A discursive essay takes one issue people disagree about and discusses it from two or more sides, weighing the evidence for each before reaching a view or leaving a fair balance. The hard part is keeping both sides honest, then saying what the evidence shows.
EdCitation publishes this guide. On 26 September 2026 we read the rules for Scottish Higher and National 5 English in the awarding body's own documents, the official IELTS pages on Writing Task 2, and two university guides. The worked paragraph is ours.
EdCitation writes no part of an essay. Its free tools sit around your writing: Find sources searches for evidence on each side of an issue by the claim itself, Cite a source builds each reference from the publisher's record, Verify references checks the finished list, and Check your paper lists the rules a brief sets.
What is a discursive essay?
A discursive essay is a balanced discussion of an issue: it sets out the main positions, supports each with evidence, and weighs them. Williamson (2021), in a textbook for University of Queensland College students, calls it a critical essay that appeals to reason rather than emotion and aims chiefly to let the reader reach their own conclusion.
In Scotland the word covers more ground. The Scottish Qualifications Authority (2024) lets Higher English candidates submit one piece of portfolio writing that is "broadly discursive" or broadly creative, and lists four kinds of discursive writing: argumentative, persuasive, report, and transactional or informative. Its description of the argumentative kind, a line of thought developed through two or more points of view, is what most teachers mean by a discursive essay. On 1 February 2026 Qualifications Scotland replaced SQA as the awarding body, and says the SQA documents remain current (Qualifications Scotland, n.d.).
Where the discursive essay is set
| Setting | What it asks for | Length | A view of your own? | Sources |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| SQA Higher English portfolio | "Broadly discursive" writing, one piece | No more than 1,300 words | The top band rewards a "convincing stance" | All sources consulted, in footnotes or a list |
| SQA National 5 English portfolio | The same, marked at level 5 | No more than 1,000 words | A "clear line of thought/appropriate stance/point of view" | As for Higher |
| IELTS Writing Task 2 | Prompts such as "Discuss both views and give your own opinion" | At least 250 words, in about 40 minutes | Yes, stated clearly | Examples from your own knowledge and experience |
| University of Queensland College | A discursive essay on three controlling ideas | Three body paragraphs for 1,000 words | No stance; tentative conclusions only | Academic sources, in APA 7 |
| Any discursive brief | Evidence on every side, found by claim | As set | As the brief says | EdCitation's Find sources (free) |
Both SQA levels apply a penalty when a piece runs more than 10% over its limit (Scottish Qualifications Authority, 2025a, 2025b). IELTS (n.d.) sets a minimum, not a maximum, and warns that a very long answer can leave no time to check it.
How is a discursive essay different from an argumentative or a compare and contrast essay?
A discursive essay weighs positions on one issue; an argumentative essay defends one claim and answers the best objection to it; a compare and contrast essay sets two subjects side by side on shared grounds. The argumentative guide also maps where three British universities draw the line.
The sources disagree on one question: must you take a side? Williamson (2021) says the discursive thesis should not take a stance and should present both sides equally. SQA's marking grid, by contrast, rewards a "strong and sustained line of thought/convincing stance" at the top band (Scottish Qualifications Authority, 2025a). IELTS (2023) lists "Discuss both views and give your own opinion" as the discussion essay prompt and names "not presenting your opinion" among its mistakes. The brief decides: if it asks for your opinion, give one; if it asks you to inform, keep your view out.
Which structure should a discursive essay follow?
Three structures cover most discursive essays: for and against in blocks, point by point, and opinion-led. SQA prescribes none; its top band rewards a structure that "skilfully enhances the purpose/meaning" (Scottish Qualifications Authority, 2025a).
For and against, in blocks
The body gives every argument on one side, then every argument on the other, and the conclusion weighs them. IELTS (2023) works through a prompt on international tourism this way: decide your position, present the advantages, present the disadvantages, and restate which outweighs the other. The risk is two half-essays that never meet, so let the second side answer the first.
Point by point
Each body paragraph takes one aspect of the issue and gives both sides of it. Williamson (2021) builds the whole essay on this: three controlling ideas for a 1,000-word essay (the book's example on renewable energy uses cost, storage and environmental impact), each paragraph a claim with evidence, then a counter-claim about the same idea with evidence. The claim and counter-claim must concern the same idea: a pro on cost and a con on storage do not answer each other.
Opinion-led
State your view in the introduction, give the other side fairly, then show why your view holds. This is the shape an IELTS opinion prompt invites, and the closest to an argumentative essay; the difference is that the other side gets real room.
How do you write a discursive essay, step by step?
Start from the brief, not from the topic.
- Read the brief for its task words ("discuss", "give your own opinion", "to what extent") and its rules. EdCitation's free Check your paper reads the rules into a checklist.
- Turn the topic into a question two informed people could answer differently.
- List the positions and the aspects on which they meet.
