5 Main Types of Essays Every Student Should Master – Examples Included.
Key points:
Here are the main types of essays and their characteristics:
- Discursive essay
- Use of Sensory Details
- Expository essay
- Organised and factual information
- Narrative essay
- First-person point of view
- Persuasive essay
- Persuade the reader to accept the author’s perspective
- Argumentative essay
- Prove the hypothesis through arguments
If you need a detailed overview, we have explained these types and their characteristics with examples below.
Throughout their academic careers, students write different types of essays, each involving skills and attributes such as critical thinking, coherence, and figurative language. There are many essay types, but we will discuss only the main five here: narrative, persuasive, discursive, argumentative, and expository essay.
Argumentative and expository essays convey clear information, while narrative and discursive essays include exciting writing styles and persuasive essays, convincing the reader of his point of view.
If you are new to exploring the essay world and might be short on time for your essay assignments, hand over your papers to a trusted UK-based essay writing service. This article will discuss the types of essays, techniques for writing winning essays, and examples for improved understanding.
What Are the 5 Different Types of Essays?
Essay writing is a broad academic field; students write different types of papers. Specifically, these are not types of essays but rhetorical methods of writing write-up papers. Let’s examine some essay types, their writing techniques, and examples.
Descriptive Essay
Descriptive types of essays are a category of essay writing that requires students to describe something. i.e.,
- Individual/Person
- Place
- Object
- Condition
- Experience
- Emotion
The primary motive of this essay is to give the examiners a concept of what you are describing. Try again and again until they get it.
How to Write a Descriptive Essay
Authors use different writing techniques to write an excellent descriptive essay. The writer’s purpose is to visualise his description in the reader’s mind. Descriptive writing takes a lot of time for authors to create an optic image for the reader.
The descriptive writing techniques involve:
- Use of metaphors
- Use Similes
- Use of sensory writing
- Personification
- Hyperbole
- Onomatopoeia
- Emotional connection
- Descriptive vocabulary
- Vivid language
- Imagery
Expressive language can make the reader feel he is present in the story.
Descriptive Essay Example
This example of a descriptive essay is from IRSC Libraries, so you can understand descriptive writing better.
Expository Essay
The expository essay explores the topic from different angles. This essay writing category requires students to:
- Inquire the idea
- Interpret the idea
- Assess the evidence
- Present the evidence
The procedure of expository writing may include cause and effect analysis.
How to Write an Expository Essay
Expository writing involves educating the reader or explaining a specific topic. Writing a winning expository essay involves:
- Concise but strong argument statement
- Brainstorming
- Research
- Thesis statement
- Writing
- Logical flow of the text
- Evidential support
- Avoid first or second-person perspective(“I or You”)
Expository Essay Example
This example is taken from the expository types of essay writing by the college essay so that you can understand the writing principles.
Narrative Essay
A narrative essay, like a story, explains the author’s perspective in detail. It uses storytelling techniques to describe a scene, person, or event. Narrative writers are often called storytellers because they show the argument to readers rather than telling them.
This is what is included in a narrative essay:
- Using Historical presence
- Use dialogue
- Use personal pronouns
- Chronological organisation
- Use of past tenses
The writer has to build a coherent argument and narrative.
How to Write a Narrative Essay
Writing a narrative essay is an exciting process compared to other writing styles. Rather than building an argument or topic, it involves telling a personal experience through storytelling. Along with being fascinating, it’s also a demanding task because it consists of the author’s own imagination and different storytelling techniques.
Storytelling is not a skill that can be mastered in days. So, if you are not very fond of storytelling, get assistance from a credible essay writer in UK, as it is an important task which can be avoided.
The steps involved in narrative essay writing are:
- Brainstorming
- Selecting the topic
- Deciding the tone
- Deciding the outline
- Use engaging language
- Be authentic
- Proofread
- Correct errors and check coherence
Narrative Essay Examples
Here is an example of an excellent narrative essay from Saylor Academy.
Persuasive Essay
The persuasive essay includes convincing people to agree with your point of view. In a persuasive essay, the author selects a topic, forms an argument for that topic, and tries to persuade the audience to approve your argument. It usually uses formal language and 3rd person point of view.
