Opinion Essay

The opinion essay simply explains your opinion or ideas about a topic. A well-written opinion essay is an original and provocative piece of writing that goes beyond merely expressing an opinion; it explores the reasons why you, the writer, hold the said opinion.The opinion essay allows you to express, comment and defend your ideas, or, if you so decide, to debate and dispute ideas that arecontrary to what you think. |
The “Yes” / “No” Plan 
The first thing you need to do when writing an opinion essay is define a point of view, that is, decide whether you agree or disagree with a postulate. You position regarding a topic determines, from the beginning, the shape your essay will have. If you have a favorable opinion concerning a topic, your essay will follow a “yes” plan. By the sametoken, if you don’t agree with the topic, your essay will follow a “no” plan. 

Now, we will examine some strategies for writing an essay under the “yes” and “no” plans, always within the structure of a five-paragraph essay. Let’s take the topic of technology and narrow it down to an issue we can discuss in five paragraphs: Technology has made our lives easier |

Now, if you agree with thepostulate above, the focus of your essay will be on the advantages, benefits and improvements technology has brought to our lives. On the contrary, if you disagree with it, your essay will concentrate on the problems and disadvantages that have come with technology. |

| |
Your introduction should contain some background information about the topic and your thesis (Thesis Statement). Thethesis must explicitly state what your opinion is, whether in favor or against the postulate in your topic. 

Coming back to the issue of technology, we will examine a possible introduction for both, the “yes” and “no” plans: |
During the last fifty years, we have seen an unprecedented advancement in technology, which has taken colossal speed and momentum during the last ten years, with theexpansion of telecommunications and the advent of the Internet. The impact of modern technology in human life has been tremendous. Every aspect of human life, from science to the arts, has been affected by technology in a positive way. I think technology has made our lives easier.(thesis) |
As you can see, the introduction above clearly expresses your opinion in favor of technology. It follows an‘inductive method’ where the thesis statement is at the end. 

Now, lets examine an introduction which expresses the opposite point of view and follows the “no” plan. You will see that the background information is the same, but the thesis contains a contrasting opinion and some changes (in red) have been made to the sentence before the thesis:  During the last fifty years, we have seen anunprecedented advancement in technology, which has taken colossal speed and momentum during the last ten years, with the expansion of telecommunications and the advent of the Internet. The impact of modern technology in human life has been tremendous. Every aspect of human life, from science to the arts, has been affected by technology and not always in a positive way. I think technology has made ourlives more complicated. (thesis) |
|

| Under both plans, “yes” or “no”, your body paragraphs should provide reasons or arguments either for or against your postulate.The body of your essay should discuss the advantages, improvements and benefits; or the disadvantages or problems of a given issue or phenomenon.Each new advantage, improvement, benefit, disadvantage or problem that youintroduce should be stated in the form of a topic sentence and dealt with in a separate paragraph. |

| “Yes” Plan 

Thesis: I think technology has made our lives easier. 

For each body paragraph you will have the following:  Topic Sentence
Argument or reason 1
Argument or reason 2 
Argument or reason 3 
Argument or reason 4, etc…
Concluding sentence | | Supporting details: 
facts,...