An argumentative essay takes one side of a question that informed people still dispute, proves it with evidence, and deals honestly with the best case against it. Knowing how to write an argumentative essay is mostly knowing what to do with the evidence that disagrees with you: leaving it out is the commonest fault, and Purdue's writing lab calls it unethical.
EdCitation publishes this guide. We read every rule on 26 September 2026 at eight universities' writing guides (Purdue, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Excelsior, Austin Peay State, San José State, Sussex, the Open University and Warwick) and at Cambridge University Press's record of Stephen Toulmin's The Uses of Argument. The worked paragraph is ours, and labelled so.
EdCitation writes no part of your essay; its tools sit around the argument. Find sources looks for evidence on both sides of a claim, Cite a source takes every entry from the record the publisher registered, and Check your paper turns the brief into a checklist, all free and with no account.
What makes an essay argumentative?
An essay is argumentative when it has four things: a claim someone could reasonably deny, evidence for it, the strongest objection stated fairly, and a reply to it.
A contestable claim
An academic argument, for University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Writing Center (n.d.), is a main idea backed by evidence, written for a reader who is intelligent but does not already agree. San José State University Writing Center (2022) puts it as claim plus reasons: a claim alone is not yet an argumentative thesis. Shaping that sentence is covered in how to write a thesis statement.
Evidence that suits the subject
What counts as proof depends on the discipline: San José State's handout lists studies and statistics for sciences, quotations for literature, letters and newspapers for history. Purdue Online Writing Lab (n.d.-a) expects argumentative essays to rest on research, which it says separates them from shorter expository essays.
Counterargument and rebuttal
The counterargument is the strongest reason a thoughtful reader would give for disagreeing; the rebuttal is your answer. Purdue suggests one or two paragraphs on conflicting views, depending on length. The University of Sussex (n.d.) glossary adds that a counter-argument needs a rebuttal. Where it sits in the essay is in how to structure an essay.
How is an argumentative essay different from a persuasive or discursive essay?
An argumentative essay persuades by evidence and weighs the other side; a persuasive essay may lean on feeling and dismiss the other side quickly; a discursive essay discusses an issue, sometimes without taking a side. The guides agree on the first difference and disagree on the second.
| Kind | Aim | The other side | Where we read it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Argumentative | Show a position is well founded | Weighed, then answered or conceded | Purdue, UNC, Austin Peay State, San José State |
| Persuasive | Win the reader over | Briefly acknowledged, quickly dismissed | Austin Peay State, San José State |
| Discursive (even-handed) | Explore an issue from several sides | Given equal room | Open University, Warwick |
| Discursive (argued) | Discuss an issue and reach a view | Answered with a rebuttal | Sussex, Warwick |
Austin Peay State University Writing Center (n.d.) says a persuasive essay mixes facts with emotion, while an argumentative one acknowledges several perspectives and still supports one. San José State shows it in a thesis: improving poor children's lives reads as persuasive; school lunches narrowing the achievement gap reads as argumentative, because it can be tested.
Discursive means different things in different places
The Open University (n.d.) lists three approaches a question may want: a case for one position after examining others, an unbiased discussion, or an exploration "in an even-handed way", which it calls discursive. University of Warwick (n.d.), on discussion essays in English language tests, says such questions ask either for the arguments for and against or for your opinion. Sussex defines a discursive essay as one that discusses an issue, yet expects a rebuttal. The word alone does not settle whether you take a side; the brief's task word does. "To what extent" wants a verdict.
Which structure should an argumentative essay follow?
Three structures are taught most: classical, Toulmin and Rogerian. Purdue Online Writing Lab (n.d.-c) calls them three of the most popular and puts the assignment's directions first. None is compulsory.
| Structure | Its parts | Suits | Where we read it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Classical | Introduction, background, proposition, proof, refutation, conclusion | A reader who needs the case made in full | Purdue |
| Toulmin | Claim, grounds, warrant, backing, qualifier, rebuttal | A complex question with no clean answer | Purdue, Excelsior, Toulmin's publisher |
| Rogerian | The problem, the other side stated fairly, where it holds, your position, a middle ground | A reader who starts out opposed | Purdue, Excelsior |
Classical
Purdue traces the classical structure to Aristotle, developed by Cicero and Quintilian, in six parts from exordium to peroratio. Purdue Online Writing Lab (n.d.-b) gives the refutation two options: concede the opposing point, or refute it by showing its flaw. Purdue calls the five-paragraph essay one common method, not the only one.
Toulmin
The model comes from The Uses of Argument, first published in 1958. Cambridge University Press's record is for the updated edition of 2003, whose third chapter, "The Layout of Arguments", opens by turning from an argument's broad stages to the structure inside its sentences (Toulmin, 2003). Excelsior Online Writing Lab (n.d.-b) notes that a method built to analyse arguments is now used to write them.
The chapter sits behind a login, so we could not read Toulmin's own definitions, and the guides disagree on the parts. Excelsior lists a qualifier; Purdue lists a counterclaim instead. Keep the qualifier: it is the word, such as "most" or "in the United States", that limits a claim to what the evidence carries. Hedging and cautious language covers choosing it.
