If you are looking for essay writing topics, you have come to the right place! Practice your essay skills with the following argumentative, discursive, and personal experience essay topics.
Discursive essay writing topics
A discursive essay is a piece of writing that merely discusses a topic and provides information about it. You will not be expected to argue for or against an issue in a discursive essay, but rather write about the topic in a descriptive, neutral way. For this reason, the prompts for discursive essay topics will often begin with the word “describe.”
Now look at the ten discursive essay topics below:
(1) If you could be a professional athlete, which sport would you choose? Why? How would you spend your time?
(2) Describe the funniest movie you have ever seen.
(3) Describe the car you would most like to own.
(4) Would you prefer to live in a large city or in a farming community in the countryside? Explain the reasons for your choice.
(5) Describe the personal values philosophies that an a parent should bestow upon his or her children.
(6) “Good health is more important than fame and fortune.” Discuss.
(7) Describe the attributes you seek in an ideal spouse.
(8) What do you think is your country’s greatest problem? Explain in detail and say what could be done to improve the situation.
(9) Imagine that you were rich and famous. How would your life be different?
(10) Describe how the opinions of your parents differ to those of your grandparents.
Argumentative essay writing topics
Argumentative essays are normally on some contentious issue. At a minimum, you will be expected to give your point of view and provide reasons for it. For more advanced argumentative essays, you should describe both sides of the issue in a balanced rhetorical writing style, and then go on to refute the side that you disagree with.
Here are some argumentative essay writing topics:
(11) Write a balanced discussion on the advantages and disadvantages of compulsory military service.
(12) “Capital punishment should be re-instituted as it acts as an effective deterrent to crime.” Do you agree or disagree? Why?
(13) Euthanasia should be legalized to give the terminally ill dignity in dying. Write a balanced essay discussing both sides of this contentious issue.
(14) “Television programs have no educational value.” Discuss.
(15) How should students be evaluated: according to their achievements or their effort? Discuss.
(16) Late-term abortion should not be allowed, even in cases of incest and rape as the unborn child is guilty of no crime. Do you agree or disagree? Given reasons and examples to support your viewpoint.
(17) Celebrities and athletes are paid far too much, particularly since they provide no real benefits to society at large. Write an argumentative essay that explores both sides of this assertion.
(18) “Life two hundred years ago was much more difficult than it is today.” Do you agree? Why or why not?
(19) “It is disgraceful that many people simply waste food when there are others in the world who have to go hungry.” Do you agree? Why or why not?
(20) People who win the lottery just end up wasting their money. What is your opinion on this subject?
Personal experience essay writing topics
In a personal experience essay, you will need to talk about an event or experience that you have had in your life. You may also need to describe the effect that the experience had on you.
(21) What experience in life have you found to be the most challenging? Please explain and give eamples.
(22) Please write an essay which discusses how you decided on your current course of study or career.
(23) Write about the effect that family life has had on you as a person.
(24) Speculate how your birth order may have influenced the development of your personality from a young age.
(25) Discuss a personal setback that you have experienced and what the consequences of that experience were for you.
(26) Write about a time that you felt out of place in a situation and what you did about it.
(27) Describe the place that makes you feel the most relaxed and happy.
(28) Discuss a time when a person gave you advice that you didn’t take, but which you later regretted not taking.
(29) Write about an event that really surprised you and describe how the experience made you feel.
(30) Discuss a time when you faced a dangerous situation and describe the outcome to the situation.
What is a discursive essay?
Many essay compositions cover discursive topics. This includes discussions, problems and solutions, comparisons and contrasts, giving personal opinions, or describing personal experiences on a particular topic.
What are argumentative essay writing topics?
You need to write on both side of an issue in an argumentative essay, So, you will discuss the pro’s and con’s or the advantages or disadvantages of a certain situation.
How can I improve my essay score?
Plan
If your test has an essay component, you should spend 2 to 3 minutes reading the essay writing topics, choosing one and planning what you are going to write. You may want to make notes in order to organize the composition.
Check
You should use the last five minutes of your allotted to re-read the composition and make corrections. If writing on paper, changes may be made by crossing out the incorrect words and writing the substitutions neatly above.
Conclude
Remember to write a brief conclusion in the last paragraph of the essay to summarize the main ideas.
Organize
The essay will be graded on the basis of development of the theme, organization (including paragraphing and connecting words and phrases, such as “because” and “nevertheless”), fluency, grammatical structure, vocabulary, and the ability to clearly express ideas and give examples.
Improve your vocabulary and grammar
Essays that contain only simple vocabulary and grammatical structures cannot be given high scores. Errors in vocabulary usage and grammatical structure will not lower the candidate’s score greatly if they are limited in number and if they do not detract from the meaning of the composition.
Essay Writing Correction Exercise