Opinion Essay

The Opinion Essay - Treating Your Opinion as Fact

An opinion essay is probably one of the more enjoyable essays to write. This is because you are taking your opinions and treating them as fact, and then persuading another person to believe that your opinion is right. To write an effective opinion essay is to be an effective communicator.

You will probably need to write many, many opinion essays in high school as well as college. Teachers are looking for their students to be able to put their opinions down on paper and be able to support their assertions with facts. To a teacher, this shows that a student has great analytical skills. The hard part is turning the analysis into a compelling argument.

The great part about writing opinion essays is that it will help you with your critical thinking process. This is why teacher's love opinion essays, to help them assess where a student's critical thinking is. This is because it is easy to have an opinion on something, however it is much harder to explain why you have such an opinion, and even harder to prove and dictate why you believe your opinion is right.

Unlike other essays, in an opinion essay you are forced to pick a side. You are no longer reporting a fact; instead, your opinion becomes fact. For instance, say you are analyzing which major label soda brand tastes the best. The opinion would be "I think Pepsi is the best soda brand". Turning that into fact would be "Pepsi is the best soda brand". This forms the basis of your opinion essay.

Now, you need to prove your point. Why is Pepsi the best soda? Is it because they have an incredible product? Or is it because they have an incredible marketing team? These are the types of questions you need to ask yourself when writing an opinion essay.

Let's continue the Pepsi example. You are stating that Pepsi is the best brand of soda. You decide that it is because PepsiCo has a superior marketing team that analyzes social trends and creates market presence in areas with exploding growth. Now you have to put it in a paragraph.

The standard paragraph template goes like this: you offer your opinion as fact, and then you prove it. State your claim, prove it, and then close the deal.

"Pepsi is the best brand of soda. Their marketing team analyzes social trends and creates market presence in areas with exploding growth. This results in positive financial results for the company, which is why they are the best brand of soda."

This represents an effective paragraph in an opinion essay. It offers opinion of fact, explains why, and then closes the deal. Remember the writer's golden rule: "Tell em what you're gonna tell em, tell em, and then tell em what you just told em".

Remember, there is no right or wrong when writing an opinion essay. The purpose of an opinion essay is not to be right - the purpose is to be compelling. At the end of the day, it is your justification that will make or break your essay.

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