Top 6 Informative Essay Types
Introduction
Are you a college or high school student? Do you know that a chance of you drafting an informative essay holds at 100%? The article below aims at equipping you on how to go about informative essay writing in your academic years.
A title might be chosen for you to tackle by your tutor or left for you to pick for yourself.
There are several instances where learners will get informative topics that they do not know how to develop. Thus, the guide below offers to educate you on how to craft an exceptional informative essay by showing you all the types. However, should you chose to skip this guide due to reasons such as a busy schedule, our tutors for hire are ready to cover you by acing your informative essay. All you need to do is place an order and relax!
Informative Essay: Definition
An informative essay is a type of essay writing that explores a particular topic to inform an audience. Unlike the other academic essay types, this essay does not thrive on convincing the audience of their truth.
However, it focuses on keenly studying a topic and collecting relevant information to help educate its audience.
High school and college teachers use it as the most effective academic tool since it helps to evaluate many criteria such as:
- The subject knowledge
- Format awareness
- Proficiency in English
- Sets of skills
Coming up with an impressive informative essay dramatically depends on the strength of your topic. If it has an interesting topic, reading the essay will be intriguing to the readers.
Ordinarily, this type of essay will mainly compare controversial points of view about a given subject.
Types of Informative Essays
In order to understand this kind of academic essay, learners must know a few types and how they are crafted.
An informative essay is identical to an expository essay. Some of the types include:
- Process essay
- Cause and Effect essay
- Descriptive essay
- Problem-Solution essay
- Compare and Contrast essay
- Expository essay
These informative essay types are widely discussed below:
1. Process Essay
A process essay is an informative essay type that seeks to explain a step-by-step process and issue direction for a given process, procedure, or mechanism.
Process essays range from straightforward ones to more complex ones. Either way, the ultimate goal of a good paper is to issue readers direction and guidance.
A process paper is mainly exhibited by explaining processes with the aid of descriptions. The most commonly used words in this essay are: first, last, initially, finally, next, and then.
It is vital to note that every process essay incorporates features like:
- Transition words – Help to separate the previous step from the next step.
- Chronological order- Following steps without skipping or shifting them around so that the readers will not misunderstand.
- Straightforward and clear narration-Being clear helps avoid confusing your audience. Complex language makes the narration ambiguous.
- Steps description- Make your steps simple and clear to follow.
Types of process essays include:
Directional Essay – It explains “how-to” in things. It takes on some variables, such as how to get your debit card. The aftermath of the directional essay should be a result. For instance, in our case, the expected result is the debit card.
Informational Essay – It explains how a given thing works. For example, how a generator works. It helps explain something to the audience but does not necessarily result like it is in directional.
1 a). Writing a Process Essay
Coming up with this essay is not very difficult. A nicely structured essay is guaranteed if you follow simple steps and rules. Below are few tips to follow in your writing process in order to meet the process paper expectation.
- Develop a list of materials. You need to make sure that every material is listed as per its importance. Prioritize them in a way that the item that tops the list is the most impactful one. It is pretty essential to know the necessities in advance and keeping them ready.
- Determine the skill level of your audience. It is imperative to know your audience’s level of skills. That will help you put the essay in a way that your target audience will understand with ease. If your target is, say, school students: you will put your paper in a more straightforward and understandable form compared to how you will put it in a case of an audience comprising of, say, aeronautical engineers only.
- Jot down each task. Every task holds some importance in a step-by-step session. It is vital to ensure that you do not omit a single step. A process is only deemed complete if all the required steps are included. However, do not use excessive explanation. Ensure that all your steps are competent and understandable.
1 b). Process Essay Topics
It can be quite a task to come up with a topic for process papers. Firstly, have a self-drive to motivate your writing. Having a passion for writing essays forms an excellent recipe for developing an exciting and thrilling topic.
Always choose a topic that intrigues your interest in cases where you cannot write a process essay on areas you are not knowledgeable about. Before you try to explain anything to your audience, please do thorough research to ensure you perfectly understand it.
