INFORMATIVE

WRITING
INFORMATIVE WRITING

■ Nonfiction text (real, not just “realistic”)

■ Used to inform or explain something to the
reading audience

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What form can informative writing take?

■ Labels ■ Logs ■ Reports

■ Brochures ■ Summaries ■ Directories
■ Letters ■ Description ■ Recipes
■ Lists ■ Notes ■ Manual
■ Explanatory essays ■ Menus ■ Procedures
■ Speeches ■ Magazine articles ■ Experiments
■ Observations ■ Biographies ■ Compare/contrast
■ Process essays ■ How-to articles essays
■ Interviews ■ Newspaper articles ■ Problem/solution
essays
■ Cause/effect essays

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Reporting Information

We use information in writing for the following

purposes:
■ to tell our readers what we know
■ to explain our ideas
■ to support our opinions

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Prewriting: How do I report information effectively?

Principles of Informative Writing

Useful guidelines from James Kinneavy
■ principle of completeness – concerns your choice of
subject matter; will you be able to cover the topic
adequately?
■ principle of surprise value – helps you to narrow your
search further by considering your intended audience;
will you be able to tell them something new and
interesting? 5
Prewriting: How do I report information effectively?

Principles of Informative Writing

Useful guidelines from James Kinneavy
■ principle of factuality – involves your responsibilities as
a writer; do you provide a fair and accurate record of the
sources of your information?

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Writing: Using Primary Sources

One way to get around the problem of merely

repeating what other people have already reported is to
develop your own primary sources of information –
through interviews. Interviews are fun but they are
seldom as simple or as spontaneous as they appear on the
television.

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Writing: Using Primary Sources

In order to have a successful interview, you have to

learn to:
■ how to prepare for an interview – you need to decide
what experts you are going to interview
■ how to manage the interview – you can use tape
recorder and note taking; prepared questions
■ how to evaluate the interview – review what you
have learned
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Rewriting: Revising the Content

When you return to your paper, examine its content

by asking yourself these questions:
1. Does the main purpose or point of the assignment
come across clearly and unambiguously?
2. Does any material distract from the main idea?
3. Does the coverage seem full and complete?
4. Does the paper have any surprise value?
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 Rewriting: Revising the Content
5. Does the material seem reliable and sufficiently
detailed?
6. Do I clearly and gracefully attribute the information to
my source? Do I use “he says” or “she says” too often
instead of varying tag lines with “he stated,” “she
observed,” “he mentioned,” and so on?
7. Do the points follow one another in clear, logical way?
8. Does the essay begin and end effectively?
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Rewriting: Revising the Presentation

In addition to revising what your essay includes, you

need to look at how the content is presented. The
interview is the basis of your essay, but you are not just a
transcriber of someone else’s words. Your challenge is to
turn the interview data into a clear, smooth piece of
writing.

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Organizing an Essay

The Basic Structure: Beginning, Middle, and End

The only model that most well-written essays follow
reliably is simple: beginning, middle, and end.
■ Introduction – has three main functions: to engage
your readers’ interest, to give them any background
they need on the subject, and to let them know what
point you intend to make about that subject
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Organizing an Essay

■ Body – develops and supports the main point with

details, examples, reasons, and explanations that
make the general thesis more specific and completely
clear
■ Conclusion – returns your readers to the main point
by summarizing or stressing the general idea you
want them to perceive from reading your essay

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Prewriting

Your idea involves choosing between two kinds of

order for your ideas:
■ Chronological Order – based on time; involves
writing about events in the order in which the occur
■ Logical Order – involves arranging ideas in a way
that will appeal to your readers’ intelligence and
good sense

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Developing the Content: Techniques for Development

■ DESCRIPITIVE AND NARRATIVE DETAILS –

narration and description should capture your readers’
attention
■ CONVERSATION – will gain convincing realism
■ ANALOGY – a comparison, brief or extensive,
designed to illustrate or clarify or sometimes to amuse
■ METAPHOR – implied imaginative comparison that
puts a picture in the reader’s mind
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Developing the Content: Techniques for Development

■ DEFINITION – included for clarity but only when the

writer suspects that readers might be unfamiliar with a
key term
■ CONTRAST – using but and the usual contrastive
transitional words like on the other hand or in contrast
■ FACTUAL DETAILS – almost always provide
convincing evidence; may have do some extra reading

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Developing the Content: Techniques for Development

■ DETAILING PROCESS – a way of making the writer’s

idea clear
■ EXPLAINING YOUR REASONING – write to explain
their own thought processes concerning some problem
or policy; involve citing evidence to help the readers
follow the reasoning, or to make the reasoning more
convincing

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Examples of Informative Texts

■ Newspapers - a daily or
weekly publication on folded
sheets; contains news and
articles and advertisements

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Examples of Informative Texts

■ Biographies – accounts of the

series of events of a person’s life

■ Autobiographies – biographies
of yourself

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Examples of Informative Texts

■ Almanacs - annual
publications of weather
forecasts and other
information arranged
according to the calendar of a
given year

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Examples of Informative Texts

■ Magazines - periodic
publications containing
pictures, stories, and articles
of interest to those who
purchase or subscribe to it

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Thank you! 

CHERYL C.
RUIZ, LPT
Master of Arts in Education
Major in English Language
Education
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