The Five-Paragraph Model

Most expository essays follow the five-paragraph essay model:

 Introduction: The introduction contains the thesis statement or main point of the essay. Here, the writer describes the
subject and gives necessary context.
 Body: This section is usually three or more paragraphs and offers supporting evidence for the thesis.
 Conclusion: The conclusion revisits the thesis and summarizes the writer’s main points.
Types of Expository Essays
There are several types of expository essays that can be written.
 Cause and Effect: These essays question why something happened and the outcome of that occurrence. For example,
an essay of this type might question why there’s a large homeless population in Seattle and what effects it has on the
city and its citizens.
 Classification: These break a broad subject down into several, in-depth subcategories. A classification essay might
study the various kinds of movies, define genres, and break the most common genres down by subgenre (for example,
action thriller and action adventure as subgenres of the action genre).
 Compare and Contrast: These essays lay out the similarities and differences of at least two subjects. One such essay
might compare two different novels by the same author. These essays can explore the pros and cons of different
choices as well, like living in the city versus living in the country.
 Definition: As indicated, a definition essay describes or defines something. For example, it might define the internet
and provide a detailed explanation of how it works.
 How-To: Also called a process essay, a how-to essay gives the reader steps for creating or doing something. For
example, a process essay might walk its reader through setting a table, step by step.
 Problem and Solution: This type of essay explores a problem and, using evidential support, offers potential solutions.
For example, a writer might consider the example of Seattle’s homeless population, cite a solution that other cities
have used successfully, and propose that same solution for Seattle.
Other Forms of Expository Writing
In addition to the aforementioned, there are other uses for expository writing. Most commonly:
 Newspaper articles
 Encyclopedic entries
 Manuals/assembly instructions
 Cookbooks
Expository vs. Argumentative Essays
Expository essays are like argumentative essays in that they both require research. Unlike argumentative essays, expository
essays are meant to inform their audience rather than persuade it.
Argumentative essays are often controversial and contain the writer’s personal opinions, whereas expository essays give
factual information and explore a topic from many perspectives . Educational spheres often use expository essays to test writing
ability, reading comprehension, and/or the writer’s understanding of a topic
What Is Descriptive Writing?
So, what exactly is descriptive writing? It’s when you immerse the reader into your writing, whether you’re describing people,
places, objects, or scenes. Descriptive writing allows the reader to paint a picture in their head. Descriptive writing makes your
text more appealing and therefore draws in the reader.
But which type of writing benefits from descriptive writing? Nearly all of them do; especially creative writing. You’ll want to
steer clear of descriptive writing in technical papers or academic writing. Unless, of course, your academic paper is about
literature or writing. Professional emails also shouldn’t include descriptive writing. For example, if you’re sending an email to
your boss explaining that you’re home sick, the last thing you want to do is add details.

Why Is Descriptive Writing Important?

There are many writing hacks you could use that’ll improve your text. Using descriptive writing can help enhance your text for
many reasons:
 It brings your writing to life.
 Readers better understand and envision the message you would like to convey.
 It makes your writing fun to read.
 Lastly, it strengthens your abilities as a writer by forcing you to be more creative.

How To Be Descriptive In Your Writing

There are several ways to use descriptive writing in your text. We’ll cover a few of them below and provide examples.
1. Engage senses by using details.
Adding specific details helps your readers visualize what you’re writing about.
The bakery smelled good.
↓
 As soon as I walked into the bakery, I was greeted by the warm, intoxicating air of freshly baked cookies.
2. Use precise synonyms.
Some words are more accurate than others and can help you better portray what you’re writing about.
She wore a red dress.
↓
She wore a scarlet-colored dress.
3. Use metaphors, similes, personification, or other figures of speech.
Figures of speech can make your writing more relatable and easier to understand.
I was excited.
↓
I felt like a young boy on Christmas morning getting ready to open all his presents.
It’s All About the Details (As Well as Correct Spelling and Grammar)
Descriptive writing can make your writing magical. It can transport your readers from their sofas to whatever it is you’re writing
about. But as powerful as descriptive writing can be, it cannot undo the negatives brought upon by spelling and grammar errors.
That’s why it’s always a good idea to use LanguageTool as your writing assistant. Not only will this multilingual text editor detect
and correct errors, but it will also provide the synonyms you need that’ll help make your writing more descriptive.
Persuasive Essay Topic Criteria
To write an effective persuasive essay, the essayist needs to ensure that the topic they choose is polemical, or debatable. If it
isn’t, there’s no point in trying to persuade the reader.
For example, a persuasive essayist wouldn’t write about how honeybees make honey; this is a well-known fact, and there’s no
opposition to sway. The essayist might, however, write an essay on why the reader shouldn’t put pesticides on their lawn, as it
threatens the bee population and environmental health.
A topic should also be concrete enough that the essayist can research and find evidence to support their argument. Using the
honeybee example, the essayist could cite statistics showing a decline in the honeybee population since the use of pesticides
became prevalent in lawncare. This concrete evidence supports the essayist’s opinion.
Persuasive Essay Structure
The persuasive essay generally follows this five-paragraph model.
Introduction
The introduction includes the thesis, which is the main argument of the persuasive essay. A thesis for the essay on bees and
pesticides might be: “Bees are essential to environmental health, and we should protect them by abstaining from the use of
harmful lawn pesticides that dwindle the bee population.”
The introductory paragraph should also include some context and background info, like bees’ impact on crop pollination. This
paragraph may also include common counterarguments, such as acknowledging how some people don’t believe pesticides
harm bees.
Body Paragraphs
The body consists of two or more paragraphs and provides the main arguments. This is also where the essayist’s research and
evidential support will appear. For example, the essayist might elaborate on the statistics they alluded to in the introductory
paragraph to support their points. Many persuasive essays include a counterargument paragraph to refute conflicting opinions.
Conclusion
The final paragraph readdresses the thesis statement and reexamines the essayist’s main arguments.
Types of Persuasive Essays
Persuasive essays can take several forms. They can encourage the reader to change a habit or support a cause, ask the reader to
oppose a certain practice, or compare two things and suggest that one is superior to the other. Here are thesis examples for each
type, based on the bee example:
 Call for Support, Action, or Change: “Stop using pesticides on your lawns to save the environmentally essential bees.”
 Call for Opposition: “Oppose the big businesses that haven’t conducted environmental studies concerning bees and
pesticides.”
 Superior Subject: “Natural lawn care is far superior to using harmful pesticides.”

