An essay is a brief piece of writing that is aimed at enabling or persuading the reader. It is a piece of writing that uses facts, analysis, and interpretation to develop a concept or argument. Essays are a commonly assigned form of writing that every student will have to encounter while in academia.
Essay writing often requires students to master several skills like close reading, analysis, comparison, and contrast. As this list of qualities demonstrates, there is a lot to gain for a student who wants to be successful in essay writing.
Although there are many distinct types of essays that you can write as a student whether, in high school or college, there are main types of essays you need to know. They are generally divided into four categories known as argumentative essays, expository essays, narrative essays, and descriptive essays.
Types of Essay Writing
Here are the four main types of essays that you need to know.
Argumentative Essay
This is one of the types of essay writing. This is a piece of writing whereby the writer takes a stand on a topic. A writer tries to persuade readers to understand and support their point of view on a topic in a good argumentative essay by articulating their reasoning and presenting evidence to back up their points.
This is one of the types of essay writing that is a common task for high school and college students. The essay is divided into three; the introduction, body, and conclusion.
- Your topics and thesis statements are presented in the introduction.
- Your evidence and arguments are presented in the body.
- The conclusion summarizes and stresses the validity of your argument.
Expository Essay
Another main type of essay writing that you need to know is the expository essay. This type of essay explains a topic in such a precise and focused way. It does not require a novel argument, but rather a well-balanced and well-organized perspective on the topic.
An expository essays test your knowledge of a topic along with your ability to arrange and convey information. They are often assigned in high school or used in college exam questions.
Expository essays follow the same common format as other forms of essays; the introduction, body paragraphs, and the conclusion reaffirm and highlight your thesis.
In the introduction, you convey your essay topic and thesis statement, ideally, capturing the reader with interesting information. You also provide all relevant context and supporting information that can help your reader to understand your points.
Body paragraph-each of your supporting points should have its paragraph. In an expository essay, a five-paragraph essay is widely perceived to be the standard essay but, you may require a six or longer essay to comprehend your thesis statement.
Conclusion- in the conclusion, you reaffirm your thesis statement and clarify the points you made in the body paragraphs. It should effectively wrap up the loose ends as well as provide answers to every issue the reader may have.
How to Write an Expository Essay
When writing an expository essay, it is important to comprehend and integrate all the features that differentiate expository essays from the other types of essay writing. Here are some of the considerations to keep in mind when writing.
Begin writing your expository essay writing in the same way you would start writing any other project. If you were not given a topic to write about, you’ll have to come up with your topic. You’ll also have to come up with your thesis statement which is considered the most crucial part of your expository essay. You should not begin to draft the outline of your essay until you have a thesis statement.
- In the first paragraph, your statement should be well and presented clearly. Your thesis statement is the key statement on which your entire essay is built.
A good thesis statement conveys your essay’s argument, the context for that viewpoint, and the extent of your supporting paragraph in a single sentence.
It may seem like many single sentences, but thesis statements are usually large sentences with so many clauses.
- Secondly, the tone of your essay should be neutral and analytical. Expository essays cleave to convectional language whereas, the other types of essay writing like narrative and descriptive essays embrace imaginative, passionate and popular tones
- The fact is that an Expository essay is not the place to express your own opinion or even to provide information in a way that the opinion of the reader is changed or shaped.
- Always be certain that the information you’re presenting is correct. This entails extensively evaluating your sources, cross-checking them with other credible sources, and correctly referencing every item that you present as fact.
Narrative Essay
Another type of essay writing is a narrative essay. This type of essay is one in which the entire narrative centres around a single motif, or major idea.
In this type of essay writing, characters, theme, and dialogue are the three basics that make it. Characters are very crucial in this form of writing. Its subject or motif is conveyed in a thesis statement which is divided into three sections.
All of the happenings, situations, and characters in the story revolves around a single theme. In terms of format, a narrative essay is identical to a standard five-paragraph essay. The only way that it differs from it is that it is a story with characters, events, and dialogues.
A narrative essay is a technique to see how well you can tell a tale clearly and engagingly. In this type of essay, you’ll need to consider where your story starts and ends, and how to tell it in engaging language and in a satisfactory way. This type of essay writing is used by almost every piece of writing, whether fiction or nonfiction.
Purpose of a Narrative Essay
Whether the story is true or not, narrative writing aims to convey a sequence of events in an emotionally interesting manner.
Unless you want to learn how to start a narrative essay, you should always consider what your aim is. You want your story to make your audience feel something, whether it’s laughter, sympathy, terror, or something else.
Your audience will be emotionally involved in your story if you communicate your narrative clearly and simply. Keep the proper style and approach in mind to effectively explain your concept.
Guidelines of a Narrative Essay
The ability to write a narrative essay is very crucial for field research. Instead of summarizing your experience for the reader, it displays your experience allowing them to create their conclusions.
Rather than pounding the reader like a rhetorical essay or presenting in-depth analysis like a critical essay. Narrative essays communicate their points by carefully guiding the readers.
When writing the essay like a story, then it should include all of the elements of a story. It means that an introduction, storyline, characters, setting, climax, and conclusion must all be included.
- The essay should have a goal in mind.
- The essay should be produced with a specific point of view in mind.
- It is typical for a narrative essay to be written from the author’s perspective, but, this is not the only standpoint that should be considered creativity.
- The use of the first pronoun “I” is also encouraged. This rule should not be overused due to limited clarity in diction.
- When writing a narrative essay, you should always be organized. Have a strong introduction that will set the tone for the rest of the essay. The reader should not be left uncertain about the aim of your story. You should remember that you are in charge of the essay, so steer in the direction that you want.
