2. Planning the Essay
A first important step is to carefully examine the essay question and develop a strategy for answering it. The order in which you develop your discussion creates the basic design or structure of the essay.
Here are the steps for writing an argumentative essay:
- Understand the question to be addressed in the essay
- Critically read the research literature on the topic addressed in the question
- Develop your stance on the topic and provide arguments to support it
- dProvide counter-arguments to show that you have considered other arguments, but yours are stronger.
- Reply to possible objections to your arguments
About this website
EWRite is an open access online literacy platform for PolyU community that has two major objectives:
- to support PolyU students’ literacy development within and across the disciplines
- to support subject and language teachers to implement system-level measures for integrating literacy-sensitive pedagogies across the university
This platform provides access to generic genre guides representing typical university assignments as well as links to subjects offered by faculties with specific disciplinary genres and relevant support materials.
The materials can be retrieved by students by choosing the genres that interest them on the landing page. Each set of materials includes a genre guide, genre video, and a genre checklist. The genre guide and video are to summarize the genres in two different ways (i.e. textual and dynamic) to fit different learning styles. The genre checklist is for students to self-regulate their writing process. The genre guide and checklist include links to various ELC resources that can provide further explanation to language items (e.g. hedging and academic vocabulary).
The platform also acts as a one-stop-shop for writing resources for students, language teachers and subject leaders. Information about the English Writing Requirement policy can also be found on this platform. There are training materials for new colleagues joining the EWR Liaison Team.
