Why write to persuade

Remember to keep the message the subject and the messenger the writer separate. You can use Checklist The word prove is frequently used in the discussion of persuasive writing.

Writers may claim that one piece of evidence or another proves the argument, but proving an argument is often not possible. No evidence proves a debatable topic one way or the other; that is why the topic is debatable. Facts can be proved, but opinions can only be supported, explained, and persuaded.

Adding visual elements to a persuasive argument can often strengthen its persuasive effect. However, remember you want to use them to make a bigger impact for your reader, so you need to make sure they are:. When making a business presentation, you typically have limited time to get your idea across.

Providing visual elements for your audience can be an effective timesaving tool. Quantitative visuals in business presentations serve the same purpose as they do in persuasive writing. They should make logical appeals by showing numerical data in a spatial design. You will find that many of the rhetorical devices used in writing are the same ones used in the workplace. Every day when I pick up my newspaper I read about crime.

What strikes me as tragic in these discussions is that the solutions which are proposed are simply more of the same: bigger threats, more punishment.

Few people ask more basic questions about whether punishment ought to be our main concern. Even fewer seem genuinely concerned about victims and what they need. Prisons are massively crowded, and the call for a return to the death penalty is back with a vengeance.

The costs to us as taxpayers keep soaring. Actually, there is good reason why we ignore victims and focus instead on more punishment for offenders. It has to do with our very definitions of what constitutes crime and what justice entails. If you have been a victim, you know something about the fear, the anger, the shame, the sense of violation that this experience generates.

You know something about the needs that result: needs for repayment, for a chance to talk, for support, for involvement, for an experience that feels like justice.

Unfortunately, you may also know from personal experience how little help, information and involvement you can expect from the justice process. If you have experienced crime, you know for a fact that you yourself are the victim, and you would like to be remembered in what happens thereafter.

But the legal system does not define the offence that way and does not assume that you have a central role. Legally, the essence of the crime lies in breaking a law rather than the actual damage done. More importantly, the official victim is the state, not you.

It is no accident, then, that victims and their needs are so often forgotten: they are not even part of the equation, not part of the definition of the offence! If so, how much punishment does he or she deserve?

Justice establishes blame and administers pain through a contest between offender and state. It assumes that punishment or pain, usually in the form of a prison term, is the normal outcome. This process concentrates almost exclusively on offenders, but, ironically, does not hold them accountable.

To be accountable, offenders ought to be helped to understand and acknowledge the human consequences of their actions. Then they ought to be encouraged to take responsibility for what happens thereafter, including taking steps to right the wrong.

Yet this rarely happens; indeed, the justice process discourages responsibility. Thus neither victim nor offender is offered the kind of opportunities that might aid healing and resolution for both. Justice identifies needs and obligations so that things can be made right through a process which encourages dialogue and involves both victims and offenders. A restorative approach to justice would understand that the essence of crime is a violation of people and of harmonious relations between them.

What should they get? What can be done to make things right, and whose responsibility is it? Restorative justice would aim to be personal. Insofar as possible, it would seek to empower victims and offenders to be involved in their own cases and, in the process, to learn something about one another. Understanding of one another, acceptance of responsibility, healing of injuries, and empowerment of participants would be important goals. Is restorative approach practical?

Can it work? The experience of the VORP suggests that while there are limitations and pitfalls, restoration and reconciliation can happen, even in some tough cases.

Moreover, our own history points in this direction. Through most of western history, most crimes were understood to be harms done to people by other people. Such wrongs created obligations to make right, and the normal process was to negotiate some sort of restitution agreement. Only in the past several centuries did our present retributive understanding displace this more reparative approach. Adapted from: Zehr, H. Justice: Retribution or Restoration?

Retribution is perhaps the most intuitive—and the most questionable—aim of punishment in the criminal law. Quite contrary to the idea of rehabilitation and distinct from the utilitarian purposes of restraint and deterrence, the purpose of retribution is actively to injure criminal offenders, ideally in proportion with their injuries to society, and so expiate them of guilt.

The impulse to do harm to someone who does harm to you is older than human society, older than the human race itself go to the zoo and watch the monkey cage for a demonstration.

One of the hallmarks of civilization is to relinquish the personal right to act on this impulse, and transfer responsibility for retribution to some governing body that acts, presumably, on behalf of society entire. Moral feelings and convictions are considered, even by the criminal law, to be some of the most powerful and binding expressions of our humanity.

This is almost certainly true of the majority of victims, and their loved ones, for whom equanimity becomes more and more difficult depending on the severity of the crime. What rape victim does not wish to see her attacker suffer? What parent does not hate the one who killed their child? The outrage that would result from leaving these passions for revenge unsatisfied might be seen as a dramatic failure of the entire criminal justice system.

And, until the moral certainty of a majority of society points towards compassion rather than revenge, this is the form the criminal law must take. Adapted from: The Lectric Law Library. Briefly describe one or two topics on which you may want to base your persuasive essay. Why is this a good topic? What types of challenges do you think you may face in developing ideas on this topic?

When writing your journals, you should focus on freewriting—writing without overly considering formal writing structures—but remember that it will be read by the instructor, who needs to be able to understand your ideas. Your instructor will be able to see if you have completed this entry by the end of the week but not read all of the journals until week Persuasive writing is a written form of an oral debate and can be a fun and interesting style of writing for students.

When writing persuasive essays students need to be well versed in word selection, framing logical arguments and creating a strong cohesive closing argument. For students, persuasive writing can be a wonderful means of expressing their views about a subject.

It is a way to tap into what students are passionate about and give them the opportunity to do research on subjects that they are interested in. This helps students be more involved in their class work. Engaging in persuasive writing also helps students improve skills such as different styles of writing, writing structure, doing research, and forming evidence based logical conclusions, opinions and arguments. Teachers can introduce this form of writing in the classroom by first teaching the fundamentals of persuasive writing.

Teachers can provide examples of persuasive writing such as excerpts from newspapers or audio-clips of speeches or lectures. Encourage students to engage in debates or speeches to understand the internal techniques they use when persuading an audience. Teachers should also teach students key elements and the format for writing a persuasive argument such as:. Once the basic elements of persuasive writing have been taught, identify a topic or create guidelines for students to choose their own topic.

Give students time to brainstorm and think about their opinion on their subject before they research. Tell the students that their final assignment for the unit is to choose one of these styles for writing a final article about their service experience.

They should use the appropriate rubric to guide them as they write their piece. Brainstorm with the class appropriate places they can publish their writing. Some ideas include a school or community newspaper.

Students can create a special edition of a class newsletter, printing copies to share with families and other students audio and visual. Encourage them to think about where they will publish their writing so they understand their audience as they write.

After students finish writing their articles, pair students for peer editing. Then have them edit and revise before they hand in their final drafts to the teacher. Use students' work on the handout Supporting Facts and Statistics to assess whether they recognize a good argument for their persuasive essays.

Review the graphic organizers and T-charts to assess whether they are ready to start writing the persuasive essay. Assess students' final writing by using one of the three rubrics provided in the unit. Select a set of Standards required , Grade, and Subject.

After you hit "Find Standards," drill through the standards. Newspaper Stories 2. Writing a Personal Narrative 3.

Writing to Persuade. Language Arts. Social Studies. Common Good. Graphic Organizer. Main Idea. Peer Review. Persuasive Techniques. Philanthropic Act. Point of View. Lesson Rating. Print Two minute class periods; plus time to write, edit, and publish stories.

The learner will: use a graphic organizer to identify the parts of a persuasive piece of writing. Related Resources. Building Empathy and Equity in Community.