Typically, an expository essay is defined as a genre of writing that explains as well describes, clarifies, illustrates or explains something in ways that it becomes lucid and understandable for its readers. It has also been touted as ‘informative essay’ and is strictly a kind of writing type where the author’s opinions and emotions hold no relevance, thus an expository essay presents a balanced and fair analysis of a topic, based purely on facts and figures.
The Outline
Like all other essays, expository writing style also has a defined outline that must be followed:
- Introduction
- Body paragraph 1
- Body paragraph 2
- Body paragraph 3
- Conclusion
The first step is where the author introduces his or her thesis statement. All of the three steps following these are where lengthy as well as effective details and characteristics of the thesis statement are discussed. The last step is where it all comes together to reach a conclusive statement that ties in the essay and leaves you with a high-quality draft.
Writing An Expository Essay
Generally, expository essays shall be processed through five major steps. Let’s get started with the details of each:
1. The Prewriting Phase Of An Expository Writing Style:
This phase is the part where the writer must go through a detailed literature search while also researching the background regarding his/her topic. Vigorous brainstorming and tallying of the resources will help narrow down the scope of the essay.
2. The Drafting Phase Of An Expository Writing Style:
Putting together a rough framework of the essay will help the writer revise the essay and sort out any discrepancies and errors before delivering his/her thoughts and ideas into the final essay draft. The framework will look exactly like the essay but more like an essay in its elementary stage. Now, the first part is always stating the thesis of the essay and that is what shall be done here as well. Make sure that the thesis is well researched and relevant to your topic/subject to efficiently convey your point to the audience. Thus, the concept of the thesis or the grounding statement must be equally effective, meaningful and presentable within an essay comprising of five paragraphs.
The body paragraphs will then expand upon one particular feature of the topic, using well-resourced examples and significant facts and figures. The paragraphs in which the author must provide conclusive narrative to all the preceding points is where the grounding statement must be concisely reiterated along with some useful foundational data.
No new narratives or pointers must be introduced in the conclusion paragraph. Your conclusion should only tie the essay together succinctly and effectively. It should also be noted that the writer is not supposed to personalize the essay by stating his or her own biases and even references to the self. Hence 3rd person narrative must be employed.
3. The Revision Phase Of An Expository Writing Style:
This is where the writer goes through their work and critically examines it. Certain necessary modification and revisions must be made in order to make the essay more coherent and impactful. Remember: making sure that prejudices are excised is crucial.
Your revision phase also ensures whether the audience has been successfully communicated to. Excise anything that is irrelevant to the topic and add in any important factor that might have escaped your attention earlier. This phase is also imminent to the reassurance of the fact that the conclusion does not differ from the thesis statement.
4. The Editing Phase Of An Expository Writing Style:
This is similar to any other form of academic or professional writing where the grammar, sentence structure, formatting style as well as clarity of the ideas and statements is confirmed. Use concise effective language your essay to shine with an engaging and strong impact.
5. Getting Your Expository Essay Published:
The best writers are those who that take public feedback positively and continuously work on enhancing their expertise.
Get your essay checked and read by a selected audience first (people close to you, your English teacher as well as peers) and ask for any room for improvements that are needed and further suggestions to polish your skills. Include any relevant points received from the feedback, sort out any remaining irregularities within the essay and have your work published.
Types Of Expository Essays
As education and academia are reaching new heights every day, expository essays have become a major component of many courses and classes taught today. Below we have mentioned some common examples and types of expository essays that every student must know:
Definition Essays:
Definition essays provide meanings to terms and jargons. The topics for these can range from the more creative types to idealistic ideas.
Classification Essays:
In a classification essay, a writer organizes his/her main ideas into various categories and then gives examples that effectively communicate the objective and fit well into each category. The big idea is explained a little at first, followed by an introduction and then a detailed description of the determined subdivisions is drafted.
Compare And Contrast Essays:
A common form of academic writing, compare and contrast essays are those where the author is expected to elucidate how particular facts/objects hold certain similarities or differences from each other. It could be a standalone essay, one mentioned as a component of a bigger essay or a dissertation where it is used as a tool to add to and highlight the narrative of that larger essay. Its length varies when written separately however, as part of a bigger scheme, it could just be written as few important paragraphs that emphasize over the comparison made.
Cause And Effect Essays:
Cause and effect essays are written whenever a ‘what came first’ problem needs to be discussed. The writer’s job here is to establish the connection between the two subjects while maintaining it throughout the flow of the essay.
Process Analysis Essays:
Process analysis essay is essentially an essay type where the process of how a certain task is carried out or naturally occurs is explained in fine detail to help readers with even the most basic of tasks or understanding of ideas. In this essay, the writer is expected to go in lengthy details for each and every step of the process in a particular suggested sequence. There might also be certain expressions or jargons related to the explained process that must be described in great detail as well.
Are you beginning to get a better understanding of how to write an expository essay? Let us know in the comment sections below!
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