Writing Persuasively in Academia

Many students have difficulty writing persuasive papers.  Arguing seems to be fraught with grandiose, overly broad, or mildly redundant claims.  I have actually had to bar students from the following claims:

The drinking age should be lowered to 18.
Marijuana should be legalized.
The death penalty should be abolished.

I have received so many papers on these topics that I can practically recite the reasoning word for word.  Along with my strong desire to get new ideas from my students, these topics are also a bit immature for college writing.  I always stress to my students that the words could, should, and would do not belong in thesis statements (one-two sentence claims that direct the argument of the essay).  So how do I teach persuasive writing you might ask?

First and foremost, develop a claim.  Strong claims argue a point of view that is focused, intriguing, and relevant. Trying to argue that marijuana should be legal in a 5-7 page paper is an impossibility; the topic is too broad. A more focused claim like 'Dove's Campaign for Real Beauty contradicts itself in its attempt to expand the current definition of beauty' is more suited to such a short paper.

Second, develop a reason. Typically, the beginning claim is still a bit too broad, so narrowing it by including a specific reason will help focus the paper to a manageable topic.  Maybe the reasoning behind the Dove Ad Campaign claim is that the women used in the commercials conform to many of the current beauty standards despite being overweight.

Third, find appropriate and relevant evidence.  Students tend to develop a claim and then cite multiple reasons why the claim is true.  This is not the best way to write a shorter paper.  Instead combine the claim and the reason to create a thesis, and then use the body paragraphs to prove and develop that specific idea.  So.... Dove's use of mildly overweight but still traditionally attractive women does little to promote a wider definition of beauty.  Then you can spend the rest of the paper proving this.  You might consider including the following pieces of evidence:  discussion of the current beauty standards with relevant research, explanation of what Dove is actually trying to do, descriptions of the models used in the Dove commercials showing how they are still traditionally beautiful, relevance of this argument, etc....

Fourth, identify the dominant counterargument(s) and develop a refutation or rebuttal for each one.  For example, one could argue that Dove does use a diverse-looking group of women who are more 'normal' than the typical model.  To counter this claim, you could mention how the campaign is still selling products that are designed to make you "Prettier" in the very standard sense, by minimizing imperfections.

If you put all that together, you have a pretty decent argument paper.  So there's a quick how to guide for writing basic argumentation.  As you progress in writing, your style, organization, depth of thought, and probably page length will change dramatically, but this could get you started.