ARGUE/PERSUADE NON-FICTION WRITING
A rough guide to writing argue/persuade non-fiction pieces
This is the kind of writing you have to do for English Language Paper 2 at GCSE. You will also do it in Year 9 at SHSG. This fairly short guide is designed as an introduction to this type of writing. It is a companion piece to the next three guides, which each go into more detail about how to write the different components of this kind of non-fiction writing.
This guide is part of the Argue/persuade non-fiction writing series:
A rough guide to writing argue/persuade non-fiction pieces
How to write openings and closings for argue/persuade non-fiction - part 1
How to write openings and closings for argue/persuade non-fiction - part 2
How to write an opinion paragraph for argue/persuade non-fiction
What argue/persuade non-fiction writing is
The key thing about this kind of writing is its purpose. You are trying to either argue for something, or persuade people to do or think something. These two purposes are very similar and, more often than not, both are happening at the same time, which is why it is generally referred to as argue/persuade writing.
The types of text you’ll need to be able write with this purpose for GCSE are:
Articles either for a website or a newspaper or any other similar written source
Speeches to be delivered to some kind of specified audience
Letters written either to a specific individual (more common) or to a newspaper (less common)
Leaflets which are persuading people to do something (these are very uncommon in the exam)
Essays explaining your point of view on something - these are essentially the same as articles and should not be confused with English essays; they are just a device for conveying your opinion. You’ll study examples of these in Year 9.
What connects all of these text types is the idea that you are always conveying your opinion on something; you’re just using a slightly different form to convey that opinion. This will become clearer when you look at the way the questions work in the next section of this guide.
The kinds of questions you’ll be asked
The question format is always roughly the same. You get a statement of some kind expressing an opinion, followed by a task asking you to write one of the text types listed above in which you respond in some way to the opinion in the statement.
Question format for this type of task
“Opinion statement.”
Write a [text type] to [audience] in which you [make some kind of argument in response to the opinion in the statement].
Here’s an example from a past GCSE paper:
Example question from a past GCSE paper
“Parents today are over-protective. They should let their children take part in adventurous, even risky, activities to prepare them for later life.”
Write a article for a broadsheet newspaper in which you argue for or against this statement.
The necessary components of this kind of writing
Whenever you write this kind of piece, there are 4 different components that you need to plan and write.
1. The form elements for your given text type
Depending on the type of text you’re asked to write, you may need to include certain elements of that form. So, for example, if you’re asked to write an article, you’ll need to include a headline and also a strapline. If you’re asked to write a letter, you’ll need to follow the conventions of letter writing and begin with the appropriate addresses and an appropriate greeting, and then end with an appropriate send off (e.g. Yours sincerely). If you’re writing a leaflet then you’ll need to include various headings and subheadings appropriate to this form, and perhaps placeholders for pictures too. You’ll learn about all of these things in your lessons.
2. The opening
You should think of the opening of your piece as a special and crucial part. It is so special and crucial, in fact, that we’ve create two separate guides to writing it. The first of the guides is the next one in this series, which you can find here.
3. The body – this will be the majority of your piece
The body of your piece should be 3 or 4 short paragraphs in which you express your opinion on the topic in the question. You need to say what you think and why you think it. There are several different things that you can include to make up the body of your piece, and these are explained in detail in another guide, which you can find here.
4. The closing
You should finish off your piece with a short final paragraph in which you link back to your opening. Writing these is covered in our guide to openings and closings.
5 tips for getting the style right in this kind of writing
1. Match the style to the text type
This is quite a complex thing to achieve, and it’s certainly not something that we can neatly summarise here in a way that will get you the highest marks at GCSE. The best way to get familiar with this is to read some examples of the different text types to get a flavour of how they should sound. You will look at examples in class. There are also examples of articles, speeches and letters in the other guides to this kind of writing.
However, we can provide a few general do’s and don’t’s to remember when you are writing the different types of text.
Articles / essays
Don’t include too much direct address (‘you’) or be too familiar with your audience (e.g. assume things about them) since you won’t be sure who’s reading your article
Do use plenty of persuasive techniques in this kind of writing
Do use a mixture of short sentences (sparingly, for effect) and longer, more complex sentences; as a primarily written mode text, this is more appropriate
Speeches
Do use plenty of direct address (‘you’) because your audience would actually be there in front of you as you delivered the speech; you can also assume certain things about them since you will be told who the audience is (e.g. an audience of teenagers)
Do use lots of persuasive techniques – speeches are typically very rhetorical in style
Do use plenty of short sentences and even minor sentences – remember your speech is being listened to rather than read
Do make sure you write some longer sentences too, though, as you need this for rhythm, and to get the high marks for sentence construction
Letters
If it’s a letter to a newspaper, treat it the same as an article
If it’s a letter to a specific individual then do the following:
Do remember it’s probably an audience of one so you should use lots of direct address, including using their name, with an appropriate level of formality (e.g. ‘Mrs Fairfax’ for your head teacher, not ‘Dorris’)
Do use a mixture of short sentences (sparingly for effect) and longer, more complex sentences; as a primarily written text, this is more appropriate
Do use some persuasive techniques but don’t overdo it – a letter should be a bit more natural in style
Do make sure your style is fairly formal (though it will depend a bit on who the letter is addressed to)
Do include more personal details since it’s one person writing to another
Leaflets
Do break your text up into plenty of short paragraphs
Do use plenty of subheadings and other things to break up your text
Do use lots of rhetorical devices – especially repetition and rhetorical questions
Do use plenty of short sentences – though make sure you include some longer ones too
Essays
Do treat these as largely the same as articles
Do use a slightly more formal style than you might use in an article, though you can still include some levity
Don’t write these like an English essay (e.g. don’t use PEA) - an essay is just a piece of writing in which someone explains their opinion about something
2. Write for the specified audience
You must write for the audience specified in the question. Sometimes it will be very clear who this is, like a speech to an audience of teenagers, and it could even be a single person, like a letter to a head teacher. The audience is sometimes implied, however, rather than stated, but you should be able to figure it out. Below are some examples of this.
