2 main types of essay
The three types of essay most commonly assigned in school — the narrative essay, the persuasive essay, and the expository essay — conveniently correspond to those writing forms most frequently published online and in print. Your experience with these prose forms is ideal preparation for writing for publication. This form, employed when reporting about an event or an incident, describing an experience, or telling a story, is the basic mode in journalistic writing. Practice in relating what happened when you witnessed an occurrence, or writing about what you were told by someone who witnessed it, is good training for becoming a newspaper reporter.
The Ultimate Guide to Writing 5 Types of Essays
Almost all students will at some time be expected to write an essay, or some other kind of argument, e. In English, an essay is a piece of argumentative writing several paragraphs long written about one topic, usually based on your reading. The aim of the essay should be deduced strictly from the wording of the title or question See Academic Writing: Understanding the Question , and needs to be defined at the beginning. The purpose of an essay is for you to say something for yourself using the ideas of the subject, for you to present ideas you have learned in your own way.
The emphasis should be on working with other people's ideas, rather than reproducing their words, but your own voice should show clearly. The ideas and people that you refer to need to made explicit by a system of referencing. According to Linda Flower , p. Before you start the main part of your essay or assignment, there should be a title page.
The title page should contain information to enable your lecturer and departmental office or other reader to identify exactly what the piece of work is. It should include your name and course; the title of the assignment and any references; the lecturer it is for etc. Check with your department for clear information. Writers are responsible for making their line of argument clear and presenting it in an orderly fashion so that the reader can follow. Each paragraph discusses one major point and each paragraph should lead directly to the next.
The paragraphs are tied together with an introduction and a conclusion. The main body consists of one or more paragraphs of ideas and arguments.
Each paragraph develops a subdivision of the topic. The paragraphs of the essay contain the main ideas and arguments of the essay together with illustrations or examples. The paragraphs are linked in order to connect the ideas. The purpose of the essay must be made clear and the reader must be able to follow its development.
It should clearly signal to the reader that the essay is finished and leave a clear impression that the purpose of the essay has been achieved. Introductory Sentence Point 1 Point 2 Point Concluding Sentence. Recall issues in introduction; draw together main points; final comment. At the end of the essay, there should be a list of references. This should give full information about the materials that you have used in the assignment. See Writing a list of references for more information on the reference list.
Essays are organised differently according to their purpose. Essays can be divided into the following main types. Describe essays require you to state the appearance of something, or to state the major characteristics of it. Note the word state i. Questions are often introduced by:.
State clearly when events happened or how one event caused another. Questions may be introduced by:. Give an account of Examine developments in This is like telling a story but here the connections between the facts must be clearly shown and explained.
Group the events into steps or stages. Describe the procedures by which Account for Analyse the causes Comment on the reasons for Show that Show why Examine the effect of Suggest reasons for Why did? What are the implications of? Discuss the causes of Discuss the reasons for When we are asked to describe or explain causes, factors, functions or results, the examiner wants us to group our facts. Similar causes are put together, for instance the economic causes of a situation. There are basically two main ways to organise this type of essay.
There are two main methods of presenting an argument, and in general the one you choose will depend on exactly how the essay title is worded. Give the arguments for and against Assess the importance of Examine the arguments for and against What are the advantages and disadvantages of? Critically examine the statement that To what extent is That is to say you should present both sides of an argument, without necessarily committing yourself to any points of view, which should always be based on evidence, until the final paragraph.
After summarising the two sides, state your own point of view, and explain why you think as you do. See: Academic Writing: Functions - Arguing and discussing ; - Expressing degrees of certainty ; - Generalising ; - Comparing and contrasting: similarities and differences ; - Giving examples.
This second type of argumentative essay involves stating your own point of view immediately, and trying to convince the reader by reasoned argument that you are right.
Perhaps the essay title will begin with something like:. Give your views on What do you think about? Do you agree that? Consider whether Or perhaps the title itself will be so controversial that everyone will hold a definite opinion in one direction or another.
In this type of essay the examiner is giving you a statement. You must decide how true it is? Are there some areas where you disagree with the statement. If so, describe how far you agree, and your points of agreement and disagreement. Words used in the question are:. To what extent How true How far do you agree Contrast or distinguish between questions usually present you with two or more terms, instruments, concepts or procedures that are closely connected, and sometimes confused.
