A&B Chapter 17 section 3 and 4

When beginning an essay or a persuasive paper of any kind, making sure that you have a good solid knowledge of how you want to write your paper and where you want to go with it will make the entire writing process significantly smoother and will help you write a better paper.  When starting your paper a very important decision you want to make is what to title your paper.  Your title should give the reader, at a glance, what you are going to be writing about.  It may not show your argument but it should let the reader know what they should expect to be reading about.  After you have decided on an effective title you can move on to how you want to structure your introduction and conclusion.  An important decision you need to make here is when you want to tell your audience what your personal stance is.  If you state your stance early on you give your audience a clear understanding on what this paper is going to be about and what you will be arguing about.  You could also place your thesis at the end of the introduction, allowing the reader to think about the topic at hand and make a decision for themselves on what point they agree with before knowing your point of view.  Finally if you want your reader to have as much information as possible and to be able to see all sides of the argument before making your side clear, you can wait till the conclusion to state your position and argument.  Each of these methods have different effects and deciding on how you would like your audience to react to them will shape the rest of your paper.