How to Write a Controversial Essay on Abortion Worldwide

When writing a controversial essay on abortion, you need to make sure the facts and statistics you use are supportive of your main argument. However, any good writer will present both sides to the argument and to do that, you need data from both sides. Before you start your research get some note cards and highlighters ready. These tools will help you to make notes as you go.

Whenever you write something down, no matter how trivial or short it might be, note the corresponding bibliographic information including the page number. This will save you heaps of time later when you are reaching your deadline and trying to put together your reference page.

Research

With a controversial essay, it is imperative that you check the sources you plan to use and evaluate their merit. Do not use unreliable sources.

• Start with your school library. This is where you can find books and journal articles which are written by reputable sources. Of course, even reputable sources might have funding that raises some questions. Look for:
  • the author or authors;
  • what their degrees are;
  • where they were received;
  • what other peers have had to say in reviews about their work;
  • what other work they published;
  • who funded the study.
• With controversial topics like abortion, you should never just accept a statistic as pointed out by a single author. Check the original source for that statistic. Put the statistic into proper context. You need the complete picture before you cite that source.
• Turn to academic databases to find reputable sources. Read over the abstracts to see which ones best fit your topic and then open the entire article and read over that to gain a better perspective.
• You want to avoid the internet as a reliable source, especially sites that end in “.com” as these are commercial websites, except in cases where you are simply reading some information about the background to inform yourself before you start the research. These are not meant to be sites that you use as sources.

Writing

With your notes ready, it is time to start writing. You want to either use the strongest to weakest order or weakest to strongest order for your presentation. This is a decision left to you, because neither is right or wrong.

Tip:

You can check the organization of your work by using an outline. Even a bullet point outline can help you to play around with the order of your work and find areas where the content might flow better or worse.

With an outline, you can start drafting your thesis statement and your body paragraphs. Most students write the body paragraphs first, then turn to the introduction and the conclusion. This is useful because your introduction and conclusion both need the content from your body and if you try to write them before you have written the body, things will get very complicated very quickly.

Read over the content for clarity and flow. Make any necessary edits and send it in.