Examples of implied audiences
‘a teen magazine’ = teenagers
‘a local newspaper’ = people from your area
‘a broadsheet newspaper’ = general adults
‘a parenting website’ = parents
Once you’ve figured out who your audience is, you just have to really imagine that person or set of people reading your piece, and then try to write with them in mind. We couldn’t possibly outline all the ways that you could do this, and you’ll find lots of examples over the next three guides, but here are a few straightforward ways in which you could match your style to your audience, just to give you a flavour of what we mean by this.
Examples of writing for your audience
If it’s a letter to your head teacher or your local MP, then make sure you are polite and respectful in your tone
If it’s an article for people from your local area, then you should make specific references to your local area; assume the audience knows what you’re talking about
If it’s a national audience (e.g. a broadsheet newspaper), then don’t make references to your local area, at least not without explaining them, since the audience won’t understand
If it’s an article for a parenting website, then don’t be too horrible about parents
If it’s a speech to an audience of teenagers, then try to talk about experiences that a teenager would understand - and don’t be too horrible about teenagers
And so on…
In essence, use your common sense.
3. Carefully consider writer and reading positioning
In these argue/persuade non-fiction pieces, you need to think about how you represent yourself, your reader and any other relevant group of people. This is called positioning. It is essential for getting the writing style right, and it involves careful consideration of pronouns. You’ll look at this in your lessons, but here’s a rough summary.
Writer positioning (I)
Who are you, as the writer? Are you yourself (a teenager) or do you want to write as somebody else (a parent, for example)? Why are you worth listening to? What experiences have you had? You can include these things to make yourself seem like somebody whose opinion is valid and important for the topic you are given in the exam. You can make things up here, if you want.
Reader positioning (you)
Who is your reader/audience? This will depend on the type of text you are asked to write (see above). But remember that when you use ‘you’, you’re referring to your audience, so you need to think about how you represent them: are they like you (the writer) because they’re also young people, for instance, or are they different to you? Are you addressing a different group? Don’t overuse ‘you’ in articles or essays, though; you can’t assume too much about your reader because you won’t be with them when they read it.
Positioning of an other (they)
You can also position a third group: people who are not you and not your readers. For example, if you’re writing for a teen website you could use ‘they’ to refer to parents, in order to support or criticise them.
4. Use persuasive techniques
Another aspect of style, alongside positioning, is the use of persuasive techniques. You will learn about these in class and we can’t cover them all here, though there are definitions and examples in our glossary. However, the techniques below are particularly useful for argue/persuade non-fiction writing.
Parallelism
This technique – using parallel syntactic structures – is essential for creating the right feel for sophisticated argue/persuade writing. You should use it fairly regularly throughout your piece, especially if you’re writing a speech.
Repetition
Don’t overdo the repetition, but it can be effective when used sparingly, and should be used somewhere.
Rule of three – climax or bathos
Triads are very effective in argue/persuade writing, especially when they lead to either a climax, with a dramatic final item, or an anti-climax, with a silly a humorous final item (called ‘bathos’ - see the glossary for more details).
Rhetorical questions
Don’t overuse rhetorical questions, but they can be very effective when used sparingly, especially when the reader/audience answers the question in their mind: Does this seem fair to you? [‘No’, we think in our mind.]
Emotive language (pathos)
In your argue/persuade writing you need to include words or phrases that engage the reader emotionally. Useful emotions to target in persuasive pieces include pity, pride, and outrage.
Anaphora
Repetition at the start of successive sentences or clauses (called ‘anaphora’) is another useful and effective technique, which is not too difficult to employ, especially when combined with the rule of three.
Polysyndeton and asyndeton
Both of these techniques (a list with many conjunctions / a list with no conjunctions) can be useful for making your writing feel crafted, especially when combined with the rule of three. Polysyndeton makes a list seem longer; asyndeton generally makes a list seem incomplete, like it could continue. They’re both easy to use, with a clear effect. For more on these see the glossary.
5. Don’t be overly dry and serious - there should be some levity in your piece
One of the common mistakes that students make when writing these kinds of pieces is to make them overly dry and serious. They should not sound like an English Literature essay (“In conclusion…”). You need to factor in the text type and audience a bit here (articles and speeches are likely to contain more jokes than letters to head teachers, for instance) but you should still aim to include some levity in whatever piece you write. You are trying to persuade your audience, after all, and they are more likely to be persuaded by you if you entertain them rather than bore them.
Summing up - key things to remember when writing argue/persuade non-fiction writing
Ultimately, you are using these text types to convey your opinion on a topic, and to make an argument for why your opinion is correct
Familiarise yourself with the different text types you’ll need to write for this task, and get a sense of the style of each
Include the appropriate form elements for each text type (e.g. headlines, subheadings, etc)
Make sure you match the style of your piece to the text type - don’t write it the same regardless of whether it’s an article or a letter or a speech
Make sure you write with your audience in mind - try to show this in your writing; it will get you extra marks
Use positioning deliberately - this will help you to match your writing to its purpose and audience
Use persuasive techniques in your writing
Don’t make your pieces overly serious - include some jokes