Your student’s guide: how to write an opinion essay

Published by Charlie Davidson on

Your student’s guide: how to write an opinion essay

As you may know every your step, every your decision changes your and other people’s life. So what college and what specialization you choose these things will influence your tastes, thoughts, world view and acquaintances. But some things can’t be change so quickly and easy. Students’ life is full of requirements, deadlines and as a result hurry. And perhaps you know it, too. This is an eternal truth of students.

Some people are convinced that the modern world, development and constant improvement of technologies have fundamentally simplified the life of modern students. But actually now people feel the lack of time more than ever. Too many things to do, to many responsibilities, to many gadgets, too many plans… And almost no time for yourself. So modern student needs help from the side as anyone else. This article’s aim is to give some tips for writing an opinion essay which should help you to create a well-structured paper.

Before starting mentioning main points it’s better to explain what is an opinion essay. This type gives you a possibility to express and explain your position about some issue. And it should be done clearly and understandably. This is how sounds simple definition.

Choosing opinion essay ideas

Writing your opinion essay is a first step to creating serious academic papers. You should express your own thoughts but give some arguments to support them. It’s very important to choose interesting and not commonplace theme. First of all you should be interested in it. So if you have no theme, take that what brings glints to your eyes and makes you get into a discussion. Here are some opinion essay ideas that could bring you inspiration.

  1. You can write about reasons why people go to colleges or universities. Not always it happens because of motivation to become a highly qualified specialist or because of anxiety for knowledge.
  2. Easy cooking. Nowadays many kitchen appliances are thought to be an integral part of our lives. Has the improvement of cooking changed our lives?
  3. Experience and books: what helps us to survive and to make decisions? Does school, college and university prepare us to reality?
  4. What changes and reforms does your country need? Are there any ways to make them real?
  5. Influence of the media, television and the Internet: drawbacks and positive effects.
  6. The next theme could be used when writing an opinion essay is life in a big city and in a small town. What ups and downs has each kind of living? What modern trends can you mention? Are there any forecasts about it?
  7. Visiting of museums: reasons. Why do people do it?
  8. What’s better: learning all by yourself or with a teacher?
  9. Reasons of people’s long life: what and why.
  10. Is it reasonable to make friends on the work? Or better to avoid these contacts?
  11. What features has an ideal worker?
  12. What would you show to a person coming to your town? What sightseeing is the most interesting and why?
  13. Small shops or big shopping malls: what do your prefer and why?
  14. Retirement homes: is it humanly to send in such places parents?
  15. If you have found a big sum of money on a street and you really need it for some important reason what would you do: try to find the owner or use it for yourself?

How to start an opinion essay?

So if you have already chosen a topic it’s time to begin working.

  1. Any activity requires focusing on it. Try to concentrate on your issue. Avoid procrastination or in other words postponing tasks even if you don’t know how to start an opinion essay. Inspiration will come later. If you know that in an hour you will put the work aside to make a cup of tea or coffee and to chat with friends, then you should refuse yourself in social networking sites for some period of time. And a cup of tea before starting writing your personal opinion essay.
  2. Brainstorm: right down all the ideas that enter your brain. Whether they’re interesting or not you will decide later. Any thoughts is a potential genius idea.
  3. Sit in a silent place to reach the highest degree of concentration.
  4. Make an opinion essay outline (important points you would like to reveal).
  5. Turn on some pleasant favourite music as a background for your thinking and creative process.
  6. Read some examples of this type of essay if you don’t know how to write an opinion essay.

What opinion essay format should you adhere to?

Well, it’s quite typical for all the types of essay. Normally there are similar requirements to opinion essay structure as to the other essays. Your paper should be divided into three parts: an introductory paragraph, a main body and a conclusion.

  1. An introduction: reveal the topic and your opinion.
  2. A main body: it has about five paragraphs in which you express different points of view. Do not forget to support them with examples and reasons. This is the biggest part in your paper. Opinion essay format requires paragraphs should be well-developed and connected with ech other.
  3. A conclusion: summarize your opinion and do not get into details.

What opinion essay useful phrases should your paper have?

To make the paragraphs connected to each other you need linking words and phrases. They will help to make the text well-structured and logical.

  1. Expressing a personal opinion: It seems to me that; To my way of thinking; In my opinion/view; I am convinced that; It is my firm belief that; To my mind.
  2. Mentioning list points: First of all; Firstly; In the first place; Secondly; Finally; To start; To begin with.
  3. Adding points: Moreover; Furthermore; In addition to this; Apart from this.
  4. Mentioning advantages and disadvantages: The greatest advantage of; One advantage of; Another advantage of; A further advantage.
  5. The next important category of opinion essay useful phrases is highlighting some point of view: Of course, Indeed; Clear enough; Clearly; Needless to say.
  6. Giving examples: For example; For instance.
  7. Referring to something or somebody: According to; With reference to.
  8. Giving other people’s opinion: It is popularly believed that; Contrary to popular belief; Some people point out that; It is often alleged that.
  9. Conclusion and summarizing: To sum it up; Finally; In conclusion (I would like to say); All in all; Therefore I feel that; On the whole; In short; Briefly; To put it briefly.

General opinion essay writing tips

  1. Write that what you really think.
  2. Do you think how to state your opinion in an essay? Give several examples from your own or other people’s experience or literature. Do not forget to mention first reasons why you think so.
  3. How to express your opinion in an essay? Read several sources connected with your theme and you will find how people couch similar thoughts. Moreover you should use linking phrases.
  4. Why is it important to distinguish fact from opinion in an essay? When writing something you should understand the difference between true things with proved basis and just thoughts expressed by someone who can’t pretend to be a professional. Opinions about some thing can be multifarious and a fact has no other variants.

How to write a good introduction for an opinion essay?

  1. Express the main idea of your paper.
  2. Give your opinion.
  3. Prove it with several reasons and examples.

How to write a conclusion for an opinion essay?

  1. Express your opinion one more time paraphrasing it in other words.
  2. Use some quotation if you wish.
  3. Use linking words.

Last steps to writing an opinion essay

  1. Read your paper several times to make sure it sounds readable and logical.
  2. Read the essay the next day if you have such a possibility to find and correct mistakes. This is one of the most important steps to writing an opinion essay.
  3. Make sure it is written cleanly.

If your opinion essay writing prompts only suffering, disappointment and exhaustion, don’t be downhearted. You can just command the services of us and problems go away!

So hopefully these opinion essay writing tips help you to create that text you will be satisfied with. Remember that the aim is to express own thoughts. No matter whether they are “right” or not. This is your opinion and it can exist.

Categories: Helpful tips