Top Selective School Graduate’s Tips on Excelling in Persuasive Writing for NAPLAN

The NAPLAN is essential for all Year 3, 5, 7, and 9 students. The most commonly tested writing type is persuasive writing. See below to learn how you can stand out rom the rest in this area of writing:

Tip 1: Maintain a strict structure.

Having a clear and logical structure in your persuasive writing is key to writing an effective
persuasive text. You can have all the relevant points and evidence to support your position
but if you fail to articulate these clearly, you will fail to gain the marks you want. To ensure
you engage your reader and achieve the highest band in NAPLAN Writing, I recommend this
structure:

Introduction:
– Introduce in a clear statement your position on the topic – take a “for” or “against”
stance.
– Summarise in 2 – 4 sentences, your three arguments that support your stance.
Remember that these arguments should not go against each other.

Body:
– The body of your persuasive text should have three paragraphs which each define an
argument that supports your stance and convinces the reader to agree with you.
– You should start each paragraph with a topic sentence that outlines your main point.
You can then use multiple examples or pieces of evidence to support this.

Conclusion:
– In this paragraph, you will reinforce your stance by restating your position as for or
against, and summarise your three main arguments.

Tip 2: Plan.

Planning is crucial in any type of writing, but especially in argumentative pieces as you have
to cohesively articulate your position and persuade your reader. In circumstances where
students fail to plan out their pieces, they often lose track of their points and fail to express
them as effectively. To counter this, I recommend that you take a few minutes after
thoroughly reading your stimulus, to plan your persuasive text according to the structure
above. In this plan, outlining useful examples or evidence may also help. Although taking
these few minutes to plan ahead of writing may seem like wasted time, having a detailed
idea of how you intend to articulate your point will help you write more efficiently.

Tip 3: Use persuasive devices.

A significant amount of marks are assigned to the use of persuasive devices, as using these
will add substance to your writing and better convince them of your point. And so, some
devices I recommend that you consistently apply include:

● Repetition: repetition of certain words or phrases will allow you to cement your
argument into the reader’s mind.
● Hyperbole: using exaggeration can highlight the flaws and demonstrate extreme
circumstances that can result from the counterargument. For example, to support
banning plastic bags, you could state: “If we do not ban the use of plastic bags, soon
you will be eating fish with a side of plastic bags for dinner”.
● Examples and evidence: using statistics, facts and examples.
● Inclusive and second person language: using language such as our, us, we, and you,
makes the reader feel as if your writing is relevant and that the circumstances
concern and impact them deeply.
● High modality language: must, will, essential, ought to, etc.
● Rhetorical questions: like inclusive language, using rhetorical questions will force
your reader to reflect and more deeply consider and be persuaded by your point.
● Emotive language

Tip 4: Edit.

NAPLAN assigns 11 marks to punctuation and spelling, so taking a couple extra minutes to
edit your piece and catch all punctuation and spelling mistakes is key.

Interested in learning more? Enrol in our selective trial test and intensive writing programs where you can get access to targeted theory notes, exemplars and individualised feedback.