While writing your process essay, it is also essential to consider the audience. Ensure the topic is related to your subject for the audience to understand easily.
A few topic ideas that might intrigue you are:
- How to start selling school uniforms on eBay
- How to minimize your cell phone usage
- How to behave in a job interview
- How your immune system helps fight pneumonia
- How to sign up for a Gmail account
- How to create your energy drinks
These are just but a few examples of topics. You can come up with yours but ensure that it is a process.
1 c). Process Essay Outline
Many academic essay writings typically follow a specific standard format. The format entails an introduction, main body paragraphs, and a conclusion.
- Introduction – Your introduction should give your audience a brief about the topic. Also, explain how you intend to detail your process and why you chose that particular topic.
Use the introduction to paint an image for your readers by being descriptive in your process. You can also employ a funny joke to make your topic sentence exciting and attract the attention of your readers.
- Body paragraphs – This forms the most significant part of your paper and should be split into various paragraphs to enable clear understanding with ease. Use connective words to make your paragraphs flow smoothly into each subsequent one.
Explain each step carefully, considering their lengths vary. Use the explanation to get a sense of their complexity and lengths.
The purpose of each step should also be explained in order to make it clear to the readers.
- Conclusion – At this stage, you are supposed to expound on why your instructions are invaluable. You need to enable your readers to understand that the processes they learned will come in handy in the future.
The conclusion paragraph should be short, exciting, and straight to the point. It should be aimed at expounding on the main result, emphasizing the primary purpose of the process, and entirely stating the conclusion.
2. Cause and Effect Essay
A cause is an action that causes something to happen. On the other hand, the effect is the outcome or result of the cause and the consequence it makes.
Therefore, a cause and effect essay is a type of informative essay that focuses on the reasons for something happening and then reflects on the outcomes.
It is vital to master this kind of academic essay to keep up with good performance. Why is it so? Cause and effect essays are relevant and widely used in the academic field.
This essay is not only employed in an academic paper but also in our day-to-day lives. Additionally, it is one of the most commonly used methods of discussing interesting ideas by various institutions and organizations.
2 a). Essay Topics for Cause and Effect
The critical area to consider while developing a topic is that it should portray a case where a given action yields specific results.
As long as you keep that key area in mind, the choice of your topic is endless. You can write anything important to you. Ensure your topic is clear, relevant, significant, accurate, and enjoyable.
Consider the following steps when coming up with a good essay topic:
- Brainstorming – Jog your mind and generate valuable ideas that you will use in developing a topic.
- Select the idea that intrigues you the most.
- Restrict your concept to a more distinct one.
- Develop a clear, engaging and straight to the point, and brief topic.
These steps will help you form the right and best topic for your essay. A few examples off cause and effect essay topics for high school and other institutions are:
- The impact of mental health on a child’s development.
- How music influences people’s behaviour in third-world countries.
- The influence of cheating in high school exams.
- Violent video games can negatively influence one’s behaviour.
- The impact of sex education on students
- How drama festivals impact fulfilling career choices.
- The impact of Covid-19 on the global economy.
- Importance of a school uniform
You may also check comprehensive cause and effect essay topics!
2 b). Essay Outline for Cause and Effect
Cause and effect essays have two types of structures, namely the block structure, which means keeping all your causes at the beginning of the essay succeeded by the effects. The other type is the chain structure which means an effect immediately follows every specific cause.
The outline incorporates the introduction, body, and conclusion parts, just like most writings.
3. Descriptive Essays
A descriptive essay is an informative essay that describes a person, an object, an event, or a process. It usually appeals to the five human senses, which include: the sense of sight, hearing, touch, smell, and taste. Appealing these senses is essential in drafting an outstanding descriptive essay.
The main aim of a descriptive essay is to create an image for the reader by pleasing his senses.
Additionally, your composition should have a purpose. The purpose can be something that impacts your life in a particular type of way. It brings to life the bright idea.
