In this article, we will answer a pretty popular question — What is the purpose of an expository essay? Expository essay is a widespread type of essay you will meet in high school, college, and university. Same as any type of essay, it has a specific structure and requirements. However, don’t worry if you need to discover how to write an expository essay step-by-step immediately because we have made a detailed guide for you. Continue reading to find out all the intricacies of how to write an expository essay and the clear outline to make the writing process a thousand times easier.
What is an Expository Essay: a Complete Explanation
Before proceeding to writing itself, you should know a clear definition of what is an expository essay. Writing an expository essay means explaining a specific topic in a rather scientific way, and providing reliable facts and evidence. In an expository essay, the author should hold his personal opinion back and develop the idea based on real facts. The essay should be structured in a typical way, being divided into three parts: an expository essay introduction, which introduces the reader to the topic, a few body paragraphs (depending on the word count needed), which explain specific information and a concluding paragraph, which summarizes main points of the author.
6 Types of Expository Essays
There are six different types of expository essays. We will introduce you to all of the types, explaining each of them in detail:
- Descriptive essay: if you have to write a descriptive expository essay you should be ready to spend some time on research because it requires gathering all the existing information on the topic, such as a background of the subject you describe, historical and modern facts, different opinions, etc.
- Sequential (or process) essay: sequential essay is also called a process essay because it should guide the reader of the essay through a chronological sequence of steps or events described. This essay allows us to follow the progression of the specific phenomena
- Comparative essay: the main goal of the comparative essay is to compare and contrast two different things (depending on your topic). Here, the writing of the author should revolve around the similarities and differences of specific subjects. You can also choose to either highlight similarities or differences.
- Cause and effect essay: In writing the cause and effect essay, the author needs to explore the connections between specific events. In writing this essay, you should reveal why something happens, which is the cause, and what follows it as a result, which is an effect. This type of essay helps the reader understand the complex points of the specific issue and how its aspects are connected.
- Problem and solution essay: A problem and solution essay aims to identify an issue, find its root causes, and propose a solution. In this essay, the author should present the problem and offer a practical solution.
- Classification Essays: if you need to write a classification essay, you should organize information into cohesive categories based on similar characteristics. The goal of such classification is to help the reader get a clear understanding of the relationships between different groups of specific topics.
As you can see, all the essay types are unique and require a specific approach. Therefore, you need to clearly distinguish expository essay types to have a good grade. Nevertheless, you can always choose Your Expository Essay Writer if you do not want to dive into the variety of rules and types of expository essays.
Expository Essay for High School
Starting from high school, students will need to master the skill of writing an expository essay because they can be met even more often in colleges and universities as they are evidence-based and accordingly reliable essays. An expository essay for high school is written to inform the reader and explain the topic based on the real facts. That is why, you need to read on and learn all the intricacies of writing an expository essay if you study in high school.
Expository Essay Topics for College
Moving to college, students will face more complex expository essay tasks. The expository essays at the college level require delving into subjects and researching more complex issues. Therefore, students need to choose thought-provoking and relevant issues such as societal trends or debates around scientific topics. Thus, you need to write on the topic, which requires research and factual information. For example, you can choose one of the following topics:
- Cultural diversity and its influence
- The role of business ethics
- A contemporary perspective on feminism
You are free to come up with your topic for expository essay topics for college as long as it is important to society and develops your analytical skills.
Expository Essay Structure
As well as other types of essays, expository essays should be divided into clear parts and have a unique expository essay structure. Read on and find out how to write the expository essay step-by-step, and what the essential parts of the essay are.
Parts of an Expository Essay
An expository essay consists of three basic parts including an introduction, body paragraphs, and conclusion. Let’s consider all parts of an expository essay in detail:
- Introduction: in writing an introduction for the expository essay you should think of the thesis statement, which is a concise sentence that presents the main idea, which will be discussed in the essay. However, the essay itself should start with a hook, which is supposed to capture the reader’s attention and make him interested in continuing reading.