- When writing a narrative essay, dynamic word choice is essential for engaging the reader. Do not sound too professional rather use the same vocabulary, idioms, and phrases that you would use in conversation. Passive structures should always be avoided.
Descriptive Essay
A descriptive essay is one of the types of essays in which the student is asked to describe anything, such as an object, a person, a place, an experience, an emotion, or a circumstance. A descriptive essay is also one of the types of essays that are mostly done in high school
This type of essay writing promotes the capacity of students to write a written report of a specific experience. Furthermore, this genre offers us a lot of creative freedom. (The goal of which is to paint an image that is vivid and moving in the mind of a reader. A good descriptive essay outline composes a brief introduction, body paragraph, and conclusion.
Because all of your illustrations will be focused around the victim of description, it is always critical to spend sufficient time on it. Newspaper articles, book reports, and travelogues are all examples of good descriptive essay writing.
The purpose of the introduction is to introduce your subject to the reader and provide sufficient context for them to understand your work fully. Your introduction should be brief and interesting for the readers(s). The first paragraph of your introduction is what will make your descriptive essay stand out from the others.
In this type of essay writing, there are three body paragraphs. These paragraphs address three distinct points or arguments. It is ultimately up to you to decide on how many body paragraphs to include in your descriptive essay.
The conclusion of a descriptive essay should be a summary of all of the main points in the body text. Writing a final phrase that connects to your paper’s main points is a fantastic idea. After this is done, then the paper is complete.
Purpose of a Descriptive Essay
The purpose of descriptive essays is to provide readers with a deeper understanding of a topic by providing solid facts and metaphorical language.
You should have a clear picture of the subject after reading a descriptive essay. This is one of the types of essay writing that is advantageous to those who are writing them.
Descriptive essays are also essential to acquiring the art of descriptive writing, whether the subject of your writing is something personal or something culturally significant.
Guidelines for Writing a Descriptive Essay
Here are some of the guidelines to consider when writing a descriptive essay.
- Allow Time for Brainstorming– for example, if you are asked to describe your favourite cuisine, make a list of suggestions first.
- Use a Simple and a Straightforward Language– this means that words are carefully picked, especially in terms of their relevance to what you’re trying to explain.
- Be Organized– when writing this type of essay, it is easy to get lost in a jumble of emotions and sensations. You must aim to give an orderly and logical description if the reader wants to come away from the essay with a clear understanding of what you are trying to express.
- Make a Strong Impression on the Reader-one of your main goal is to make the reader feel a strong sense of familiarity and appreciation.
- Make Use of a Vivid Language– you should use a language that creates a more solid image in the mind of the reader. For example, why use horse instead of stallion, or misery instead of cheap?
- Make Use of Metaphors– metaphors and similes are examples of figurative language methods that use words in non-literal ways to generate a memorable impression.
Common Types of Essay in College Level
Essay writing is difficult, especially when you’re a college student with little or no free time at all. One of the ways to overcome the problems of essay writing is to get the services of a professional essay writer. Apart from argumentative, expository, narrative, and descriptive essays, there are also some common types of essays at the college level. They include:
Persuasive Essays
A persuasive essay is a piece of academic writing in which you use logic and reason to demonstrate the validity of your point of view. In this type of essay writing, you must present clear arguments and back them up with convincing facts and logic.
Persuasive essay writing aims to persuade readers to believe in a concept or opinion, as well as to take action. Many types of publications, including criticism, reviews, reaction papers, advertising, and brochures, employ various persuasion techniques & topics to persuade readers.
Structure and arrangement are critical components of an effective persuasive essay. A document without a powerful introduction, well-organized body paragraphs, and an effective conclusion is not an effective persuasive essay, regardless of how bright the ideas are.
Here is an example of how to write a proper persuasive essay.
An Overview of the Introduction
The introduction paragraph introduces your paper’s argument. A well-written introduction captivates a reader’s interest and provides relevant background information on the paper’s subject.
In persuasive essay writing, an introduction paragraph might include a quick explanation of the concepts to be addressed in the body paragraph of the essay as well as additional information relevant to your paper’s argument.
The most crucial function of the introductory paragraph is to offer a clear presentation of the paper’s argument.
The actual development of your paper’s argument is found in the body paragraph. Each body paragraph delivers a single idea that supports the argument in your persuasive essay.
Each body paragraph covers a different aspect of your paper’s thesis, bringing the reader closer to recognizing the validity of the arguments. You should always consider the general organization of your body paragraph because each of your body paragraphs should represent a stage of your argument.
The concluding paragraph of your essay serves two main purposes: it restates the paper’s point and it also restates how you supported this point in the body paragraph. On the other hand, your conclusion should not be a replica of your introduction. This part ties up the loose ends of the paper’s argument and illustrate where your paper’s thesis has gone.
A strong conclusion persuades the reader to continue reading your essay. Another crucial function of this paragraph is to introduce new information.
Other Common Types of Essays in College Level
Analytical Essays- it is a piece of writing that examines a subject in depth. Analytic essays can be written about music, art, literary works, politics, scientific research, and philosophy. This type of essay serves two purposes. It helps college students grow as writers and thinkers.
Report– Report writing is also one of the common types of essays at the college level. It is a brief, focused, and concise document created for a specific purpose and audience. Reports are usually laid out and analyses a scenario or problem, with ideas for future action frequently included. This type of essay writing is a factual paper that must be well-structured and clear.
Bottom Line
Essays which are frequently considered synonymous with a story, or an article can be both formal and informal. Formal essays are educational in tone and deal with serious subjects. When writing any type of essay, you should keep your language simple and concise.
Do not use difficult words that might break the flow of your sentence. You should also be organized. This way, your story will always flow, be sure of that.