3 a). Descriptive Essay Ideas and Topics
The topics can primarily be generated and described from an event, a person, an animal, a place, behaviour, and an occupation.
Below are ideas for coming up with an excellent descriptive topic:
- Place description– A place you intend to describe could be a college or a church. For example, “My journey to upcountry.”
- Description of a person- When making this kind of description, you need to select a person you know well. That enables you to have a wide range of what to write about. You can pick a celebrity, a politician, or a known superhero like Batman, among others.
For instance: How the president impacted our country’s economic growth.
- Description of emotion- You can think of an emotion you went through during a particular incident. It could be happiness, sorrow, anger, loss, rage, etc. The emotions could be personal or observed by other people.
For example: How love influenced my life.
3 b). Descriptive Essay Outline
To organize your thoughts in an essay and make it flow, you need a well-structured outline. Like in other essays, professional writers will always include the introduction, body, and conclusion.
Introduction
The introduction plays a role in introducing your subject to the readers and equips them with adequate context to help them understand. Note that it should be concise and interesting to read.
The introduction should contain the hook sentence, which helps capture the readers’ attention right from the start of your paper, and the background information, which brings out what is about to be described and states why it is crucial. It gives a summary of your paper.
Another point in an introduction is the thesis statement, which should be short and straight to the point in summarizing your work. It brings out the purpose and subject of your description.
Body Paragraphs
The main body paragraphs should be three in a particular paper that covers different arguments altogether. The number of paragraphs to include in your composition is wholly up to you. A paragraph is always enough to tell a story, while at times, it takes an entire book.
Conclusion
In this case, your conclusion summarizes all the critical points in your body text. It is advisable to write a final sentence directly related to your paper’s main points. After you are done writing the conclusion, you are advised to proofread your essay to make changes to grammatical errors that may arise and ensure zero plagiarism.
3. Compare and Contrast Essay
Compare and contrast essays are academic compositions where a student examines two or more subjects with the other.
Comparing is the act of exploring the similarities that arise between more than one subject, whereas contrasting means looking into the differences. The two subjects undergoing comparisons are usually in similar groups, though with differences. For instance, you can compare graduate and professional degrees of two institutions, two colleges, two interesting facts, two schools, etc.
A strong thesis statement in this essay must have a meaningful comparison. Conduct proper brainstorming to come up with a good thesis.
Compare and contrast essays, which are also examples of informative essays, are very common in university and college education. It puts into action analysis and observation and assists in creating meaningful ideas about a specific subject.
3 a). Essay Topics for Compare and Contrast
When developing a topic for an essay, it is essential to note that subjects cannot be highly unlike. Being unlike may mean that there are only a few or ultimately no points of similarity or comparison.
Similarly, in cases where there are too many similarities, the resulting contrast will be immensely reduced.
In order to make your composition exciting and easy to develop, you need to select a topic that you are passionate about before you start writing. Below are proper ways to brainstorm for topics:
- Random facts: come up with fun facts that are intended to make your topics good.
- Identify categories: identify types of categories like movies, plants, and animals, and compare their subjects.
- Books vs. Movies: in most aspects of a book compared to a movie, a book is always preferred over a movie.
Good topic ideas to consider in compare and contrast essays:
- The difference between junior school students and middle school students.
- Similarities and differences between professional degrees and diplomas.
- The key aspects and differences between World War I and World War II.
- Keeping emotional support animals vs. service animals.
- The disparity between global warming and the greenhouse effect.
- Comparison between private and public schools
3 b). Outline for Compare and Contrast
Two structural methods can assist you in organizing facts here. They include the block structure, where all the information for the first subject is presented, and details are explained. The point-by-point structure outlays every similarity and difference concurrently. A feature that is particular to a given subject can be listed succeeded by its difference or similarity.
Both two structures have advantages and disadvantages. The point-by-point format needs its points analyzed while making differences and similarities more explicit and understandable.
On the other hand, the block format is simple to write since all the information about the two subjects is singled out and left to aid readers in making comparisons.