For example, if you try to convince someone that being a vegetarian can be helpful for their health, or you debate on the legalisation of abortion.
How to Write a Persuasive Essay
Writing a persuasive essay can be challenging because it involves different persuasive and copywriting techniques. Including the use of standard persuasive methods:
- Ethos: How the author presents himself.
- Logos: Structuring the article in the best possible way.
- Pathos: Using personal stories to win sympathy
To write a perfect persuasive essay, choose the wording carefully and ensure you convince the reader using emotive language, which can be beneficial. Ask questions to keep the reader engaged and involved in your writing and drive actions.
Most importantly, your thesis statement has to be very strong. Your statement will decide the fate of your essay. The reader will only read your essay if the statement is strong. Plus, you can only build a strong argument on a solid statement.
To convince the reader of your point of view, you need to address him directly, such as, “You”.
Persuasive Essay Example
This persuasive essay example is by Universidad da Murcia. Take a look carefully to understand persuasive writing better.
Argumentative Essay
In an argumentative essay, the author builds an argument over his claim, provides evidence to support that claim, argues on counterclaims, and asks questions to evaluate those claims. It involves a lot of rules and principles to follow. In an argumentative essay, the claims are not final; they can be modified according to the argument and research results. The most popular method to build an argument is Toulmoin’s method.
This method includes multiple elements, including.
- Claims
- Basis/Grounds
- Justification/Warrant
- Support/Backing
- Negation/Rebuttal
- Qualifiers
Fulfilling all the elements and building a solid argument that drives reasonable findings is difficult. It takes strategic thinking, argument analysis, and the ability to give grounds and evidence to your arguments. If you are not used to writing argumentative academic essays, practice this before implementing it in your assignment.
To solve the deadline issue, we suggest you take the essay writing help from an online platform, hand over your worries to them, and you first learn how you can write a perfect essay.
Argumentative Essay: Writing process
Argumentative essay writing is a demanding task that requires extensive brainstorming and critical thinking. These steps are necessary to write a winning essay.
- Write a compelling introduction that asks questions to the readers and convinces them to continue reading the paper.
- Start every paragraph with a sentence that resonates with your thesis statement.
- Talk about counterarguments and their evidence to prove why they are weaker than your argument.
- End your essay with a Kickstarter, a powerful statement that concludes your ideas discussed in the paper.
- Add your citations correctly, avoiding the risk of unintentional plagiarism.
- Remember to follow the provided instructions by your institute.
- Make sure to avoid grammar, spelling, tone, or mistakes that could undermine the coherence of the argument.
Argumentative Essay Example
The example below is from The University Of Queensland. It points out certain parts and explains them to help you recognise the procedure and hierarchy of a good essay.
What Are the Major Writing Styles?
There are different writing styles a writer can master. Let’s have a look at them.
- Narrative
- Descriptive
- Persuasive writing
- Expository
- Analytical
- Informal/conversational
All These writing styles are used in a student’s academic journey. Mastering them can ease earning your degree, as you must write hundreds of essays during your educational pursuit.
What Are the Five Writing Skills?
A person must have these five crucial writing skills to write well.
- Research
- Critical thinking
- Outlining/planning
- Grammar & punctuation
- Proofreading
A good student must possess these writing skills to compete in class.
What Are the Different Types of Writing?
There are multiple types of writing a student works on during his academic journey, i.e.
- Research papers
- Essays
- Literature review
- Thesis/dissertations
- Case studies
- Articles
- White papers
- Press conferences
- Book reviews
All of these writing types are beneficial for developing student’s writing skills.
Conclusion
To conclude this guide, all of the essay types are crucial for students’ major life milestones. Mastering them can ease their academic journey, but it takes a lot of hard work, time, and patience.
In this article, we have covered the main types of essays a student has to deal with to earn their precious degree. Along with the tips to write them better, we have provided examples so you can visualise your academic essay. It can be beneficial for students to focus on learning the basic rules of these essay-writing styles before they actually start writing. If you are unfamiliar with these writing styles and got an assignment from your institute, getting professional essay writing help is an excellent option before you learn all the essay types yourself.
