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How to Write an Opinion Essay

Are you looking to write an opinion essay and you’re not sure how? No worries! In this piece, we’re going to look into the peculiarities of writing down opinion essays.
Lisa Smith
When attempting to write an opinion essay, there’s a set of important aspects to take into account. It’s a piece of writing that has one central function — express the author’s opinion.

However, opinion essays should all strive for clarity. This is why there is a particular structure, which is designed to enhance the coherence of your piece.
An opinion essay, as simple as it sounds, isn’t just an essay on your opinion. You need to substantiate your claims. Moreover, it’s essential that you provide the readers with a set of persuasive arguments.

Here, you’ll find the information you need when it comes to opinion writing. Let’s dive right in, shall we?

1. The title of your essay

The title of your essay should be reflective of your opinion on the topic at hand. Another option would be using a question as the title of your essay.

For instance: Should foie-gras be banned in Europe?
So, in order to make your title appealing and informative, makes sure that it contains the central topic of your piece. Failing to do so might mislead your readers, which, in effect, can cause frustration.
Best practices recommend capitalizing all the words in the essay, with some exceptions, like pronouns, articles, prepositions, and so forth.

2. Introduction

Let us discuss how to write an introduction of an opinion essay. The first paragraph of the essay must entice the reader to go through the text.

You need to write it such that it makes them realize that the issue at hand concerns them or captivates their attention, based on how interesting the topic is. In literary terms, this paragraph is called a hook.
After you’ve crafted your hook, you need to work on the next part of your introduction, which is the thesis statement. This paragraph reflects your opinion on the topic.

It has to be presented in a straightforward manner, so that the reader knows what claims you’ll be substantiating later in the text.
It’s also important to have an impersonal view, despite it being an opinion essay. At the end of the day, you’re not simply sharing baseless opinions.

On the contrary, you’re backing your views with research. This is why it’s best to learn how to write an opinion essay without using “I".

3. Laying out the argument

In the body of your essay, you’re going to provide your readers with some strong arguments that will support your claims. Also, in order to sound credible, you will provide your readers with the evidence to substantiate your claims, which is especially important if you’re writing an opinion essay in college.
Your essay needs to follow a particular informational hierarchy. You start by stating your opinion, followed by the reasoning behind it, and to substantiate your reasoning, you need to provide your readers with solid proof.

4. Regarding the evidence you provide

The research you cite in your essay must be valid, provide actual scientific insight, and should preferably be published studies that have passed a double-blind peer review.

Similarly, it’s always great if you can extract informative graphs and images from those studies, to make the data more accessible to your readers.
There are a few ways you can “pair” your arguments with the evidence for them. Ideally, you should work in the “1 idea, 1 paragraph” model, which is commonly accepted throughout exams like IELTS, SAT, Cambridge, and so forth.
Alternatively, you can always provide all of your arguments in the first paragraph of your “body,” and continue by providing evidence for them. However, chances are, it won’t be as coherent and cohesive as the first model.

5. Conclusion

There are a few central rules for closing your essay. Your goal, when it comes to concluding your essay, is to rewrite all of your arguments and viewpoints.

It is also essential that you don’t introduce new ideas in the conclusion and focus exclusively on the points you’ve stated previously.
The conclusion is where you have the opportunity to persuade your reader in the light of the research and evidence you’ve provided.

There are also places on the web where you can buy cheap essay online, in order to get a better understanding of how a professionally written essay looks like so that you can use it as a template in the future.

Don’t forget about these

Using connectors is an essential way of establishing a good flow of thought throughout your essay. Here’s a list of important connectors that will make your writing considerably more cohesive:
  • Therefore; as a result; consequently; as a consequence;
  • Similarly; in the same way;
  • However; nevertheless;
  • On the other hand; in contrast;
  • Fortunately; inevitably;