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Types of Essays: End the Confusion
Effectively writing different types of essays has become critical to academic success. Essay writing is a common school assignment, a part of standardized tests, and a requirement on college applications. Often on tests, choosing the correct type of essay to write in response to a writing prompt is key to getting the question right. Clearly, students can’t afford to remain confused about types of essays.
There are over a dozen types of essays, so it’s easy to get confused. However, rest assured, the number is actually more manageable. Essentially there are four major types of essays, with the variations making up the remainder.
Four Major Types of Essays
Distinguishing between types of essays is simply a matter of determining the writer’s goal. Does the writer want to tell about a personal experience, describe something, explain an issue, or convince the reader to accept a certain viewpoint? The four major types of essays address these purposes:
1. Narrative Essays: Telling a Story
In a narrative essay, the writer tells a story about a real-life experience. While telling a story may sound easy to do, the narrative essay challenges students to think and write about themselves. When writing a narrative essay, writers should try to involve the reader by making the story as vivid as possible. The fact that narrative essays are usually written in the first person helps engage the reader. “I” sentences give readers a feeling of being part of the story. A well-crafted narrative essay will also build towards drawing a conclusion or making a personal statement.
2. Descriptive Essays: Painting a Picture
A cousin of the narrative essay, a descriptive essay paints a picture with words. A writer might describe a person, place, object, or even memory of special significance. However, this type of essay is not the description for description’s sake. The descriptive essay strives to communicate a deeper meaning through the description. In a descriptive essay, the writer should show, not tell, through the use of colorful words and sensory details. The best descriptive essays appeal to the reader’s emotions, with a result that is highly evocative.
3. Expository Essays: Just the Facts
The expository essay is an informative piece of writing that presents a balanced analysis of a topic. In an expository essay, the writer explains or defines a topic, using facts, statistics, and examples. Expository writing encompasses a wide range of essay variations, such as the comparison and contrast essay, the cause and effect essay, and the “how to” or process essay. Because expository essays are based on facts and not personal feelings, writers don’t reveal their emotions or write in the first person.
4. Persuasive Essays: Convince Me
While like an expository essay in its presentation of facts, the goal of the persuasive essay is to convince the reader to accept the writer’s point of view or recommendation. The writer must build a case using facts and logic, as well as examples, expert opinion, and sound reasoning. The writer should present all sides of the argument but must be able to communicate clearly and without equivocation why a certain position is correct.
What are Types of an Essay?
How to Write Comparison Essay?
A comparison essay is dedicated to the description of similar and different features of two or more objects. It can also depict the contrast of two opposite items. In a comparison essay, the main author’s goal is to arrange ideas and characteristics that are common to the objects described in order to clarify peculiarities of each.
Before you start writing this type of essay, you need to collect as much information about each item in comparison as you can. Then, you should categorize all the data in order to outline what characteristics identify each object. The most rational way to do this is to draw a table, putting the name of items at the top and listing their features below, grouping them according to the chosen criteria. After the table is complete, it will be easy to highlight the similarities and differences.
At this stage, everything is set up for writing an essay. Each criterion you highlighted in the table can be described in a separate paragraph. But instead of just stating peculiarities, also try to explain the reason why compared items are similar or different in certain aspects. At the same time, try to keep your essay consistent and unbroken. That can be achieved by using proper transitions between paragraphs. Feel free to use different linking words for smoother essay flow.
Just like in any essay, in the end of your writing, you should make a summary of all the points stated in the essay. Analyze your own comparison to get an idea what the most notable differences and similarities are. Finish your essay with a personal judgment concerning the results of the comparison.
How to Write Evaluation Essay?
Evaluation essay writing is generally based on examining the subject and stating the verdict – whether it’s good or bad. An important point here is that the author can come up with specific criteria for the subject’s examination and judgment. Usually, the goal of this type of essay is either to influence the reader’s opinion about the subject or convince the reader to accept the author’s statements.