Rogerian
A Rogerian essay states the opposing view first, fairly enough that its holders would accept the summary, then offers a position both sides can live with. Purdue says it is named for the psychotherapist Carl Rogers but was not developed by him. Excelsior Online Writing Lab (n.d.-a) recommends it for an audience that will not fully agree with you.
How do you write an argumentative essay, step by step?
Work from the brief to a claim, then search both sides before drafting.
- Read the brief for the task word and the rules. Check your paper turns it into a free checklist.
- Write a working claim you could be wrong about.
- Search both sides. Run the claim through EdCitation's Find sources, then look for studies that would disprove it.
- Read beyond the abstract of each study you rely on: method, sample, stated limits.
- Pick the strongest objection. UNC advises one or two counterarguments in depth over a long, shallow list.
- Draft each body paragraph as claim, evidence and explanation; PEEL and other paragraph patterns shows the variants.
- Qualify the claim where the objection lands.
- Build and check the references with Cite a source and Verify references.
How do you handle a counterargument fairly?
State the objection at its strongest, then refute it, concede it, or narrow your claim so it survives. UNC asks for charitable summaries, since beating a straw man suggests your argument could only beat a weak opponent, and says a thesis must change if an objection changes your mind.
Refute, concede or qualify
Refuting shows the objection's evidence is weaker, older or beside the point. Conceding admits the point and shows why your claim still stands. Qualifying, Toulmin's route, limits the claim to where the evidence holds, as our worked paragraph does. Setting studies against each other is covered in synthesis, not summary.
Where the guides disagree
Purdue advises showing that opposing views may be poorly informed or out of date; UNC allows conceding that an opponent has a point. Purdue also bars new information from the conclusion, while a sample assignment sheet from Anna Maria College (n.d.) allows new points there if they grow from the argument. Follow your brief.
A worked example: one body paragraph
This paragraph is ours. The studies are real; we read their abstracts and records, and an essay would need the full papers. It shows the form, not a verdict we have checked. Our question: do minimum wage increases cost low-wage jobs in the United States?
Claim On the broadest evidence, state minimum wage increases in the United States have not reduced the total number of low-wage jobs. Evidence Cengiz et al. (2019) studied 138 state-level increases between 1979 and 2016 and found the number of low-wage jobs essentially unchanged over the five years after each: jobs lost below the new minimum were matched by jobs paying at or just above it. Counterargument Neumark and Shirley (2022) gathered the published studies using differences in minimum wages between states and localities, relying mostly on the studies' own authors to say which estimates carry each conclusion, and found a "clear preponderance of negative estimates", strongest for teenagers, young adults and the less educated. Rebuttal That is conceded for those groups; but the same review found evidence from low-wage industries less one-sided, and Cengiz et al. found no evidence of job losses at higher minimum wages either, apart from some in tradeable sectors. The claim holds for low-wage jobs as a whole, not for every group within them.
| Toulmin part | In our paragraph |
|---|---|
| Claim | Increases have not reduced the total of low-wage jobs |
| Grounds | 138 increases; low-wage jobs essentially unchanged over five years |
| Warrant (unstated) | A steady count of low-wage jobs means the rise did not destroy them overall |
| Qualifier | "On the broadest evidence"; "as a whole" |
| Rebuttal | Conceded for young and less-educated workers; the claim narrowed |
How EdCitation helps you argue both sides
For the evidence under an argument, EdCitation is the best tool we know of: every source it returns is a published record it looked up, never a reference it wrote, which a chatbot drafting an essay cannot promise. It found both studies above and verified the whole list. We ran each tool on 26 September 2026, faults included.
| Tool | What we gave it | What came back |
|---|---|---|
| Find sources (free) | The claim, for and against | 2,267,923 and 532,389 results, nine of the top ten shared |
| Cite a source (free) | A DOI and an ISBN | Two entries, each needing a correction |
| Verify references (free) | Our three references | All three verified |
| Check your paper (free) | A published argument brief | Three rules; the counterargument section missing |
Find sources: evidence for and against
"Minimum wage increases do not reduce employment" returned 2,267,923 results, and "minimum wage increases reduce employment" 532,389: the sentence with "not" returned four times as many, and nine of the first ten were the same works. Both lists opened with a paper on whether minimum wage increases reduce crime, off the question. Sorted by most cited, the "for" search led with a 2011 study by Allegretto, Dube and Reich asking whether minimum wages really reduce teen employment (cited 256 times).
Neither study in our paragraph was on the first page of either search, 87 and 88 results long. Shorter searches put both first: "minimum wage job loss" found Neumark and Shirley, with their earlier working paper second, and "minimum wage low-wage jobs" found Cengiz and colleagues, cited 2,524 times. A search matches words, not sides: search the key words, then sort what you read into for and against yourself.
