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Essay Writing Revisited Course: The Informative, Academic and Personal

Essays

Preprint · September 2020

DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.13565.38889

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Yassmine Boukhalkhal
Mohamed Khider University
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 Essay Writing Revisited Course: The Informative, Academic and
Personal Essays

EFL university students in Algeria always face problems related to the vague idea they form
about essay writing. The vague idea concerns itself mainly with what it really means to be
objectively creative while writing an academic essay. Students find it unlogical to present and
defend their point of view in an academic essay without being subjective. The problem as thought
to be related to their understanding of the implementation of creativity in their writings, the present
paper/course tries to clear out some misunderstanding. Essay writing is going to be revisited by
adapting a relatively different perspective.

Kinds of Essays: Informative, Academic and Personal Essays

Types of essays have been significantly tackled by different scholars even though they do
not really agree on a specific number of essay-types or even terminologies. On the other hand,
scholars and educators pay a little attention to kinds of essays. Being aware of essay-kinds is
probably the key to understanding academic writing techniques.

Moore and Cassel (2011) make an insightful distinction between the academic and
informative essays. They explain that the informative essay does no have a thesis statement unlike
the academic essay. In fact, the informative essay writer should not hold any thesis or opinion
because they are just stating and organizing facts. They have no space to be creative to persuade the
reader because facts are self-evident. Thus, if the student is asked about how volcanoes erupt, they
just need to collect scientific facts then state them.

In order to fully understand to what extent academic essays tolerate creativity, personal
essays are attempted to be redefined. The common definition of the personal essay sometimes
makes it synonymous with the narrative essay. Other times, it considers this type of essays as not
having any objectives except, perhaps, entertaining the reader. The present paper does purposefully
reconsider the preceded definitions.

In the beginning, if the personal essay writer does not have any objectives attributed to their
writing, or they do not want to affect the reader, they do not need to submit or share their paper with
others in the first place. It is important to note that even if they just want to share their ideas and
feelings, then their objective is to share their ideas and feelings. The personal essay is more
subjective and emotional in nature as personal pronouns and strong and extreme adjectives are
allowed to be used. Unlike the academic essay, students ‘want’ to do something before writing a
personal essay.

Choosing the word ‘want’ is to indicate that there is an emotional motive behind writing a
personal essay. In this case, writers consciously or unconsciously try to communicate messages as: I
want to express my feelings, I want you to have the same opinion as me, I want you to sympathize
with me...etc. probably the only ‘I want’ that students are familiar with concerning academic writing
is ‘I want to have a good mark’. Students also are free to choose an idea or an opinion to elaborate
on in a personal essay; however, for informative and academic essays students are asked to write
about a specific idea.

The informative essay does necessarily correspond with scientific logic. It does not accept
the use of emotions; and therefore, it does not tolerate creativity. The personal essay is not
necessarily logical since it highly encourages the use of emotions, and it gives a space to creativity.
The academic essay falls in between as it relies on facts and students’ own opinion.

The informative essay<The academic essay< The personal essay

The personal essay is more creative than the academic essay which is more creative than the
informative essay. After the aforementioned explanation, students often get confused as to how
creativity can be controlled while writing an academic essay. In fact, there are basic steps to follow
in the beginning to avoid being subjective:

1/ Avoiding the use of personal pronouns, instead, the idea should be directly stated. For example,
instead of writing: ‘I think that African Americans’ experience resembles, to some extent, Africans’
colonial experience.’ it is more academically appropriate to write ‘African Americans’ experience
resembles, to some extent, Africans’ colonial experience.’ without indicating that it is the writer’s
opinion.
2/ Extreme and strong adjectives should not be used such as horrible, amazing… etc.
3/ Using examples that correspond with facts other than personal experiences.
4/ Relying on previously acquired academic knowledge and information to construct the essay. In
writing an academic essay, students’ are asked to write about a topic they are already familiar with.
They are guided by the teacher’s instructions, accordingly, they cannot be all the time creative.
5/ The academic essay is about the students’ own understanding of a certain topic; therefore, to
communicate their understanding they need, first, to make use of paraphrasing to familiarize the
reader with the topic before presenting their inference.