It requires responsibility on the author’s part since within the world of your essay you’re an expert and an authority on the chosen subject. Unlike descriptive essays, they are not supposed to be unbiased depicting of information. The whole point is in finding your own case and making value judgment by yourself. Don’t be afraid to express an unconventional vision of your subject, and be ready to argue for it. At the same time, try to avoid excessive emotional coloring. Your task is to appeal to the readers by research, statistics, and testimonials.
Mind the logic of your expressions. For example, you’re writing an evaluation essay about a movie. If you enjoyed it just because your favorite actor starred in it, you shouldn’t say that “the movie was great because the actor was great”. Otherwise, you will switch from evaluation of the movie to evaluation of the actor.
If you want the readers to take your arguments seriously, try and make the overall tone of your essay calm and reasonable. While stating your points, do not forget to present different opinions on the subject under discussion. In this way.
Consider this while writing your evaluation essay
For the reason that evaluation essay is basically aimed at analyzing any topic, article or book, a great number of students confuse this type of paper with a review. Unlike the latter, good examples of evaluation essays should give readers both personal and detailed assessment as for the topic that is being evaluated.
Final evaluations
The last and significant part of writing your evaluation essay is proofreading, which includes grammar and spells errors check. There are tons of spell checkers in the network of Internet and you can ask someone to read your work from head to tail in a voice to make sure there’s nothing that sounds awkward to your ear and the sentences flow easily.
Now when you learned some basics about writing evaluation essay yourself, you can check out our examples of evaluation essays and guidance to reach even better result in your work.
How to Write Descriptive Essay?
Descriptive essay is dedicated to the description of the given object, event or case. It should be written with the use of expressive language in an introduction of examples, including comparisons with some other objects; there should also be presented author’s vision of the subject.
When you set about writing a descriptive essay, it is necessary to remember that every object, event, or case can be considered in different ways. Therefore, it is necessary to start from some general characteristics of the object, and then proceed to specific features.
As for the structure, it should include the introduction, main body, and conclusion. The introduction must contain a short description of the object under consideration and its characteristics. Paragraphs of the body have to include more detailed description of each feature. Finally, the conclusion must summarize the provided data.
Descriptive essay is one of the most difficult types of essays. It is necessary not to miss any important aspect when you write such essay, any trivial detail, which puts together the general picture. It is necessary to answer the following questions to write your descriptive essay in a proper way:
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What are details of the considered object chosen? Why were they chosen for its presentation?
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What features do these details reveal?
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How are these features compared?
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What writing techniques were applied?
Preparation for descriptive essay writing consists in finding answers to these questions. The work on this essay is closely related to the ability to.
How to Write Informative Essay?
An informative essay is dedicated to the expression of the individual viewpoint of the author based on specific information on the described topic. Let us consider some general guidelines on writing this kind of essay.
Essay themes are often related to the scientific literature, which unites all objects of general sciences, such as philosophy, literary theory and criticism, aesthetics, political science, sociology and others; however, essay’s approach to objects differs from the scientific one by providing leading role to the author’s personality, which determines principles of object’s analysis. In other words, it is the major forming factor of the essay. Besides, special attention is often paid to chronology, as well as expressiveness and symbolism.
If you want to write an informative essay worth of the highest grade, follow the instructions below:
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1. Think about the content. Before starting to write an informative essay, think about its structure and content. It will be easier to do by asking yourself a few questions about the given topic. Formulation of answers will help to write the main body. Don’t forget to define the style of your narration at the very beginning.
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2. State the main idea of your future narration in the first paragraph. Try to attract the attention of readers by something interesting and catchy. Second, third and fourth paragraphs compose the main body of your essay. In them, it is advisable to present arguments for your main point. In conclusion, you should strengthen the main point, which was presented in the beginning. Besides, summarize the points stated in the main body and make your conclusion.
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3. Check your structure: is there a logical connection between paragraphs? Check, whether your informative essay is written in a proper style.
How to Write Narrative Essay?
