100+ Topics For Persuasive Essay Writing
Healthcare
- Should abortion be legal?
- Who has the right to life?
- Should euthanasia be made legal?
- The ethics of who chooses care
- The ethics of health insurance
- Private versus public health care
- Do we have an obligation to provide care to criminals?
- How should we approach the problem of mental health?
- Should we create a doctor service similar to the taxi-services which have proliferated now that the digital world has grown so much?
- When is it okay for medical professionals to break confidentiality?
- Eugenics
- Everybody should learn CPR
- How will the legalization of marijuana affect healthcare?
- Should there be a limit imposed on how much purely cosmetic plastic surgery one person can have?
- The ethics of organ donation
- Is steroid use dangerous?
- What are the hazards of wearing shoes that don’t fit?
The justice system
- Should we make the death penalty illegal?
- Should police officers accept gratuities?
- Are prisons becoming obsolete?
- Are prisons useful?
- Should prisons focus on rehabilitation over punishment?
- Who should own guns?
- Is the justice system biased?
- Should we decriminalize drugs?
- Should we decriminalize sex work?
- Is it ethical to blame sex workers for the demand that exists in their industry?
- Does the war on terror justify the continued loss of our civil rights?
- Drug addicts should be sent to hospital, not a prison
- Juvenile sentencing should be reduced
- Will reducing the causes of poverty reduce crime?
The environment
- Meat consumption and health
- Meat consumption – is it good for the planet?
- Animal rights
- Disposable nappies and baby wipes
- Should recycling be mandatory?
- Should more money be spent on green energy?
- Is nuclear power the answer to the energy crisis?
- Is there an energy crisis?
- Can air purifiers exacerbate health issues?
- Alternatives to fossil fuel
- Should we be spending more money on researching green energy?
- Is the vegetarian diet healthier?
- Nuclear power is better than solar power
- Green burial – yay or nay?
Education
- Should creationism be taught in school?
- School cafeterias contribute to obesity
- Schools should teach finances
- Schools should teach parenting classes
- Should teachers feel free to friend their students on Facebook?
- IQ tests are good measurements of intelligence
- Online teaching should be as valuable as in-person teaching
- Home schooling should be as valuable as in-person schooling
- Home schooled students should not have access to public school extra-curricular programs
- Children can learn from each other
- School should be online so children can work together
- We don’t need to teach handwriting any more
Food
- Food additives are dangerous
- Are we overreacting to high cholesterol?
- Are there correlations between food and intelligence?
- Should we hold the fast food industry accountable for the rise in obesity?
- Genetically modified food should always be labelled
- Is breakfast the most important meal of the day?
- How should we discourage junk food in schools?
- Should industry giants such as Starbucks be forced to reduce the amount of sugar in their drinks?
- People should be taught cookery in school
- Are five servings of fruit and vegetables a day enough?
- Does the government have the right to intervene in what people eat?
Religion
- Should all religions be treated equally?
- Should separation of church and state be made a reality?
- Does intelligent design deserve to be taught in schools?
- Should intelligent design be taught in biology or religious education?
- How a cult is different from a religion, and how it is dangerous?
- Is Alcoholics Anonymous exploitative?
- Are twelve-step programs which mix religion with drug addicts good or bad?
- Home schooling should be allowed on religious grounds
- Businesses should be allowed to discriminate on religious grounds
- Politicians should allow religion to influence their policy decisions
Digitalisation
- Has digitalisation decreased the reliance on paper as was promised?
- Traditional book or eBooks?
- Freedom of the press has gone too far in today’s world
- Is the use of CCTV in public places necessary for safety or an intrusion of our day-to-day privacy?
- Does the internet mean the death of paper, newspaper and magazines?
- Social networks and the younger generations
- ‘Digital natives’ and what that means for our society
- The ubiquity of advertising
- Subliminal messaging in advertising
- How digitalisation has affected the workplace
- Why we will rely on robots
- Using digital forms of communication undermines learning
- Will the internet last forever?
- Research now suggests that video games are good for learning, but are they safe?
- Does paparazzi help the cause of the free press, or hinder it?
- Bloggers should be treated as journalists, and held accountable for their actions
Work
- Outsourcing is good for the economy
- There should be a cap on the salaries paid to actors and sport stars
- There should be a three-day weekend instead of a two-day weekend
- The importance of patenting ideas
- Mono-tasking or multi-tasking – which is better?
- Should we reward non-profits for their work or how little they spend?
- Are pension plans effective?
- The dangers of asbestos removal
Why do we Write Persuasive Essays?
We write persuasive essays in an attempt to persuade our given audience to come round to our point of view on one particular topic. This type of essay can be on any topic at all, provided that there is more than one side to the debate. Our purpose in writing persuasive essays should be to show the audience that one particular side of a debate has more truth and merit to it than another through the use of proper arguments.
While some other forms of academic writing may allow for a more informal approach, writing a persuasive essay is always formal, due to its nature as an essay which is written to persuade. Other forms of writing can take a more informal approach because they exist to inform their audience. Persuasive essay writing, while it may contain some small amount of basic information about any topic – particularly if the essay is on a fairly niche subject, and background knowledge is required – is not ultimately about instructing the audience or sharing information. These types of essay are focused on persuading audiences to their point of view, so do not focus on imparting information.
As a result of persuasive essays not being strictly informative (with the particular exception in the previous paragraph being the only exception), they should always take a formal tone. As the point of a persuasive essay is to persuade the audience that the point of view which is being written about is the correct one, the arguments should be constructed specifically in order to avoid any attacks it may face. One way of doing this is by avoiding the first person, as showing something to be our own personal opinion rather than one which is backed up solely by facts and figures. Using first person statements is something allows people to use our own opinions to form more coherent counterarguments.
Tips on Intereting Topic Choice
Persuasive essay topics are often assigned beforehand – particularly if the essay is being written in school, but often the writer has the freedom to make his or her own choice on the matter. While this might seem to be a good thing – having the choice means that we can pick our own subject, after all – choosing a good persuasive essay topic is more difficult than it sounds. The topic needs to be obscure enough to be original, but not so obscure that there is no research on it.
- Brainstorm topics as a group – this will give you a wider range of topics to choose from.
- Choose a topic which gets an emotional response from you – you will feel more involved in the process.
- Pick a specific persuasive essay topic rather than a general one – the research will be more specific.
- Pick a topic which you think will inspire debate.
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