An argumentative essay should discuss a chosen issue and prove the writer’s position. However, it is not intended to persuade the audience to agree with that point of view. Choosing a topic for your writing is a very important step. Without a good topic, you will not be able to complete this assignment successfully. Academic advisors recommend that you brainstorm in order to come up with a topic idea for your paper.
Brainstorming your assignment topic is one of the most interesting parts of your writing project. There are some effective strategies that you can follow:
You should take a broad topic given by your academic advisor and then break it into a few subtopics. Then, break down these subtopics further. You need to come up with a narrow topic with three supporting subtopics that can become key points of your writing. Circle that part of the tree diagram and use it to prepare your outline.
This is an easy technique. You should also choose a generalized topic that you consider interesting to write about. Then, take a sheet of paper and write down everything that comes to your mind about that topic. Feel free to write all over the paper and draw the links between related concepts and key ideas and evidence.
This is also a popular method to create a good topic for an argumentative essay. Your task is to select a resource related to your subject, study it carefully, and try to prove one of the ideas presented there. For example, you get an article about second smoking as the main cause of lung cancer. You can try to prove that this is not the case.
Having a list of sample topics is useful if you procrastinate or do not have enough time for brainstorming. You can select one of the ideas from the list. It is also a good idea to change the focus of the topic or choose a different side. Check the following places to get a high-quality sample topic for your argumentative essay: