I am writing an argumentative paper but I dont know how to my thesis or how to start the paper off, Any Help?

Question

I want to argue whether or not psychological oriented marketing manipulates people's buying decisions or a way to understand their thinking when they buy?

I am arguing that it is a manipulation

how would I start this paper?

Answer 1

In a thesis statement, you always state your main points. Sometimes it isn't feasable in the one sentence, but it should definitely be in the first paragraph. Also, the rest of the paper should tie into that paragraph.

So you start off with something along these lines:
Psychological oriented marketing manipulates people's buying decisions because . . .
here you can list your overall reasons with numbers, or just write them out. Just starting with that sentence is basically all you need to do (often thesis statements are more than one sentence long. However, I did have a teacher before who wanted it all to be one sentence---you'll have to go on what your teacher says for this paper). It's very simple if you know what points you're going to talk about in your paper. And if you find you want to talk about more or less, you can add or delete your reasons. You can add a bit more in your first paragraph, but this is not the paragraph for your evidence. You're just stating your points which you will be writing about in your paper, and you will support your points with evidence in the body of your paper.

But you have to tie everything else into this sentence/paragraph (in college anyway---they might let you get away with it if you're in high school). It actually does make it easier for you. It adds order to the paper, especially if you go in the order of the reasons you wrote (recommended). The body of your paragraph should have either one paragraph or one section (depending on the length of your paper) tying into each point of your thesis, and it should all fit. If there is some evidence that doesn't tie in, either weigh it and see if it really is important to what you're writing about, or tie it into your thesis and make a whole new paragraph about it. So, if you had reason #1, reason #2, and reason #3, Here is how it should look:

Paragraph 1: Thesis with either the whole thing as one sentence, or one sentence per point with some very minor elaboration.
Paragraph/Section 2: It all talks about reason #1 and your evidence and elaboration on the subject. The first sentence should almost restate that part of your thesis. The rest is evidence and depth about it.
Paragraph/Section 3: All about reason #2
Paragraph/Section 4: All about reason #3
Paragraph 5: Conclusion. Restate your thesis. DO NOT add any new evidence in this paragraph. Everything should have already been out on the table and you're just summing it all up.
One easy way to restate your thesis is by saying it backwards. For instance, you would say:
So because [of these reasons], psychological oriented marketing manipulates people's buying decisions.

I hope this is the help you were looking for. And I also hope I'm not giving you way more information than you wanted.