- Search each side in Find sources: the claim, its opposite, then short keywords.
- Read beyond the abstract, noting when and where each study was done.
- Choose the structure the brief suits.
- Draft each paragraph: claim, evidence, counter-claim, evidence, weighing.
- Conclude by answering the question asked.
- Build and check the references in Cite a source and Verify references.
How do you keep the balance, and what goes in the conclusion?
Balance means each side gets a fair statement and real evidence, not the same number of words. In the IELTS (2023) tourism example, a writer who finds more advantages gives three advantages and two disadvantages. Its listed mistakes include presenting both sides without deciding whether one outweighs the other.
The conclusion then does what the question asked. Where no stance is wanted, Williamson (2021) advises restating the thesis, summarising the controlling ideas and drawing tentative conclusions for and against, and warns against ending on a vague call for more research. Where a view is wanted, say which side the evidence favours and on what condition. The Scottish Qualifications Authority (2023) reported that some Higher candidates asserted their views without enough argument or evidence to support them; a conclusion that suddenly takes a side the body never earned is the same fault.
Which words help you weigh different views?
The words that matter mark a turn between views or show how sure you are. The sources give advice, not long lists:
- Turning between views: Williamson (2021) builds the discursive thesis round a "pivot point", a comma and a contrast word such as although, nevertheless, though, regardless, yet or albeit, and bans "but" as lacking academic tone. That ban is UQ College's house rule; check whether your own brief shares it.
- Neutral tone: the same chapter rules out leading openings such as "It is undeniable that…" when no stance is wanted, and models tentative wording: "some studies", "may have", "could cause".
- Set phrases, sparingly: the University of Warwick (n.d.) says memorised essay phrases can steady a nervous writer but sound unnatural when overused.
- Your own voice: Warwick allows "I", mainly in introductions and conclusions, and suggests softer verbs than "I think", such as "I would consider".
SQA's style criterion asks for the features of the chosen genre used to "inform/argue/discuss/persuade" with "objectivity/insight/persuasive force" (Scottish Qualifications Authority, 2025a). For the verbs of caution, see hedging and cautious language; for the words that link paragraphs, signposting and linking words.
How do you use and cite evidence in a discursive essay?
Evidence carries a discursive essay at every level, but the rules on citing it differ.
At school: SQA Higher and National 5
SQA requires every source consulted for discursive writing to be acknowledged in footnotes or in a list at the end, with specific details, and calls leaving out quotation marks or copying without citing plagiarism (Scottish Qualifications Authority, 2024). No citation style is named, so choose one and keep to it. The course specification allows generative AI only for suggesting potential sources, asks teachers to have candidates evaluate every source for accuracy, and suggests requiring at least one source from the past year (Scottish Qualifications Authority, 2025a). The 2023 course report adds that evidence should be woven into the essay's structure rather than dropped in as a long quotation (Scottish Qualifications Authority, 2023).
In IELTS and at university
IELTS (2023) wants support from your own knowledge and experience, and warns against made-up statistics and research; there are no references to give in a 40-minute test. At university the reverse holds: academic sources, cited in the style the brief names (APA 7 at UQ College), and synthesised rather than summarised one by one, as synthesis, not summary explains.
A worked example: one paragraph weighing two views
This paragraph is ours. The two studies are real; we read their abstracts in Crossref's record and the University of Edinburgh's repository, and an essay would need the full papers. It shows the point-by-point form, not a verdict we have checked. Our question: has giving 16-year-olds the vote been good for their political engagement?
Whether 16-year-olds are ready to vote depends partly on what readiness is taken to mean. Chan and Clayton (2006) treated it as political maturity: drawing on nationally representative surveys, they argued that young people are, to a significant degree, less politically mature than older people, and that the voting age should not be lowered to sixteen. Eichhorn (2018), however, could study what happened after the change. Using survey data from 2015, after the voting age had been lowered in Scotland, Eichhorn compared 16- and 17-year-olds there with their peers in the rest of the UK and found potentially significant positive effects, clearest in political behaviour and weaker in how they judged politics in general. The two studies do not answer quite the same question: one measured maturity before any change, the other engagement after one. Eichhorn's findings suggest that the vote may build some of the engagement Chan and Clayton found missing, although a survey comparing two parts of the UK cannot show that the vote alone caused the difference. On this evidence, the case against a lower voting age looks weaker than it did in 2006, but it is not settled.
| Move | In the paragraph |
|---|---|
| Topic sentence | Readiness depends on what it is taken to mean |
| Claim, with evidence | Chan and Clayton: less politically mature, so no change |
| Counter-claim, with evidence | Eichhorn: positive effects after Scotland's change |
| Weighing | Different questions, different times; a survey cannot prove cause |
| Tentative conclusion | Weaker than in 2006, "but it is not settled" |
How EdCitation helps with a discursive essay
For evidence on both sides of an issue, EdCitation is the best tool we know of: every result is a published work it looked up, and every entry comes from that work's record, never from memory. Both studies above came from it, and it verified them. We ran each free tool on 26 September 2026; faults are reported too.
