Writing a Persuasive Essay About Using Facebook
Table of contents:
Whether or not to use Facebook can be a controversial topic of debate. When you’re writing a persuasive essay, either for or against Facebook use, it’s important to be aware that there are a lot of nuances to the situation, and many points of both agreement and disagreement.
In your introduction, make sure to set out your thesis clearly, but it may be too harsh if you imply, for instance, that people are morally right or wrong to use Facebook. Be decisive but not aggressive. It may help to admit to some advantages or disadvantages of using Facebook right away.
Introduction examples
Pro: Facebook is a great way of keeping friends and family of all ages in touch, of building communities based on common interests and/or location, and a good way to keep up with current events as long as you keep your wits about you.
Con: Facebook is no longer relevant for our times, because it’s now full of spam from companies you don’t care about, advertisements, and fake news, rather than being a place for friends and family to keep in touch.
As you move on into the body of your persuasive essay, touch on all the arguments against your thesis, as well as for it, that you can think of. It’s good to have a full defence ready to go, as missing out any mentions of either benefits or negatives, depending on which side you’re taking, can make your argument look weak.
Body paragraphs examples
Pro: It’s true that there are some who try to exploit Facebook to spread total falsehoods, or marketers who use Facebook primarily as a way of advertising to their customers rather than listening to them and building a community with them. However, this isn’t the majority of the content on Facebook, and you can clear the clutter from your own feed quite easily. Facebook gives you the tools to do this by hiding things you’re not interested in, or giving you the ability to unfollow groups, pages, and even acquaintances you’ve lost interest in. At heart, Facebook still retains the benefits it always had, allowing you to easily talk with, share pictures and video with, and play games with, people you know.
Con: At one point, certainly, Facebook had a lot of benefits as a social media site. However, since then, it’s become a wasteland full of maniacs, advertising, and people pretending their lives are better than yours. Facebook changed the order you see your feed in so that you see “Top Stories” rather than the most recent updates, defeating the point of having a feed in the first place. You can now see updates with a lot of activity multiple times while never seeing the update from your friend that you really needed to see, because it was lost in the mania. It’s a popularity contest taken virtual, and there’s really no point to it anymore.
Your conclusion should then be a brief, succinct summary of your main points, followed by a request for the reader to do something, even if just to consider what you’re saying with an open mind.
Conclusion examples
Pro: Facebook isn’t perfect, but it’s not exactly a howling wasteland either. It has both good and bad points. Let’s improve the bad points rather than throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Con: When considering the pros and cons, it’s easy to just maintain the status quo rather than say: “This isn’t good enough, and I can’t take it anymore,” and move on from there. There are many other social media sites on the Internet, and most of them are a lot better than Facebook.