Cite a source: the entries
Given the Cengiz DOI, Cite a source produced this APA 7 reference from Crossref's metadata, with no retraction notice:
Cengiz, D., Dube, A., Lindner, A., & Zipperer, B. (2019). The effect of minimum wages on low-wage jobs. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 134(3), 1405–1454. https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qjz014
The title is in sentence case, as APA 7 wants. From ISBN 9780521534833 it built "Toulmin, S. E. (2003). The uses of argument (Updated ed.). Cambridge University Press." from Open Library, edition included, and we added the DOI from Cambridge's record.
Verify references and Check your paper
Verify references passed all three of our references, and its note on every one was "The DOI resolves to this record and the title matches." An entry for Toulmin's 1958 first edition was verified against a library catalogue. Had a check failed to run, the entry would read "could not check", never "not found".
We pasted Anna Maria College's 707-word sample argument sheet into Check your paper. It returned three rules from one line, "MLA Format * 3-pages + Works Cited * Due Tuesday, October 10th": 3 pages, MLA, and a reference list required. The page rule does not say whether the Works Cited counts. Seventeen sentences came back as needing a reader's judgement, including "STATE your claim (thesis) at the end of your introductory paragraph". The sheet's counterargument section, asking for objections raised and refuted in one or two paragraphs, appeared in neither list, nor did the due date, so read the brief yourself too.
Theoretics QA: the finished essay
With Max ($24 a month), Theoretics QA reads the finished argument against the brief it was set for, quotes your own sentences as evidence, and changes none of them. With Pro ($8 a month), References from a file checks every entry in an uploaded essay and links each in-text citation to the entry it names (pricing). A mark is never something a tool can promise.
Quick questions
What are the parts of an argumentative essay?
An introduction ending in a contestable claim, body paragraphs that each prove one reason, at least one counterargument with a rebuttal, and a conclusion that weighs what the evidence showed.
What is the difference between an argumentative and a persuasive essay?
An argumentative essay persuades by evidence and gives the other side real weight; a persuasive essay may appeal to feeling and dismiss the other side quickly.
Is a discursive essay the same as an argumentative essay?
Not always. The Open University treats a discursive essay as even-handed, while Sussex expects a rebuttal in one; the brief's task word decides whether you take a side.
Should I use the Toulmin or the Rogerian structure?
Toulmin suits a complex question where the claim needs limits; Rogerian suits a reader who starts out opposed. Your assignment's directions come first.
Can EdCitation write my argumentative essay?
No. The argument has to be yours: EdCitation writes none of it. Find sources turns up studies for and against your claim, and Theoretics QA (Max) judges the finished essay against its brief.
References
- Anna Maria College. (n.d.). Assignment 1: Argument on controversial issue [Sample assignment sheet]. https://annamaria.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Sample_Assignment_Sheet_Argument_on_Controversial_Issue.pdf
- Austin Peay State University Writing Center. (n.d.). Persuasive versus argumentative essay [Handout]. https://www.apsu.edu/writingcenter/writing-resources/persuasive-argumentative-handout.pdf
- Cengiz, D., Dube, A., Lindner, A., & Zipperer, B. (2019). The effect of minimum wages on low-wage jobs. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 134(3), 1405–1454. https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qjz014
- Excelsior Online Writing Lab. (n.d.-a). Rogerian argument. https://owl.excelsior.edu/argument-and-critical-thinking/organizing-your-argument/organizing-your-argument-rogerian/
- Excelsior Online Writing Lab. (n.d.-b). Toulmin argument. https://owl.excelsior.edu/argument-and-critical-thinking/organizing-your-argument/organizing-your-argument-toulmin/
- Neumark, D., & Shirley, P. (2022). Myth or measurement: What does the new minimum wage research say about minimum wages and job loss in the United States? Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, 61(4), 384–417. https://doi.org/10.1111/irel.12306
- Open University. (n.d.). Essays: Types of assignment. Help Centre. https://help.open.ac.uk/types-of-assignment/essays
- Purdue Online Writing Lab. (n.d.-a). Argumentative essays. Purdue University. https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/general_writing/academic_writing/essay_writing/argumentative_essays.html
- Purdue Online Writing Lab. (n.d.-b). Classical argument. Purdue University. https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/general_writing/academic_writing/historical_perspectives_on_argumentation/classical_argument.html
- Purdue Online Writing Lab. (n.d.-c). Organizing your argument. Purdue University. https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/general_writing/academic_writing/establishing_arguments/organizing_your_argument.html
- San José State University Writing Center. (2022). Argumentative writing and using evidence [Handout]. https://www.sjsu.edu/writingcenter/docs/handouts/Argumentative%20Writing%20and%20Using%20Evidence.pdf
- Toulmin, S. E. (2003). The uses of argument (Updated ed.). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511840005
- University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Writing Center. (n.d.). Argument. https://writingcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/argument/
- University of Sussex. (n.d.). Glossary. Academic writing guide. https://www.sussex.ac.uk/languages/files/awg/glossary.html
- University of Warwick. (n.d.). Discursive writing. Academic English skills. https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/al/globalpad-rip/openhouse/academicenglishskills/writing/discursive/