Find sources: one search for each side
"Lowering the voting age to 16 increases young people's political engagement" returned 5,998,570 results. The first ten were mostly on topic, but two were commentary pieces from The Conversation labelled "preprint", and Eichhorn's paper was not among the 97 shown. "16- and 17-year-olds are not politically mature enough to vote" returned 6,895,615, its first ten mixing items on COVID boosters and condoms with a 2023 paper finding that 16- and 17-year-old Germans vote as correctly as adults: a search matches words, not sides. Filtered to articles and sorted by most cited, it was led by a study of blood donation. Short searches worked: "votes at 16 Scotland" put Eichhorn first, and "voting age sixteen political maturity" put Chan and Clayton second, after a 2013 study of Norway's voting-age trial.
Cite a source, Verify references and Check your paper
Given Eichhorn's DOI, Cite a source returned, with no retraction notice:
Eichhorn, J. (2018). Votes at 16: New insights from Scotland on enfranchisement. Parliamentary Affairs, 71(2), 365–391. https://doi.org/10.1093/pa/gsx037
It set that title, and Chan and Clayton's, in the sentence case APA 7 asks for, with Scotland kept. Watch the year: the Harvard entry for the same record, and Find sources, gave 2017, the online date; the issue is April 2018, which we used.
Verify references verified all four entries: both studies, the Williamson textbook and our entry for the Higher course specification. The specification is a PDF, and the tool read it: "The address opens a PDF whose first pages carry the entry's title."
We pasted SQA's 1,053-word instructions for Higher portfolio writing into Check your paper. It returned two rules, each with its sentence: at most 1,300 words, and a reference list required. The second rule's sentence allows footnotes instead, which the label drops. Twenty-seven sentences were set aside for a reader, among them the rule that the first draft be written in class. SQA's description of argumentative writing, with its two or more points of view, appeared in neither list, so read the brief yourself too.
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Quick questions
What is the structure of a discursive essay?
An introduction stating the issue, body paragraphs for and against in blocks or point by point, and a conclusion that weighs the evidence.
Do you give your own opinion in a discursive essay?
Only if the brief asks for one. An IELTS opinion prompt requires it, SQA's top band rewards a convincing stance, and some university guides want none.
How many words is a Higher English discursive essay?
No more than 1,300 words at Higher and 1,000 at National 5, with a penalty for running more than 10% over.
Do you need references in a discursive essay?
For SQA portfolio writing and at university, yes: every source consulted, with specific details. IELTS Task 2 asks for examples from your own knowledge instead. Cite a source builds each entry free.
Can EdCitation write my discursive essay?
No. EdCitation writes no part of any paper: Find sources turns up evidence on each side, and the weighing stays yours.
References
- Chan, T. W., & Clayton, M. (2006). Should the voting age be lowered to sixteen? Normative and empirical considerations. Political Studies, 54(3), 533–558. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9248.2006.00620.x
- Eichhorn, J. (2018). Votes at 16: New insights from Scotland on enfranchisement. Parliamentary Affairs, 71(2), 365–391. https://doi.org/10.1093/pa/gsx037
- IELTS. (n.d.). IELTS Academic: Writing test format. https://ielts.org/take-a-test/test-types/ielts-academic-test/ielts-academic-format-writing
- IELTS. (2023, February 1). IELTS Writing Task 2: How to understand IELTS question prompts. https://ielts.org/news-and-insights/ielts-writing-task-2-how-to-understand-ielts-question-prompts
- Qualifications Scotland. (n.d.). Higher English: Course overview and resources. https://www.sqa.org.uk/sqa/47904.html
- Scottish Qualifications Authority. (2023). Course report 2023: Higher English. https://www.sqa.org.uk/sqa/files_ccc/2023-h-course-report-english.pdf
- Scottish Qualifications Authority. (2024). Higher English portfolio–writing and performance–spoken language assessment tasks (Version 3.0). https://www.sqa.org.uk/sqa/files_ccc/h-cat-english.pdf
- Scottish Qualifications Authority. (2025a). Higher English course specification (Version 6.0). https://www.sqa.org.uk/files_ccc/h-course-spec-english.pdf
- Scottish Qualifications Authority. (2025b). National 5 English course specification (Version 6.0). https://www.sqa.org.uk/files_ccc/n5-course-spec-english.pdf
- University of Warwick. (n.d.). Discursive writing. Academic English skills. https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/al/globalpad-rip/openhouse/academicenglishskills/writing/discursive/
- Williamson, P. (2021). Academic writing skills. The University of Queensland. https://doi.org/10.14264/54e8047