What do you know about types of essay writing? What is the difference between each type? How do we distinguish them? Everything comes to the types of essay writing. Each type has unique characteristics that allow students to define what writing they need to prepare. However, searching for information about those types may be too complicated. The sources may have controversial statements, so you will only waste time. We want to help you by providing the necessary information about the types of essay writing.
Basic types of essays
Specialists have different opinions about how many types of essays we have. However, the most common practice is to outline four categories: argumentative, expository, narrative, and descriptive. Now, let’s dig in and analyze each type separately.
Argumentative essay
The main idea of such writing is to establish a position on a topic, using evidence and arguments supporting your opinion. Usually, people who want to create an argumentative essay must extensively research the material published before. Moreover, gathering information through articles may not be enough. Authors have to collect data through interviews, research, surveys, observations, or experiments.
The amount of data you need to check depends on the chosen topic. For example, if it’s something related to scientific research, be ready to read and listen a lot.
After choosing a topic comes the next important part – building thesis and antithesis. A thesis takes the role of the main argument of your writing, and antithesis becomes the opposite of the central thesis. Therefore, avoiding using judgemental words in the thesis statement is very important.
The main aim of the argumentative essay is to convince the reader of the provided thesis using evidence. Therefore, the writing structure is simple and includes an introduction, body part, and conclusion.
Expository essay
Such writing is basic as it appears in the studying programs regularly. However, sometimes students seek help, asking, “Can you write my essay?” to find a writing specialist. Anyway, an expository essay is more straightforward than it may look.
Simply telling, it’s a type of essay that communicates factual information as the author explains a concept. The writing is short as it doesn’t have enormous descriptions or side paragraphs. Instead, you may focus on the main statement. The average word count for the expository essay is between 500-800 words.
Narrative essay
In this essay, your primal objective is to tell a story. In it, people mostly write about personal experiences, but it’s not necessary. Sometimes, authors tell a story that never happened or is partly based on actual events. Anyway, they make writing valuable by sending a message to readers.
By writing narrative essays, individuals test their abilities to create engaging, well-structured stories with logical sequence. The primary purpose of a narrative essay is to teach readers a lesson by describing a particular situation. For example, the author shows the character recovering after a failure and achieving success on the second attempt.
The advantage of such an essay is that there’s no strict structure, and you can build the writing the way you need. It’s not academic or journalistic writing with strict requirements. Individuals can show their creativity by using idioms, comparing characters, and other literary techniques to improve the narrative essay.
Descriptive essay
You can understand the main purpose of such writing by reading its name. In the descriptive essay, you literally describe something. Just like the previous type of essay, here you can unleash your creativity, using specific techniques and creating various illustrative constructions.
A descriptive essay is not about telling a story. You instead describe an object, a situation, or something else. Provide as much information as possible, revealing details about something you describe, so the readers won’t have any questions after reading the text.
The descriptive essay is divided into several parts. Introductory scene, personal impression, description of the main object (event, person, animal, etc.). After that comes the analogy and the conclusion, where the author emphasizes personal feelings.
Other essay types you should know about
Above, we described basic essay types. However, there are also essay sub-categories where we find new writing types. Let’s look at them and discover their main specifications.
Cause and effect essay
The authors aim to explain the relationship between things, personalities, and events in this writing. For example, how people started a revolution because of unfair politics. The goal is to describe the events in detail, explaining how exactly one thing affected others, causing a chain reaction. You may use descriptive constructions to achieve your goal.
Compare and contrast essay
As we understand from the sub-category name, this writing aims to compare and describe two objects. It means revealing their similarities and differences and demonstrating an argument. The structure doesn’t differ from the typical essay concept. The only difference is that you separate the body paragraph into two parts: comparison and contrast.
Critical analysis essay
This is literature-based writing prepared to discover and evaluate what the writer of the literature piece wanted to say. Sometimes it’s not about the whole work, as the teacher may ask you to write about a specific episode or a dialogue. Generally, critical analysis essays usually stick to the controversial argumentative format. The point presented by the essay author should always be supported with evidence (citations, episodes from the writing, and other critics’ pieces). You may show what your point is standing at.
Final thoughts
Understanding the writing principles for each type of essay became vital for academic success. As students advance and move to the following term, they learn to write more complicated tasks and investigate new types of essays.
If you are free to choose the type of essay, it’s good because you can go with the one that is comfortable for you. In case the teachers choose an essay for you, you should be ready to write it. However, if the task seems complicated, there’s always an option to hire a writing specialist who will do everything according to the requirements, delivering the task on time or earlier.