Narrative essay is one of the most interesting types of essays. It is dedicated to some special events in the author’s life, description of some kinds of activities, self-analysis, etc.
When you are writing a narrative essay, you should keep to the given topic and try to develop it to the fullest extent. In order to do it, you should clearly state your points, support them with examples and provide their analysis.
Your essay should consist of the three main parts – introduction, main body, and conclusion. In the first part, it is better to present some general information on your topic and list the points you are going to further develop in the body of your essay. The number of points should correspond to the number of paragraphs in the main part. In conclusion, you should summarize the points and make some general inference.
After you finish writing your essay, you should have a feeling that you’ve discovered something interesting in yourself or in the object described. That is why this kind of essay is one of the most-interesting ones. It can not only bring you the improvement of academic record but also help you analyze your past and make some useful conclusions for the future.
In order to check your narrative essay, answer the following questions:
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Is the style of my writing appropriate for my readers?
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Is the flow of thoughts clear for my readers?
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Did I support each point with examples and proper argumentation?
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Did I use enough synonyms to avoid excessive repetition?
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Are my conclusions important and clear?
If you clear all the inconsistencies revealed in the process of questions answering, you are sure to receive a successful essay worthy of praise.
How to Write Persuasive/Argumentative Essay?
Argumentative essay is a relatively short piece of text, which is characterized by author’s intention to defend his point of view or persuade the readers to share his or her opinion. Such essay can include references to real facts, evidence, experiments and whatever needed to support author’s judgment regarding a particular matter. The focus of a persuasive essay is certainty and confidence.
When it comes to writing this type of essay, you should present the facts undoubtedly and consistently. Regardless of the topic, you should consider using elements described below in order to compose a strong essay.
The first requirement of a successful persuasive essay is that you should feel passionate about the subject discussed. Next, make sure your opinion is committed and reasonable. How is it possible to persuade readers if you’re not convinced enough yourself? Your audience must be assured that you know the subject perfectly.
Remember, you cannot convince your readers with just your passion. The more facts your essay presents, the better it is for your writing comprehension. However, the order of facts is more important than their quantity. Stating your point, but the most powerful, indisputable facts at the beginning. This will help to draw the readers’ attention and intrigue them right from the start.
If the subject of your essay is rather controversial, take your time to familiarize yourself with other positions on the discussed matter. Mentioning the other opinions in your essay will show the readers that you know the arguments of your opponents, and you know how to oppose them. Be more concrete on why you have developed your point of view despite all the others.
If you observe these principles while writing, most of your readers will tend to agree with you.
Problem of Elementary Schools
When we talk about elementary school education we imagine that a child should know everything about something and something about everything. The system tries to incorporate every single bit of knowledge in the high school program including history course for math classes and art education for technical schools. Every child is, however, an individual and he or she should be given more choice to decide in which direction to evolve.
Therefore, I believe that elementary school education is extremely overloaded with different conceptual subjects and children will never use them in their lives.
Let us look, for example, at the mandatory elementary school subjects such as history, mathematics, art and even science. These classes make a strong emphasis on reasoning and conceptual understanding of the course, while the practical application is very often unclear for the majority of students. This can be seen from the research prepared by the Massachusetts Educational Board when seventy-five out of hundred students that took part in the research could not apply the knowledge they got from the most recent science classes to real life situation.
Low performance of elementary school students in science classes makes it clear that schools lack practical educational that would boost their interests in the course. It is scientifically proved that children under 10 years old tend to learn using visual memory and, therefore, practical learning and case study method are or is preferable for the elementary school program.
Argumentative essay- what is it
An argumentative essay is a type of thesis or composition where you have to present your view and attempt to convince others that your facts and arguments are correct. Your view should be backed up by a few examples, reasons and logics. Generally, argumentative essays are not similar to other types of essays. When you develop such an essay, you need to make your claims through your composition so that it will be open for debate. However, the content and the claims that you make in the essay must be valid.