- Body paragraphs: body paragraph starts with a topic sentence that introduces the main idea that will be discussed in the paragraph. Further, it should have supporting evidence from scientific literature or simply be backed up by the facts.
- Conclusion: the conclusion of expository essay, which is the last part of the essay, should provide the final thought on the issue you described.
Your essay should necessarily include all the parts to be compelling and written correctly, no matter which type of expository essay you are writing.
Expository Essay Outline
Do you find yourself thinking about how to structure the body paragraphs of the essay or what is typically included in the introductory section of an expository essay? You should be happy now because we will tell you about each part of the expository essay in detail. Having an outline of the essay, or the so-called structure of expository essay will make your essay creation process much easier. You can follow the outline one by one to have a well-structured essay:
- Introduction:
- Hook: start with a statement that grabs the reader’s attention or a question you are supposed to give an answer on throughout the essay.
- Background information: provide background information to introduce the reader to the topic you discuss.
- Thesis statement: finish the introductory paragraph of the outline for expository essay with a statement that provides the main idea of your essay.
- Body Paragraphs:
- Main point: start each body paragraph with the first main idea or argument.
- Supporting evidence: then, back your idea with facts, examples, or quotations from reliable researchers in the field.
- Analysis: next, explain how the evidence supports the main idea of the body paragraph.
- Conclusion:
- Rewritten thesis: take the thesis statement you wrote before and add it in the way to be a concluding one.
- Key points: recollect everything that was written in the essay.
You can use this expository essay outline and tailor it to your specific topic, which will make the writing process easier and will provide a solid foundation for your expository essay, as well as the perfect structure.
How to Start an Expository Essay
If you think about how to start an expository essay effectively, you need to grab the reader’s attention from the start. Therefore, you need to start with a hook, which means you should write an intriguing sentence, which can go in the form of a question.
For example: Did you know that people would not be able to exist without the bees? The next crucial step is to offer brief background information to give your readers context about the topic you are discussing. In the context of bees, you would have to write about their quantity and their role in the world. Finally, you need to write a clear thesis statement.
Thesis Statement for Expository Essay
A thesis statement is the most important element of the expository essay because your whole essay will revolve around it. Thus, it should reflect the information you will discuss in body paragraphs. When writing the thesis statement for expository essay, you should avoid vague and broad statements and be as specific as possible. You also need to include all the main points, which will be addressed in the expository essay.
Expository Essay Conclusion
Now we will give you all the details about how to end an expository essay. The concluding paragraph of an expository essay should provide closure to the main ideas that were discussed in the essay. Your main goal is not to repeat the information that has already been said but to reinforce it. Thus, an expository essay conclusion should reinforce the main points by clearly stating your final idea regarding the topic. Yes, you need to state the key points discussed in the body paragraphs but you also need to reinforce the main arguments. Keep in mind that you should never introduce any new information in the concluding paragraph.
Expository Essay Ideas
Expository essay offers you a wide choice of possible topics to use. Most importantly, you should never express your idea without adding facts and research to it. Coming up with the topics for an expository essay, you can choose from a wide array of fields and human-life experiences. Luckily, we will help you to come up with the topic by offering expository essay ideas:
- Why does the digital revolution signify development?
- The role of women in politics
- The effects of urbanization on wildlife
- Effects of environmental pollution
- Why drugs are dangerous?
You can get inspiration from the good expository essay topics provided or come up with your own ideas. Moreover, it is pretty easy to do. Use the following hints, which will help you to come up with the ideas for your expository essay:
- Personal interest: the best idea is to choose the topic that interests you personally. Think of a topic that can be deleted from your passion or hobby. This way, writing an expository essay will not feel like a duty or an assignment you need to have completed for your educational institution but like an interesting thing to do.
- Use current events: if you lack ideas, choosing a socially significant and relevant topic is always a good idea. For example, you can take the current events as a base and research them. Timely topics can serve as the foundation for your essay as well. Consider Controversial issues: if you like to discuss controversial topics in real life, feel free to research them in your essay. Topics such as bioengineering are both interesting and complex so you should get ready to spend much time exploring all the intricacies. You should also remember to stay objective and be sensitive.