4. Problem-Solution Essay
A problem-solution essay is an informative essay that pays keen attention to a problem and several solutions that address it. It also aims at educating the readers on the problem identified and its relevance in society.
When coming up with a problem-solution kind of essay, you must have adequate knowledge and understanding of the elements leading to the problems. Consequently, also equip yourself with the measure that you will take to solve the problem.
5. An Expository Essay
An expository essay is an informative essay in which the writer aims to explain the topic at hand. When crafting this type of essay, you need to investigate ideas, evaluate the collected shreds of evidence, expound on all the ideas, and eventually develop a conclusive argument.
Examples of expository essay topics are:
- Explain rising cases of mental disorders
- What are the consequences of teen pregnancy?
- Describe the effects of a learning disability
- What is artificial intelligence?
5 a). Features of an Expository Essay
The expository essay entails some features, including:
- Describing and explaining processes by giving detailed guidelines on how to go about things.
- Informing and presenting facts to the audience.
- Clarifying to give an image of what the author intends to say.
- Expository essays are unbiased since it is not based on the writer’s own opinion.
- It organizes data and ensures that you systematically present information.
5 b). Format of Expository Essay
The format for this essay is similar to most other compositions. It entails the introduction with a thesis statement, the body paragraphs, and the conclusion. It is the purpose in which they are drafted that makes them different.
You may also check expository essay topics!
General Informative Essay Topics
You should choose your own good informative essay topic in an event where one has not been selected for you. Having a wide range of informative essay topics to choose from might give you a hard time.
The following ideas are insightful when selecting the most appropriate and interesting informative essay topics:
- Ensure that the informative topic is intriguing to your audience. Know and study your audience to understand the informative topic that best suits your readers.
- Select a topic that fascinates you. It will allow you to express your passion fully and make you enjoy the whole writing process.
- Ensure your essay topics have adequate information about your subject, though not so much that would result in complete novel writing.
Below are some pertinent, informative essay topics samples you can use as middle school students, high school students, and students from any college campus:
- What are the causes of drug addiction?
- How to structure the education system
- Balancing on a hoverboard
- Why do we sleep?
- Ways to increase rates of employment in New York City
- Everything involved in cooking beef
- How global warming is caused
You may also check narrative essay topics!
Writing an Informative Essay
Develop a plan in advance to help you adequately organize information. The plan will, in turn, help speed up the entire process of writing the essay.
Brainstorming– Before you begin writing an informative essay, select an appropriate topic accordingly. It will help enhance the organization of your thoughts appropriately. Brainstorming helps give multiple informative essay ideas that help kick start your paper satisfactorily.
Topic choice– It involves coming up with the very best informative topic out of the alternatives you initially had. Good informative essay topics should be concise, neither too narrow nor too broad.
Conduct research– Involves acquiring vital information from secondary (materials already written) and primary sources (physical evidence).
Informative Essay Structure
An informative essay outline is generally composed in a standard essay format that comprises:
- In an introduction with a strong thesis statement, you can provide an argument and appealingly demonstrate its importance.
- The thesis statement– is the very last sentence of the introduction of the essay writing. It summarizes the essential points to the audience. Your argument should be put in an easily readable form. The readers need to learn more about the subject by just going through the statement.
- The body consists of three paragraphs that help defend, develop, and support the thesis stated in the introduction. Ensure that all the paragraphs start with a topic statement, which links your thesis to the first point. That, in turn, plays a role in enabling a smooth transition from the introduction.
- The conclusion sums up the entire information and offers its relevance to real-life situations. It gives the final insights about the topic by restating the thesis.
In order to finish the essay, you must design an overall ending statement. The concluding statement explains the intentions of your argument.
Final Word
An informative essay aims at providing readers with relevant information. Nevertheless, this will not be possible without a great topic.
In this article, you will get excellent and interesting, informative essay topics you will need to succeed in your academic performance and acquire new knowledge.
However, if you need help with your informative essays, click the green button below, and we will be glad to help.
