Informative Essay: Definition, Structure, Stages of Writing


Informative Essay: Definition, Structure, Stages of Writing

An informative essay is one of the most wide-spread academic paper types you will face during your studying period. There are few variations of this type of essay writing, and you will deal at least with one of them for sure. If you already have a topic but just don’t know what to do next, this guide will teach you how to make your informative essay writing a successful and exciting experience.

Informative essay definition

Probably, at this point of your educational path, you already have written some sort of an informative essay. This type of academic writing is so popular among teachers from all over the world that almost everybody did it at least once. If you still have doubts about this statement, here you have a definition of the informative essay.

We call an informative a certain type of essay that educates a reader about a certain topic or issue. See? It may sound too broad, but the main point is about the story or a fact that you should tell about in your essay. It is not about arguments and comparisons. The main goal of this essay is to inform. It is not as difficult as the research paper, but you need to know few special points too.

Pre-writing stages

As most of you may think writing is the most important stage of writing an essay. Well, it is not totally true. Without a proper preparation as we call it pre-writing stage, it is almost impossible to come up with something really valuable and worth of your teacher’s attention. Pre-writing is the stage that goes before the actual composing actions, and it consists of:

  • Choosing a topic: If your tutor didn’t provide you with a certain and specific topic, you are free to choose it by yourself. As it seems to be another problem to solve, try to find the positive side of this situation. You may turn it into a great advantage by choosing an interesting topic about something you are pensioned about. Do not pick up anything too broad and too narrow. Try to stay specific but with a potential (materials, sources, awareness).
  • Brainstorming: Yes, the same thing you are doing while preparing for your exams. Every idea does not come by itself. There should be a catalyst to make a good idea to pop out on a surface. Brainstorm is the thing you need to perform to get as many ideas as you can. Then you should leave the best ones and note them. Do not forget to use reliable and various sources. It will help you to write convincing and qualitative content. 

Writing stages



This stage is something students fear the most. Of course, you may call it the most complicated one, but writing can also be the most interesting part of your task too. Everything is simple when you know how to structure informative essay parts. And the secret is about its total similarity to any other essay type you know. But first things first, let’s start with the outline.

Outline

This part of your task is not the most important one, and it is also not requested by your teacher. You write your outline for yourself. As informative essay consists of three common essay parts (Introduction, Body, Conclusion), the outline will help you to organize those parts together. Also, you can use it as your map not to lose your path while creating your future informative masterpiece. So, do not be lazy and note few main points down in the proper sequence.

Introduction

Everything needs to start from something. For your reader, your informative essay starts with the Introduction part. Its goal is to present your topic to the audience and to catch its attention. If your Introduction is effective, a person will get hooked and continue reading.

There are few main ways to get your reader interested. First of all, you may shock him. Tell something he or she does not expect to see on paper or at least in that part of your essay. You may start with a question and give the answer in the Conclusion. Also, it is always helpful telling your personal experience story. Yes, like you did in your application essay back then.

Body paragraphs

This section of paragraphs should open your topic in full. Here you will defend your thesis statement, and that is where your outline will be especially useful. Usually, there are three paragraphs in this part of informative or any other essay.

Every paragraph should have a bullet point and fat to support it and your thesis in general. Also, Body is the part where you make a claim. Then you should validate and support it by a reliable source. Usually, it is a quote from an essay, review or any other sort of a reputable document.

All your claims, probably three for each of the paragraphs, should prove the thesis statement in the end. You may be more accurate while giving your reader some extra information about the topic and its validation.

Conclusion

And here is the ending part of the whole informative essay. In Conclusion, you need to wrap the entire essay up and restate your thesis statement. You may try to come up with a little bit different explanation, but the message and core should be the same. No deep character analysis is needed, just go to the core.

Note that Conclusion in essay usually is about five sentences, so you have not much space to write with details. Be brief but convincing at the same time. It is always helpful to get one powerful statement for the ending sentence. Consider telling where exactly the information you gave can be used.

Post-Writing

Editing is the last stage of the entire essay writing process. You may divide it into three main areas that should be checked in the first place:

  • Vocabulary
  • Grammar
  • Coherency

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