KEY ESSAY WRITING SKILLS
Making an argument (part 1)
how to write a PEA paragraph
This is part 1 of our 3-part series on making an argument. It will explain not only what the PEA structure is (for absolute beginners) but also, and perhaps more importantly, why we use it and what it means to do it well. At the core of PEA is the idea of an argument and this guide will explain what that means. There is a quiz at the end of the third guide in the series which will test you on everything involved in this skill.
Contents of this guide
Part 2 of the series will provide a bit more detail about how to write the analysis part of a paragraph, including what we mean by reasoning. Part 3 will explain how to go about adding additional evidence and analysis.
Quick links for this skill
Listen to a fun AI podcast about how to do this skill - based on all 3 parts of the series (10 mins)
Other guides in this series:
Part 2 - A beginner’s guide to the analysis
Part 3 - How to develop your argument with more evidence and analysis
What is PEA?
Like many schools we use PEA as the initialism to describe the basic structure of an analytical paragraph, used for writing essays. It refers to the three distinct parts of a paragraph, each of which has a separate function:
Point (P): The thing you want to say in response to the question; the thing you want to argue for in your paragraph (more on this idea later).
Evidence (E): The thing written down that made you think whatever you wrote in your point.
Analysis (A): Why the thing written down (your evidence) made you think the thing you wrote in your point.
Further evidence and analysis can (and should) be added to the end, making a PEAEA or even PEAEAEA paragraph, but the core structure remains PEA. These are the three distinct parts you need to understand: the P, the E and the A.
Let’s look at a simple example of this to help you get a sense of what it looks like. Then we’ll explain each of the parts in more detail.
Simple example paragraph: [P] Michael Morpurgo presents The Birdman as an outsider in his society. [E] At the start of the novel he is seen “only rarely in the daylight” and mostly goes out at night. [A] The fact the Birdman seems to live a nocturnal life implies that he does not live by the same rules or routines as ordinary people, living instead outside of society. Moreover, if he mostly goes out at night, he cannot spend much time with other people so is probably a fairly solitary person, as one would expect from an outsider.
We will explain how the different parts of this example paragraph work in the next section of the guide.
How to use PEA to make an argument
At the core of all analytical writing (both full essays, as well as individual paragraphs) is the idea of an argument. Not in the sense of a quarrel or disagreement, but in the other sense of that word: in analytical writing, you are making an argument. You are trying to argue for something. You are making your case for it. Like a lawyer in a courtroom, you are trying to prove, convincingly, that what you think is true.
For this reason, you start by stating what you want to argue for. This is your point. Your point should be something you have inferred from the text, and it should be clear and specific, not vague. (For more on this, see our guide to writing points.) For example:
Michael Morpurgo presents the Birdman as an outsider in his society.
Then you need to provide an example from the text which supports your point. This is your evidence. The evidence is just a statement of fact from the text. It is not an inference or an interpretation – it is literally saying what happens in the text. This is very important. Your evidence should be indisputable. (For more on this, we have several guides to writing and choosing evidence.) For example:
At the start of the novel he is seen “only rarely in the daylight” and mostly goes out at night.
Finally, you explain why the evidence proves the point. This is your analysis. This is where you explain the reasoning for the inference you made in your point, including any other inferences which led you to make that point. (For more on this, see our guide to explaining reasoning in the analysis.) For example:
The fact the Birdman seems to live a nocturnal life implies that he does not live by the same rules or routines as ordinary people, living instead outside of society. Moreover, if he mostly goes out at night, he cannot spend much time with other people so is probably a fairly solitary person, as one would expect from an outsider.
Together, these three steps form an argument: (1) what you think, (2) what you read that made you think it, and (3) why the thing you read made you think it.
The handy thing about this structure is that it makes your argument easier to understand. Starting with a clear point is really important because it puts everything that follows in context. It means the person reading your work knows what you are trying to prove in your argument because you said it at the top, in your point, before you said anything else. If you start with evidence from the text or with a vague point, the person reading your work will be wondering what you’re trying to say or whether what you’re saying is relevant to the question. You don’t want this.
It’s good to be a bit mysterious when you’re writing a story, but not when you’re writing an essay. You don’t want twists and turns and unexpected endings. You want clarity, above all.
Adding more evidence – PEAEA(EAEA… etc.)
Although the basic structure remains PEA, it’s important that you try, as much as possible, to add multiple pieces of evidence and analysis (in this order) to each of your paragraphs. This will help to make your argument more convincing. Imagine, again, the example of the court case. If a lawyer wishes to prove the guilt (or innocence) of the defendant in a courtroom, they’re going to want to provide as many pieces of evidence as they can. The more evidence they provide to support their argument, the more likely the jury is to be convinced by it.
The same principle applies for the arguments you make in your essays: the more evidence you provide the better. Just make sure you stick to the structure by putting evidence before analysis each time.
We discuss this in more detail in our guide to adding more evidence and analysis to an essay, but we’ll give a quick example here just to give you a flavour of it.
Although we’ve made a reasonable case that the Birdman is an outsider, there is more evidence in the text to support this, so why not include that too?
Furthermore, at this point in the story the Birdman “rarely [speaks] to anyone, indeed he scarcely look[s] at anyone.”
Now we need explain why this new evidence proves our point that he’s an outsider. That might look like this:
This shows just how much of an outsider the Birdman is because not only does he not speak to people, he doesn’t even look at them. It is as if he lives in a separate world from the other people on the island, a world of his own. It could be that he thinks people do not want to speak to him, because he is so different, and so he avoids them, or it could be that he wants to keep himself separate from other people because he prefers to be alone, but either way, his behaviour is very much that of an outsider to society.
Hopefully you can see that this second piece of analysis does the same as the first: it explains why the evidence proves the point.
The more evidence and analysis you are able to add to your analytical paragraphs, the better they’ll be because the argument will be more convincing. This is the key idea with analytical paragraphs: you need to make a convincing argument.
Summing up – key things to remember when using the PEA structure to make an argument
Always start with a point, and never with the story
Always put evidence straight after the point – your evidence should just be a straightforward statement of fact from the text and not an inference or an interpretation
Remember that the main purpose of your analysis is to explain why your evidence proves your point
Keep the different parts separate as much as possible – use different sentences for the P, the E and the A, and avoid blending more than one of these three things in a single sentence
Try to link back to the point at the end of the paragraph – this can be in a separate sentence or it can just be by using similar words (e.g. ‘outsider’) at the end of your analysis