What is an informative essay

People discover new things through academic research, observations, and scientific tests. One can pass the new knowledge to the public by writing an informative essay. An informative essay is a paper that explains a certain happening or topic to educate the reader. The writer has the audience in mind and ensures the essay is appealing and understandable at their level. Therefore, an informative essay should impart new knowledge about the topic of choice to the reader.

How to Write an Informative Essay

An informative essay writer begins with a plan about the whole process of writing the essay. The writer prepares a plan outlining the steps to follow when writing the essay. The plan includes; choosing the topic, researching the topic, formulating a thesis statement, structuring the introduction, planning the topic sentences for each paragraph, and forming a conclusion. The individual researches about the topic from different sources like resource persons, the internet, and libraries. Planning enables one to ensure that the essay is comprehensive to includes the necessary information within the required length of the paper. It also helps the writer ensure the paper is organized and appealing to readers.

The next step involves writing the essay using the gathered information. The essay consists of three parts; the introduction, the body, and the conclusion. The introduction of an informative essay should have a hook, a thesis statement, and connecting sentences. The hook should be able to capture the interests of the readers to make them continue reading the whole essay. The hook appears in the first sentence and must be captivating by giving data about the topic. The connecting sentences in the introduction enable one to understand the topic and relate it to the thesis. The connecting sentences may include definitions and explanations of terms within the topic. The thesis statement summarizes the argument in the essay and may appear in the last sentence of the introductory paragraph.

The body paragraphs provide details about the study topic, supporting the thesis. Each body paragraph of an informative essay includes; a claim, evidence, explanation, and a conclusion sentence. A claim is the subject of the paragraph, while the evidence may be what others have stated about the topic. The writer explains how the claim and the pieces of evidence relate to the thesis statement, then concludes the paragraph. The conclusion summarizes the main points in the body paragraphs and reiterates the thesis statement.

Additionally, one should avoid subjectivity and repetition when writing an informative essay. The writer should also proofread and edit the essay to eliminate the errors. One should also adhere to a particular formatting style and ensure the citations are right.

Variations of an Informative Essay

There are four variations of informative essays; persuasive, expository, procedural, and literary non-fiction essays. Persuasive essays present a claim and build an argument on the claim persuading the reader to agree with the argument. The writer provides the necessary evidence and explanations to ensure readers agree with the essay at the end. The expository essays contain tools that enable readers to pick the area of choice to read. The tools include chapters, a table of contents, a glossary, and an index. They enable the reader to access the content of interest without time wastage.

The procedural essays inform readers using a step-by-step guide on how to do a particular thing. The essay guides readers on the procedure to follow when performing a given activity like cooking or driving a car. Literary non-fiction essays are short literary works containing historical information. The text may involve books, autobiographies, essays, or memoirs having factual information about something or someone.

Conclusion

Therefore, informative essays are texts which inform individuals about a given topic. When writing the essays, the writer starts by planning, choosing the topic, and gathering the necessary information. The writer also follows some guidelines to the introduction, body, and conclusion. Finally, this study discusses persuasive, expository, literary non-fiction and procedural texts as variations of an informative essay.