Argumentative Text | What it is, Structure, Characteristics and Examples

We explain what the argumentative text is and what its general characteristics are. Also, how is its structure and examples.

What is an argumentative text?

An argumentative text is  a type of writing that expresses coherence through reasoning that refutes or justifies something, in order to persuade the reader.

An argumentative text expresses the ideas, opinions and point of view of the issuer , unlike other types of texts such as scientific , narrative or legal, which are impartial regarding the subjectivity of the issuer.

Characteristics of the argumentative text

Before starting to write an argumentative text, it is necessary to be clear about the idea that you want to convey and based on what types of arguments you are going to express it:

• Emotional-affective arguments. They are those that seek to generate empathy and convince through emotions and feelings.
• Rational arguments.  They are those that appeal to the recipient's capacity for logical thinking.

Then the content itself will be developed, with the help of certain linguistic resources or strategies in order to support the hypothesis, such as:

• The analogy. It consists of the parallelism or relationship of similarity between two elements at first glance, different.
• Statistical data. It consists of reliable numerical information that can be compared and analyzed.
• The exemplification. It consists of providing examples from everyday life, which represent the theme exposed in the thesis.
• The direct or verbatim quotation. It consists of a faithful transcription of the words of an author or published document and the complete sentence is written in quotation marks.

Structure of the argumentative text

The structure of an argumentative text consists of three parts:

• The introduction .  It refers to a brief description of the thesis or fundamental idea, in order to introduce the reader to the subject and in a given context and then be able to develop the arguments in the rest of the writing.
• The body of the argument.  It refers to the development of the thesis itself, making use of the different linguistic resources. The objective is to convince the reader, so the information must be clear, orderly and have meaning or coherence.
• The conclusion .  It refers to the last part of the writing (which can consist of several paragraphs ) in which the hypothesis raised is concisely justified. That is, a logical reasoning is expressed that gives meaning to all the arguments mentioned.

Examples of argumentative texts

They are argumentative texts:

• Scientific articles . They tend to have technical language and are aimed at a specialized audience.
• Newspaper articles. They do not always include the author's signature.
• Legal documents. As are the remedies for protection, appeals or contracts.
• Political speeches . In which the arguments are often manipulated in order to fulfill partisan interests, and not just debate political issues.
• Advertising guidelines. They are not usually reliable sources of information, due to the economic interests that hide or exceed the exposed subject.

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