Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Essays allow the writer to demonstrate critical thinking and understanding of the topic
by expressing their ideas in written form.
Depending on the academic course you are taking, you will be asked to write different
types of academic essays. Let's take a look at the different types of essays:
II. Essay Types
1. Expository Essay
Expository essays are essays that help a reader understand a topic in more detail
and allow you to share your own ideas about a topic. In an expository essay, the
focus is on informing, describing, or explaining the topic.
Expository essays require you to research and use information such as definitions,
facts, explanations, and details gathered from credible sources. In order to help
explain, you may compare and contrast, provide examples, or explain cause and
effect.
In an argumentative essay, you need to identify key issues, research to find supporting
evidence from literature or published work, and analyse, evaluate and use the
evidence to create a convincing argument. In some cases, you may need to interview
or survey people to gather supporting evidence.
In an argumentative or persuasive essay, your topic should be one that has more
than one side, in other words, it must be debatable.
*When writing an argumentative essay, you must clearly state your position and
defend it. If you want to present both sides of an argument, it would be an expository
essay.
3. Narrative Essay
A narrative essay is an essay that tells a story. They are often written using the
pronoun "I" as they tend to tell personal stories or describe personal experiences.
Unlike most academic writing, the narrative essay allows you to be creative in telling
your story.
4. Reflective Essay
The purpose of a reflective essay is to help you better understand yourself and how
different experiences might impact those around you. It is often a personal essay that
asks you to reflect upon your experiences and/or your own perspectives on a
topic.
5. Descriptive Essay
A descriptive essay is an essay in which you describe a person, place, emotion, object,
situation, or experience. The purpose of this type of essay is to form an image of the
topic in the reader’s mind.
This type of essay tends to be shorter than an expository essay and may only be made
up of a few paragraphs. Also, it uses very descriptive language, including detailed
adjectives and adverbs to provide the reader with a vivid image in their mind.
Example of descriptive essay topics:
Describe a visit to your favourite place.
Describe a book that has inspired you.
Describe an event that changed your life.
Describe your favourite character in the novel.
1. Introduction
The introduction introduces the reader to the topic that will be discussed. It also
provides the argument that will be presented in the form of a thesis statement.
2. Body
The body of an essay is usually composed of 3 or more paragraphs that present the
supporting evidence for the thesis. Each paragraph provides a piece of evidence that
helps persuade the reader that the author’s point of view or argument is correct.
3. Conclusion
The conclusion of an essay is used to summarize the essay and provide a final
statement about the author’s position.
4. References
If you do any research for your essay, you must acknowledge the sources you used
through the inclusion of appropriate in-text citations and a Works Cited or References
page. This includes any quotes, paraphrases, statistics, facts or other information that
you draw from an external source.
Make sure you follow the proper formatting (e.g. APA or MLA) required for your
course.
Before you write your essay, you must plan it. This means that you must determine
what your thesis will be and what evidence you will use to support your arguments.
You will also need to do research, analyse it, and include it in your essay.
An essay organizer or outline can help you organize your information, arguments, and
supporting evidence prior to writing your actual essay. Here is an essay organizer that
might be helpful to get you started: Essay Organizer (PEEL) (All 4U courses).doc.
The introduction is the first paragraph of an essay. It serves to introduce your topic
and provide some relevant context for your reader. It begins with a broad introduction
to the topic you are writing about and becomes more specific, ending with a thesis
statement, which specifically tells the reader what position you will be taking and
what arguments you will use to support your position.
A good introduction will 'hook' your readers into wanting to read more. This is where
you help your readers understand the relevance of your writing and why they should
read on.
For example:
If you were looking at the impact of war on international relations, you might
answer the question "What impact did World War II have on Canadian
International Relations?"
If you were looking at the role of governments during a pandemic, you might
answer the question “Should governments be able to mandate health restrictions
during a pandemic?”
A strong thesis will make your essay writing much easier as it clearly outlines the
arguments you are going to make. Let's look at the characteristics of a strong thesis
statement.
(iii) Is specific:
Thesis statements that are too vague often do not have a strong argument. If your
thesis contains words like “good” or “successful,” see if you could be more specific:
why is something “good”; what specifically makes something “successful”?
QUESTION:
How does P. L. Travers’ life influence her writing of Mary Poppins?
STEP 1:
Define your position. Make sure you clearly indicate what your position is. This is the
position you should be prepared to support with evidence in the body of your essay.
STEP 2:
Identify your arguments and add them to your position. Your thesis should include
your position and a list of the arguments you will make. Typically, you will be asked
for 3 supporting arguments. This will be your working thesis that you will finalize
once you have written the rest of your essay and have settled on your evidence.
STEP 3:
Revise and refine your thesis statement to make it well aligned with the arguments in
your essay. If your thesis does not perfectly align with your arguments after you write
them, revise your thesis until it does. Some other examples of thesis statements for the
above topic:
Alice Walker features the struggles and perseverance of black women in the American
South in The Colour Purple, which can be connected to her childhood in segregated
Georgia, her experiences of familial abuse, and her participation in the Civil Rights
Movement.
The body paragraphs are where you are going to provide your evidence and
explanation to support the arguments you are using to support your thesis. These
paragraphs are extremely important in convincing your reader of your position.
In general, you will want to state your point, state your evidence, explain your
evidence, and link your evidence to the rest of your essay. This structure is called the
PEEL (Point - Evidence - Explanation - Link) structure. To learn more about how to
use this structure, please visit the Using Evidence module.
Your body paragraph will be written using the information you have identified using
PEEL. It begins with a topic sentence, describes and explains the evidence, and ends
with a concluding sentence.
Your topic sentence should add something new to your essay and move your
arguments forward. If the topic sentence merely restates your thesis with nothing new,
or you have multiple topic sentences that say the same thing, your essay is probably
repetitive.
There are many different ways to introduce a quote into your writing:
<The author/source> asserts, believes, claims, comments, confirms, declares, defines,
describes, explains, indicates, makes clear, proposes, etc.
*These terms are not interchangeable as they do have different meanings. Always
make your choice based on the appropriate meaning.
Your explanation can be opinion based and should be at least a few sentences. Your
reader should never have to guess or think about why your evidence is connected to
your claim.
When writing your conclusion, you should make sure that it:
is written in clear simple language that is consistent with the rest of your essay
restates your thesis
includes the key evidence used to support your thesis and how it relates
explains why your ideas are of relevance
synthesizes your arguments
if appropriate, identifies future possible research or questions to investigate based
on your position and findings
shifts from detail to a broad conclusion about the impact/implications of your
thesis/findings/conclusions