The correct answer is: to convince the audience of a certain viewpoint.
Let's beggin by defining persuade: to make someone do or believe something by giving them a good reason to do it or by talking to that person and making them believe it.
As you can see, the name persuasive essay already gives you some clues on its purpose, it is used to make an impact on the reader and make him addopt or at least accept your way of thinking about certain issue. To achieve this, it is necessary that the writer develops logical and reasonable arguments to support his statements.
