Have you been assigned an informative essay and not knowing where to start, right?
You may want to start from this valuable guide for action, in which the top secrets of effective informative writing are revealed.
Informative essay: main characteristics
Informative essays, also known as expository essays, are a type of academic papers that educate the audience without providing the author’s personal opinion on the topic. In your informative paper, you may discuss people, events, places, processes, concepts or theories, but you focus on concrete facts, not on your opinion of them.
YES: You can present different points of view and different perspectives on the subject matter.
NO: You cannot express your personal stance and give preference to one of the perspectives, entirely or partially ignoring another one.
Informative essay: possible patterns
When working on your informative essays, you can decide between different patterns, such as:
- explanation of little-known facts;
- presentation of the latest findings related to your topic;
- definition of a complex term;
- compare and contrast of different theories, points of view or objects;
- establishment of cause-and-effect relations between different aspects;
- education of the audience on how to solve certain problems.
Informative essay: main parts
Informative essays usually consist of three main parts, namely introduction, main body and conclusion. Here are some tips for making these parts more effective:
- Include an attention getter and a thesis statement into the introduction part so that your readers can see from the very beginning that your informative essay is worth reading. Good attention getters are jokes, interesting statistical data, little-known facts and so on. A thesis statement is a very concise expression of the main ideas you are going to present in your paper.
- Include examples and weighty arguments in your main essay body. Please, note that the traditional structure (a topic sentence + supporting sentences + a concluding sentence) will make the body paragraphs of your informative essay much better;
- In the conclusion part, restate the main points and “echo” your thesis statement.
Informative essay: sample topics
Here are some informative essay topics that you can use for your papers:
- Explanation of the hazardous effects of chronic stress.
- Recent findings on the potential of brainstorming.
- The definition of political economy.
- A compare and contrast review of utilitarianism and deontology.
- The cause and effect relations between psychological distress and physiological health.
- Education of the audience on the most effective learning strategies.
Now there are no secrets anymore, and you clearly understand what makes an essay informative. You are welcome to use this guide any time you need to make a plan or choose a topic for your informative essay.