Every student, whether in high school or college, will have to write an argumentative paper. This type of essay will always be a part of any curriculum as it is a good way to practice the students’ writing skills, logic and their ability to provide a strong argument in a given subject matter.

An argumentative paper is a type of formal writing wherein the writer advocates a specific stand or argument in a given topic or situation where two opposing points equally have a degree of importance.

Now, let’s say your professor has just given you the task of writing an argumentative paper, then how are you going to start writing it?

First of all, you must think of a topic or controversial issue that you would be interested to tackle. This is the starting point of an argumentative writing. You must have a topic or a form of disagreement that should be controversial enough to incite much interest. All well-written argumentative papers have this.

You can then write the title of your paper. In argumentative writing, it is perhaps the one form of writing wherein the title can be easily decided upon before the actual writing. This is because the topic to be considered is already clearly defined, with the opposing points to be considered can easily be put in the title.

In writing the body of the essay, the introduction should state the general idea behind the two opposing points of the argument. Then, the following two or three paragraphs should talk about the supporting facts about the topic or the argument. The next paragraphs will then focus on the opposing facts. This is still the best format in presenting two opposing opinions or points.