Persuasive writing's main purpose is to convince. Persuasive writing contains the opinions and biases of the author. To convince others to agree with the author's point of view, persuasive writing contains justifications and reasons. It is often used in letters of complaint, advertisements or commercials, affiliate marketing pitches, cover letters, and newspaper opinion and editorial pieces.

Key Points:

• Persuasive writing is equipped with reasons, arguments, and justifications.
• In persuasive writing, the author takes a stand and asks you to agree with his or her point of view.
• It often asks for readers to do something about the situation (this is called a call-to-action).

When You Would Use Persuasive Writing:

• Opinion and editorial newspaper pieces.
• Advertisements.
• Reviews (of books, music, movie, restaurants, etc.).
• Letter of recommendation.
• Letter of complaint.
• Cover letters

Example:

Following the 2012 Olympic Games hosted in London, the UK Trade and Investment department reported a £9.9 billion boost to the economy. Although it is expensive to host the Olympics, if done right, they can provide real jobs and economic growth. This city should consider placing a bid to host the Olympics.

This is persuasive writing because the author has a belief—that “this city should consider placing a bid to host the Olympics”—and is trying to convince others to agree.

Non-example:

According to legend, the Olympics were founded by Hercules. Now almost 100 countries participate in the Games, with over two million people attending. So cities from Boston to Hamburg begin considering their bid to be a host city more than 10 years in advance.

All of these statements are facts. Therefore it’s expository. To be persuasive writing, you must have an opinion that you’re trying to persuade people of—then, of course, you will support that opinion with evidence.