How to Write an Expository Essay

An expository essay is a specific type of writing that involves providing the reader with information, explaining a topic, or providing a definition to a particular topic. In order to properly develop an expository essay, you must develop a strong thesis that is supported by relevant facts and statistics, examples, or other pertinent information.

Since an expository essay is meant to provide the reader with factual information, the paper should be written from a neutral point of view and without emotion. In addition, it should be written in the third person, which means the essay should not contain the word “I” or sentences such as “In my opinion….”

Before you begin writing the expository essay, you must develop your ideas. This step of the writing process is usually referred to as “pre-writing.” During the pre-writing stage, you will brainstorm ideas for the essay and you will begin to put them in order.

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In order to start putting your ideas to order, you might utilize a number of different pre-writing strategies. These include:

• Making a list
• Creating a web
• Developing a map
• Engaging in freewriting
• Drawing a tree diagram

If you haven’t already developed a thesis, you should be able to determine one after conducting the pre-writing activities. Although you will have an idea of what the paper will be about before you begin pre-writing, the pre-writing stage will help you develop your ideas further and to hone in on your actual thesis statement.

Your thesis statement is one sentence that summarizes what the entire expository essay will be about. Based off of your thesis statement, you will need to gather information that helps to support your statement. This will involve conducting research in order to further develop the ideas you wrote about in the pre-writing stage.

In most cases, the thesis statement is included in the first paragraph of the expository essay. This first paragraph is called the “introduction” and is intended to grab the reader’s attention and to provide the reader with the main idea of the essay.

Each of the subsequent paragraphs is used to support the topic sentence from the first paragraph. Each of these paragraphs must have a topic sentence, which is a sentence telling the main idea of that paragraph, and the topic sentence must support your thesis. The rest of the sentences within the paragraph are used to further explain and to support the topic sentence. These supporting paragraphs are referred to as the “body” of the essay and, in most cases, the essay should include at least three paragraphs in the body.

The final paragraph of the expository essay is the conclusion. The conclusion should restate the thesis and the main ideas of the essay, though the sentences should be worded differently. The final paragraph should never introduce new material and the final sentence should summarize the essay in a memorable or meaningful way. In doing so, you will leave a lasting impression on the reader that will help your essay stand out from the rest.

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