Persuasive Essay

Planning

You made a writing plan. The plan includes notes (not full sentences) for the introduction and the main body.

You use a wide range of grammatical structures correctly. For example:
- conditional sentences: If I were you, I’d …; If you are interested in XXX, you’ll …
- relative clauses: XXX, who / which …, …; the XYZ that …
- questions
You use a wide range of vocabulary correctly and you paraphrase words you don’t know. You don’t use German.
- strong adjectives and adverbs
- comparative and superlative adjectives and adverbs
- interesting nouns
You connect ideas with transition words. For example:
- Effect and consequence: as a result, then, because, …
- Time and sequence: as soon as, during, since, until, whenever, …
- Compare and contrast: like, similar to, compared to, although, as XXX as YYY, …
- Examples: for example, for instance, such as, another example of XXX is YYY, ….

The text has a title, which gives the reader a first idea of what the text will be about and catches their attention. The title is underlined.
Does the introduction hook the reader? For example with
- a question
- an anecdote¹
Does the introduction end in a sentence, which tells the reader of what the text will try to persuade them (thesis statement).
Is the main body of the blog post divided into paragraphs. Every paragraph presents only one idea.
Does every body paragraph present detailed reasons and examples, which help you convince the reader of your argument.
Does the text have a conclusion?
- Do you summarize your main arguments?
- Often it is a good idea to end with a call to action (= ask the reader directly or indirectly to do something, such as recycle, donate to charity, sign a petition etc.)

For the structure of a paragraph, see also the checklist for writing a paragraph.

You give an estimate² of the word count.
You skip every second line, and you skip two or more lines between paragraphs.