When you are structuring an argumentative essay, you are not supposed to position a fact as facts are undeniable. When you are writing something obvious which cаn’t be denied аnywаy, it means you have structured something definite with the aim of making it informative. However, such essay cannot be argued or debated as the facts are real.
The thing you need to do in order to structure an argumentative essay is to establish a claim that is debatable. Your piece should declare and at the same time confirm something through different facts and statistics. It should be done in such a way that the entire work appears in a rational and logical manner.
Make sure you haven’t put any personal preferences on the essay topics. You might like something, but others may not. So, biased information shouldn’t appear in your argumentative essay.
Argumentative Essay on Whether It Is Better to Know a Little About Many Subjects or Not
Is It Better to Know a Little About Many Subjects or a Lot About One?
People are free to choose whichever life path they consider the best. Some want to learn as much as possible, but they usually don’t have time to learn all the peculiarities of the given matters. Thus, they end up knowing a little about many subjects. The completely opposite situation is having vast knowledge about one subject.
The first case – when you know a little about many different things – is good due to several reasons. First of all, it is easy, as you don’t have to apply much effort – you begin learning something, get bored and postpone finishing it till you don’t want to do it. Besides, it can show you as an educated person, as when speaking with people, you can comment on many different topics. But here pros end and cons begin, which changes the situation to the opposite, as they really outweigh the advantages.
When people haven’t mastered any occupation perfectly, they will not have a chance of getting a well-paid job, as they will not be valuable specialists. The business world is constantly looking for experts in all the spheres. Thus, without vast knowledge of at least one subject, your career chances are really poor. This situation also shows you in not favorable light, as it means that you cannot finish what you started, or don’t want to finish, which is also not good.
At the same time, knowing a lot about one subject makes you a specialist and professional, which guarantees respect, interesting and efficient work and many other benefits. Among drawbacks I can only name the one – it is hard to get to the level of real specialist, but each and every person has to strive to become one.
What is a Descriptive Essay?
Descriptive essay is devoted to portraying a detailed account of your writing’s subject. The sort of details that should be provided depends on the type of the described concept. For example, if the essay is about a literary character, it should include references to his or her individuality, behavior and its role in the corresponding story. But if your subject is a bicycle, you should refer more to its technical characteristics and parameters.
Although descriptive essay obviously requires detailed description, it is not necessary to thoroughly discuss every aspect of your subject. Choose one that is the most interesting and will be in focus – some event, person, mood or feeling – and describe it vividly. Still, do not isolate the subject from its context, as it must serve as a background, which will make your description more expressive.
Decide on the purpose of your essay. For example, if you plan to depict someone’s achievements, it won’t be enough just to stick to describing his or her talents. For that purpose, you should relate about competitions the person participated in, list the prizes and honors he or she won.
When it comes to description, it’s high time to forget regular cliches. Make use of rich vocabulary; be sure to use plenty of adjectives and synonyms. A few metaphors will also make for a vivid experience of your readers.
Try to keep the order of your description in such a way that you proceed from general information to specific details. For example, it is inappropriate to start the person’s description with the discussion of his or her clothes. It is better first to give general details, such as gender, age, and occupation.
Why Do I want to Do Early Childhood Education Essay?
Early childhood education is one of the most interesting types of teaching for me, as it involves work with the youngest children. I think that the majority of people underestimate the possibilities and opportunities open for these little personalities, which results in poor attention paid to their development. I want to do early childhood education, as I want to change this situation.
There have already been conducted hundreds of researchers on the ways children perceive our world, and the more there is discovered, the more questions there appear. It is so interesting to observe little children – the way they start getting familiarized with the world, learning so many valuable lessons, when they simply go for a walk or explore their home. Unfortunately, not all the parents understand how important it is to support their child in this period and let him/her find out as much as possible about the world. In this period essential traits of character are rooted.
So, for a professional teacher children in this age are the most valuable, as they can not only learn new things but can also understand how to learn them in the best way and can acquire the love to know, which teenagers lack so much today. Children are perfect listeners as well, and it is so pleasant to see how quickly your efforts are rewarded.