- Integrate your personal experiences: you are also free to reflect on your personal experiences or challenges you faced in your life. Each person has unique experiences to research and share with the public, so this idea would be easy to implement. You can also consider how your experiences might connect to broader societal or cultural themes.
Thus, you have limitless choices for the ideas of your expository essay. All you need to do is brainstorm and be inspired by the current societal trends, personal experiences or interests.
How to Write a Good Expository Essay
Writing a good expository essay may seem challenging. However, we can help you to write an effective expository essay with a few useful tips:
- Have a clear purpose: to write a strong essay you should keep in mind the question: what is the purpose of an expository essay? Think about what you plan to explain and how you will do it. It will also help you define the type of essay. For example, you may want to compare and contrast specific subjects, which means you should write a comparative essay.
- Choose a manageable topic: it is important to select a specific topic that aligns with your purpose. You need to avoid broad topics, which are hard to research and analyze.
- Use evidence: you need to see the relevant and credible evidence to support all arguments made in the body of your essay. To achieve this, you should use statistics, and reliable sources, such as scientific journals.
Finally, you need to use clear language and revise your essay for grammatical, referencing, and lexical errors. This way, you will have an ideal final expository essay and the question about how to write a good expository essay is answered.
Transition Words for Expository Essay
A good essay can not exist without transition words. Transition words are meant to facilitate the smooth flow of ideas and enhance the coherence of the writing. Thus, you should necessarily use them throughout different parts of your essay. We will provide you with the essential transition words for expository essay you will find useful:
- Addition: when you want to add new information or to develop the first sentence, you can use the following words: “Furthermore”, “Moreover” and “Additionally.”
- Contrast: you will definitely need words to express comparison writing the comparative essay: “However”, “Nevertheless”,”On the contrary”, “Conversely”, “Nonetheless”, “In contrast”.
- Cause and effect: the next words will be specifically useful for the cause and effect essay: “Consequently”, “Therefore”, “Thus”, “As a result” and “Since”.
- Time and sequence: the words to show the sequence of the events will also appear useful in different types of expository essays: “Firstly, secondly, thirdly”, “Meanwhile”, “Simultaneously”, “Subsequently”, “In the meantime”, “Afterward”.
- Example and illustration: each essay should include examples, and should have introductory words to start sentences with: “For example”, “For instance”, “Namely”, “Such as”, “Specifically” or “In particular”.
Remembering or writing down all these words will appear extremely useful during writing your essay. However, you can simply make screenshots and have them by your side in case you need to write an expository essay all the time.
Expository Essay Hooks
A hook is an extremely important element of your expository essay as it serves a goal to grab the reader’s attention from the very beginning. There are a few interesting types of expository essay hooks you may want to use in your introductory paragraph:
- Statistical hook: start your essay with thought-provoking statistics related to your topic.
- Quotation hook: write a quote from a notable figure, which is related to your topic.
- Question hook: questions at the start of the essay stimulate curiosity and encourage readers to keep reading the body paragraphs.
- Definition hook: you can also write a simple but solid hook, which defines the further content of the essay.
Select the specific hook based on the type of essay you are going to write.
Expository Essay vs Argumentative Essay: The Main Difference
The expository essay definition is different from an argumentative essay because both essays are distinct forms of academic writing, each of which requires a unique approach. We highlighted the main differences between the two types of essays for you:
- Expository essay: writing an expository essay, you need to present factual information, without incorporating the personal opinion. In this type of essay, you need to maintain a formal tone and add evidence.
- Argumentative essay: writing an argumentative essay you need to persuade the reader to support your thoughts on a specific issue. Additionally, you should take a clear position on the topic, and include personal thoughts.
In concluding the difference between expository essay vs argumentative essay, there are a few main differences: the expository essay requires more objectivity, while the argumentative essay demands persuasion and defending the viewpoint of the author.
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