Most students writing the SAT essay find summarizing the persuasive essay prompt to be easier than explaining why the prompt persuades. But analyzing and explaining the prompt is an important part of your essay response. It is an area where you can pull ahead if you know how to do it.
There are many reasons why a prompt might be persuasive. Let’s list some of them here.
____ academic vocabulary: precise, domain specific words
____ allusions, especially to the Bible or Shakespeare
____ analogies
____ anecdotes
____ attacking, undermining other opinions / counterarguments
____ clarity
____ colloquial language
____ current events references
____ examples, spot-on and easy to understand
____ experts, authorities in agreement with the author
____ facts, lots of facts
____ figures of speech
____ historical references
____ humor
____ inclusive language, including the reader with words like “we” and “us”
____ logical presentation such as using cause/effect, sequential information, chronological information, ranking of info
____ personal experience, education, or work of the author
____ primary source references
____ repetition
____ rhetorical questions
____ sensory language such as vivid images, sounds, smells, textures and tastes
____ statistics
When you analyze why the essay prompt is persuasive, you must identify several of the above techniques which the author uses. You must give one or more examples of the techniques you identify. And you must explain why using each technique persuades readers to the author’s point of view.
More of that in future blogs.
English Writing Teacher 