The purpose of the essay is to explain the differences between them. The question may be of the form:. Distinguish between What is the difference between What are the differences between How are See: Academic Writing: Functions - Comparing and contrasting: similarities and differences ; - Defining ; - Generalising ; - Giving examples. Compare questions usually present you with two or more terms, instruments, concepts or procedures that are closely connected, and sometimes confused.
The purpose of the essay is to explain the similarities between them. Words used are:. What features do What are the similarities between Compare and contrast essays require you to indicate areas in which the things to be compared are similar and different.
Introduction to differences and similarities between A and B. Plan answers for some of the questions in Understanding the question: Examples of questions. Introduction major aspects of the subject. Step One leads to. Step Two leads to. Conclusion Summary of process. Introduction to causes of A. Introduce the argument to the reader.
Descriptive Essays: Painting a Picture. Just the Facts.
What is it? This is the type of essay where you prove that your opinion, theory or hypothesis about an issue is correct or more truthful than those of others. In short, it is very similar to the persuasive essay see above , but the difference is that you are arguing for your opinion as opposed to others, rather than directly trying to persuade someone to adopt your point of view.
The essay questions vary between 5 different main types of essay questions and you should be prepared to answer whichever you will come across on your IELTS test. The task 2 is always an essay, minimum of words.
An essay is a short academic composition. Presently, essay is part of every degree program. Each subject has specific requirements for the essays to be written.
Learn the Types of Writing: Expository, Descriptive, Persuasive, and Narrative
Almost all students will at some time be expected to write an essay, or some other kind of argument, e. In English, an essay is a piece of argumentative writing several paragraphs long written about one topic, usually based on your reading. The aim of the essay should be deduced strictly from the wording of the title or question See Academic Writing: Understanding the Question , and needs to be defined at the beginning. The purpose of an essay is for you to say something for yourself using the ideas of the subject, for you to present ideas you have learned in your own way. The emphasis should be on working with other people's ideas, rather than reproducing their words, but your own voice should show clearly.
Essay Examples
Whether you write essays, business materials, fiction, articles, letters, or even just notes in your journal, your writing will be at its best if you stay focused on your purpose. While there are many reasons why you might be putting pen to paper or tapping away on the keyboard, there are really only four main types of writing : expository, descriptive, persuasive, and narrative. Each of these four writing genres has a distinct aim, and they all require different types of writing skills. You may also have heard them referred to in an academic setting as modes of discourse or rhetorical modes. Institutions of higher learning teach nine traditional rhetorical modes, but the majority of pieces we are called upon to write will have one of these four main purposes. Grammarly can save you from misspellings, grammatical and punctuation mistakes, and other writing issues on all your favorite websites. Your writing, at its best. Be the best writer in the office.
This website uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience.
An essay is, generally, a piece of writing that gives the author's own argument — but the definition is vague, overlapping with those of a paper , an article , a pamphlet , and a short story. Essays have traditionally been sub-classified as formal and informal.
The Different Types of Essays
To succeed at school, you need to be able to write different types of essays. Your teachers will seldom tell you exactly which type of essay you should be writing , so you need to be able to figure it out from the question you have been asked. There are various opinions on how to categorize essays and how many types of essay there are. The simplest interpretation says that there are only four types of essays:. Narrative essays 2. Descriptive essays 3. Expository essays 4. Persuasive essays. I personally think this is a bit of an oversimplification. Feel free to disagree with me if you like! Your aim is to draw the reader in so he or she can experience what you are writing about in the same way you experienced it. A definition tells you what something is. Although a definition is short, a definition essay discusses a complex concept in much greater depth than you would get from a few lines.
3 Types of Essays Are Models for Professional Writing Forms
A student may hate writing homework on particular subjects while writing specific types of essays might be fun. The main goal of each writing assignment is to meet the initial prompt. The article breaks the myth about numerous kinds of essays by offering the basic categorization of this writing assignment and corresponding examples. Being overwhelmed with multiple writing assignments makes students purchase custom essays online. Professional writers are able to write any essay within the timeframe without forcing a customer to waste a lot of money. It would be wise to start studying different types of essays from the most time-consuming one — an expository essay. Five main categories of academic essays exist.
