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Types of Essays for Professional Writers

Four essay types and their characteristics

Whether you are in high school or college, you will often be confronted by the different kinds of essays.Unless you choose to purchase essays online or pay to have homework done, understanding the variant essay styles is essential because it impacts you with the skills and knowledge you need to excel in essay writing. As a student, you need to understand most essay discussed below will not be identified as such in the instructions. It will be up to you to determine the category an essay falls into and determine the best way to write it. With that said, lets look at the different essay categories.

types of Essays

The four major types of essays are:

1. Descriptive Essay - creating a mental view

This essay is on a class of its own because of its uniqueness. Sometimes when you read a literature such a novel or short story, you might encounter descriptions. It could be that the author is talking about the traits of character or an event such as storms and so on.

On a closer look, such descriptions are meant to appeal to the reader's senses. In other cases, they will also have figurative languages such as personification, metaphor and similes. The main aim of descriptive essays is to help the readers paint a picture of what is being described. A lot of descriptive essays you will encounter in college are meant for those who take creative writing courses.

2. Narrative Essay – for story telling

The purpose of the narrative essay is to tell a story. It could be that you are narrating about your own life or that of fictional character. An excellent example of a narrative essay could be," Describe the most frightening experience you have ever had." Such essays are also common when applying for a scholarship, graduate school or college. When working on such essays, it is vital that you always stick to the guidelines provided. Apart from the common essay elements like punctuation, grammar, and organization, instructors will also be looking for dialog, descriptive detail, characterization and plot development.

3. Expository Essay – provides the facts

These are essays written to illustrate certain facts. There are several characteristics of this type of essay. They do not depict the writer's personal opinion. Rather thy lay down the facts related a given issue. Writing such essays entails a lot of research to help unearth the facts around the subject of the essay. Expository essays include compare and contrast essays, cause and effect essays, critical analysis essays, process essays among others.

4. Argumentative/Persuasive Essay – for convincing

In a persuasive or argumentative essay, you will be required to take a position on a particular subject. It is important to understand that information presented should be factual and this will mean conducting in-depth research on the given topic. The only distinguishing difference between the argumentative and persuasive essay is that in the persuasive essay you will be required to state your position, defend it and convince your readers to take your side.

In an argumentative essay, you can try to write an opposing viewpoint, but you should try to discredit it in the best way possible. Take note that the differences can sometimes prove challenging to organize. Although there might be slight similarities, they still need to have the same basic structure which includes the introduction, body paragraph, and conclusion. Your introduction should not miss a thesis statement, and your paragraphs must be organized in terms of the points you are making.

The formatting types in all essays does not vary except in the case of the narrative essay, where you have dialogue and characters. However, if you get to understand the aim of each essay, it should be easy to select a topic, write a thesis and come up with an essay that meets the expectations of your instructor.

Although it might be difficult for students to come up with an essay because they aren't familiar with the kind of essay they are dealing with, getting to understand the different types of essays make process much easier.