
Your teacher will give you an exemplar essay to read.
You must check that it contains some of the elements of effective
discursive (persuasive or argumentative) writing.

1) Firstly, decide whether your essay is persuasive or argumentative.

2) Now look for these things:

Rhetorical questions
Power of three
Emotive words
Bibliography
Repetition of words
Refutation of ideas
Topic sentences
Contrasts (achieved by inserting opposing arguments)
Use of pronouns

Summary
Now you need to SORT your information into
for and against, GROUP similar arguments
into same paragraph. Then RANK their
importance (important arguments back up
what you are saying, use them first) and
BALANCE them against each other (similar
fors and against will go into same paragraphs).