From the previous instructions, it became clear as to why the academic essay falls between
the informative and the personal essay. The student has an opinion about a certain topic which they
need to defend using logic and facts. Consequently, being objectively creative means that creativity
lies in the perspective from which a student looks at a known topic.

Types of essays

As it has been mentioned earlier, there are different types of essays for scholars do not agree
on a specific number; nevertheless, there are popular types. What this course concerns itself with is
whether all of the essay types are academic. In the same vein, the informative and personal essays
are also concerned with variation, or it is just limited to academic essays. Before pondering on the
later issues, it is legitimate to have a look at the following table:
 It is important to mention that the table does not fully encompass all of the types of essays,
yet it gives an idea as to how essays are being classified. For the informative essay, the descriptive
type relies on the five senses to extract information from the outside world without adding any
personal touch. Fro example, if students are asked to describe a cell phone, they would all probably
state that it is a device that receives and sends calls and messages, it can be moved from one place
to another as it is wireless… etc. In the same way, the expository essay just exposes information
without trying to prove anything. For example, exposing the biography of a famous figure. The
classification essay can be informative if it classifies facts. For instance, writing an essay on the
audio, visual and audio-visual devices. The cause and effect essay is an informative essay if there is
no room for the essayist to deduce, simplify or analyse the dealt with causes and effects. For
example, writing an essay about the reasons why the sky is blue. Finally, the definition essay can be
informative when the writer just states definitions of previous scholars in a particular order without
reflecting on his/her opinion.

The informative essay is limited to facts and information without the need for creativity. The
personal essay relies on emotions which communicate the person’s creativity in expressing their
feelings and choosing the right adjectives and expressions. The narrative essay is about the writer’s
own experience. The writer expresses his/her experience relying on their own interpretation without
the need for facts or other people’s experiences and opinions. Considering the persuasive and
argumentative essays are widely acknowledged as being interchangeable. In the present paper, the
persuasive essay is thought to be more emotional than the argumentative one. In the persuasive
essay the writer tries their best using emotions to make the reader holds the same opinion as his/hers
even if the idea does not seem logical or correspondent with logic. For example, trying to persuade
the reader that a particular product, like a perfume, is the best product in the market. It is assumed
that whatever arguments are being used, they do not seem to be academic because, besides the use
of emotions, choosing perfumes is a matter of tastes and not facts. The definition essay can be
personal if only the writer comes up with a new definition of a certain concept that does not rely on
previous definitions. In the reaction essay, the writer is provided with materials which they have to
react to. For example reacting on the following picture:
 If someone is asked to describe the picture, they would probably write that the picture is about a
young woman writing. They would perhaps also mention the colour of the picture...etc. However, if
they are asked to react on the picture, they would state that they see an independent strong woman
writing … etc. The process analysis essay can be personal if it narrates an experience done by the
writer in steps. In that case, the writer writes about each step, and what they learned or deduced
from each.

The academic essay is about stating an argument and validating it using facts and previous
research. The most used type of essays in the academic setting is the opinion essay. To write an
opinion essay the student shall be already aware of the materials tackled in class by the teacher. The
teacher, in that case, tries to evaluate students’ understanding by asking them to express their
opinion about a certain topic in their own way because they are not bound by any specific type of
essay. The argumentative essay, unlike the persuasive essay, tries to state the writer’s arguments
based on facts. In the argumentative essay, the writer does not really care if the reader accepts or
refuses their opinion for their personal benefits, but they care about criticizing the idea itself. If the
causes and effects of a certain phenomenon are going to be analysed and simplified according to the
student’s understanding, then it is an academic cause and effect essay. The same logic is applied for
the rest of the essays’ types.

In the end, the aim of the paper was to clarify some vague concepts associated with
academic writing as creativity, objectivity and logic. The course revealed that the academic essay is
about using one’s own understanding of facts and state them in an objective way.

Yassmine BOUKHALKHAL

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