As a student, having informative essay writing skills will come in handy not only in school but also in working environments. This writing process requires the writer to provide the reader with information on an occurrence, subject, idea, company, or thing. It is not ideal to utilize subjective opinion to express an opinion or convince a reader while writing this kind of essay.
Although it is similar to a narrative essay, composing an informative essay requires critical thinking and credible research. This is because this sort of essay is written to enlighten readers about essential proofs of a topic. In this article, you will learn the right way to write a proper informative essay.
What is an Informative Essay?
If a lecturer gives you a task to write an informative essay (sometimes called an expository essay), get to know the main features of it. Students may be under the impression that an informative essay is to persuade the audience by giving interesting information. It’s wrong. The main objective of every informative essay is to educate your reader on a specific topic by providing a how-to, analyzing data, and comparing controversial viewpoints about a certain topic. Check out the main stages of writing a successful informative essay and organize your time wisely.
The main purpose of your essay is to explain the topic to the readers as if you are an expert in the field. An informative essay which captures the attention of the audience deserves the best grade.
Variations of an Informative Essay
Since an informative essay is written to share information with audiences, many essay types can be deemed informative essays. The following are the types of essays similar to the informative essay format:
- Expository Essay
- Narrative Essay
- Cause-and-Effect Essay
- Process Essay
- Compare-and-Contrast Essay
- Descriptive Essay
- Problem-Solution Essay
1. Expository Essay
Amongst the several essay types, the essay that is almost identical to informative essays is an expository essay. This is because both essays are written to provide readers with information. However, while writing an expository essay, you must add supporting evidence to explain certain points and that goes beyond providing readers with information.
2. Narrative Essay
A narrative essay is written to enlighten readers about a topic comprehensively. It is the kind of essay that is written based on a single theme. A narrative essay can be deemed informative, provided that it is not written to convince the audience about a point.
3. Cause-and-Effect Essay
This type of essay is written to examine the similarities that connect two things by stating how an occurrence took place or its aftermath. It is considered an informative essay if it is written with the main idea of providing information on the similarities connecting two things. However, If it is written to determine a cause or effect, it is considered an argumentative essay.
4. Process Essay
A process essay is considered informative because it is written with detailed descriptions to describe how something is done or works. While writing this type of essay, you must clarify each step comprehensively.
5. Compare and Contrast Essay
This essay is written to differentiate and highlight the likenesses between multiple subjects. In other words, it could be either an argumentative essay or an informative essay depending on the motive of the essay. For instance, "The similarities and differences between football and basketball" is an informative essay. On the other hand, "Why football is better than basketball" is an argumentative essay.
6. Descriptive Essay
A descriptive essay is written to describe an occurrence, person, situation, or thing. While writing this kind of essay, you must make it realistic enough to capture the imagination of the reader. This sort of essay could either be written to give information or with an eventual objective.
7. Problem-Solution Essay
This type of essay is written to examine a given problem and provide several solutions to it. While writing this essay, if you are only providing the reader with several solutions to the problem, it is regarded as an informative essay. However, the essay will have the motive of convincing the reader if any of the solutions are deemed superior to the rest.
Select your Topic
Want to prepare an essay which will be readable for the audience and need some essay help and advice? Pick a topic which can explain new aspects of known phenomena or innovative approaches which appear in various life spheres. It might be difficult to choose a topic as this type of essay has to be original, impressive, and meaningful. Out of fresh ideas? Here are the examples of topics for informative essays:
- How to substitute caffeine drinks with products that produce the same stimulating effect.
- Positive aspects of plastic surgery or when having plastic surgery is the right thing to do.
- How to determine that a person is addicted to drugs.
- Is it possible to reduce obesity problems by placing a ban on fast food?
- Causes and effects of domestic violence as a global issue.
Once you’ve chosen the theme of your informative essay, confirm the required topic parameters. How much information will you need to gather? If you still need clarification, ask your lecturers about all the required details.
How to Start Conducting Research
Gather the required information through research. Create a concept map with words and phrases connected with your central topic in order to stay focused on the main aspects of your paper. Use only reliable websites, books, and articles to impart accurate information. There are many pages on the Internet containing low quality content and inaccurate statistics which can spoil the whole essay. Document the important citations, research details, and number of pages or type them on your computer for keeping all notes in one place.
Steps to Writing a Successful Informative Essay
Before you start an informative essay, you need to try to understand the instructions of the assignment and do extensive research. Besides that, choosing the right title is the most important step for a proper essay so take your time with it. But if you don't have enough time to find out how to write an informative essay introduction or even to come up with the title, you can always reach out to our support team and say, "write my essay please," and we will get it done. Our writers are always ready to help. So that you can be sure about submitting the essay on time, let's get back to the steps that you should know.
The following are what should be included in an informative essay:
An informative essay is written based on the chosen topic of the essay, so your thesis must align with your topic. While writing, your thesis must state the purpose of your essay to the reader. Therefore, it should comprise the most important facts in the entire essay. And that is how to write an informative essay thesis.
If you can create a proper thesis statement, it would serve as a guideline for your analysis. Aside from that, an informative essay thesis must not be written persuasively but highlight what is to come to the reader.
Writing an introduction for an informative essay would require you to provide the reader with a summary of the whole essay. To capture the imagination of the reader, you should consider starting your introduction with interesting facts. Afterwards, you can include your informative essay thesis statement and some basic information on your chosen topic.
While writing your informative essay, you must make sure that the body is made up of three paragraphs. Aside from that, each paragraph must be readable and comprise the details you aim to share with the reader. In academic writing, you must ensure that your essay is written from a reliable source, so you need to take your time while researching.
To know how to write an informative essay conclusion, you should know its purpose. A proper informative essay must be concluded with a sense of completeness. It should be the content of the 5th paragraph of the essay. In this section, you should revise the purpose of the essay again but with another meaning, according to the facts you gave in the essay.
Tips for Writing an Informative Essay
If you know how to write a 500 word essay, writing a proper informative essay will be an easy task for you. That aside, you won't find it difficult provided that you plan well, select an appropriate topic, and know the informative essay structure. The following are the tips you need to consider while writing a proper informative essay:
- Ensure that you understand the instructions for your homework
- Think of the perfect informative essay title
- Ahead of any final decision, make sure you do an extensive research
- Create your thesis statement
- Create an outline
- Start your first paragraph with an interactive introduction
- Write each body paragraph with contents from dependable sources
- While writing your conclusion, do not include any information that was not previously stated in the essay
What I Need to Avoid While Writing an Informative Essay
While writing a standard informative essay, you must avoid including supporting evidence because it could make your article seem less informative and more argumentative. Besides that, you need to be cautious of using persuasive words and phrases while writing informative essays.
Another thing you should avoid is repeating your thoughts and information. Unless it is necessary to connect the dots, there is no need to mention any point more than once.
Knowing how to write an informative essay will be useful to you academically and professionally. Even though it appears difficult, learning the appropriate tips for writing it and utilizing the skills of experts will help you get through it.
Writing this sort of essay requires you to pass information to the reader without any form of persuasion. However, you must learn how to catch the interest of readers using appropriate thesis statements if you aim to write a successful, informative essay.