The Three Elements of Persuasion

Aristotle first suggested that there were three main elements to persuading an audience: ethos, pathos, and logos. Essayists
implement these same tactics to persuade their readers.
Ethos
Ethos refers to the essayist’s character or authority; this could mean the writer’s name or credibility. For example, a writer
might seem more trustworthy if they’ve frequently written on a subject, have a degree related to the subject, or have extensive
experience concerning a subject. A writer can also refer to the opinions of other experts, such as a beekeeper who believes
pesticides are harming the bee population.
Pathos
Pathos is an argument that uses the reader’s emotions and morality to persuade them. An argument that uses pathos might point
to the number of bees that have died and what that suggests for food production: “If crop production decreases, it will be
impoverished families that suffer, with perhaps more poor children having to go hungry.” This argument might make the reader
empathetic to the plight of starving children and encourage them to take action against pesticide pollution.
Logos
The logos part of the essay uses logic and reason to persuade the reader. This includes the essayist’s research and whatever
evidence they’ve collected to support their arguments, such as statistics.
Terms Related to Persuasive Essays
Argumentative Essays
While persuasive essays may use logic and research to support the essayist’s opinions, argumentative essays are more solely
based on research and refrain from using emotional arguments. Argumentative essays are also more likely to include in-depth
information on counterarguments.
Persuasive Speeches
Persuasive essays and persuasive speeches are similar in intent, but they differ in terms of format, delivery, emphasis, and tone.
In a speech, the speaker can use gestures and inflections to emphasize their points, so the delivery is almost as important as the
information a speech provides. A speech requires less structure than an essay, though the repetition of ideas is often necessary
to ensure that the audience is absorbing the material. Additionally, a speech relies more heavily on emotion, as the speaker
must hold the reader’s attention and interest. In Queen Elizabeth I’s “Tilbury Speech,” for example, she addresses her audience
in a personable and highly emotional way: “My loving people, We have been persuaded by some that are careful of our safety,
to take heed how we commit our selves to armed multitudes for fear of treachery; but I assure you I do not desire to live to
distrust my faithful and loving people. Let tyrants fear.”
Examples of Persuasive Essay
1. Martin Luther King, Jr., “Letter From Birmingham Jail”
Dr. King directs his essay at the Alabama clergymen who opposed his call for protests. The clergymen suggested that King had
no business being in Alabama, that he shouldn’t oppose some of the more respectful segregationists, and that he has poor
timing. However, here, King attempts to persuade the men that his actions are just:
I am in Birmingham because injustice is here. Just as the prophets of the eight century B.C. left their villages and carried their
‘thus saith the Lord’ far beyond the boundaries of their hometowns, and just as the Apostle Paul left his village of Tarsus and
carried the gospel of Jesus Christ to the far corners of the Greco-Roman world, so am I compelled to carry the gospel of
freedom beyond my hometown.
Here, King is invoking the ethos of Biblical figures who the clergymen would’ve respected. By comparing himself to Paul,
he’s claiming to be a disciple spreading the “gospel of freedom” rather than an outsider butting into Alabama’s affairs.
2. Garrett Hardin, “The Tragedy of Commons”
Hardin argues that a society that shares resources is apt to overuse those resources as the population increases. He attempts to
persuade readers that the human population’s growth should be regulated for the sake of preserving resources:
The National Parks present another instance of the working out of the tragedy of commons. At present, they are open to all,
without limit. The parks themselves are limited in extent—there is only one Yosemite Valley—whereas population seems to
grow without limit. The values that visitors seek in the parks are steadily eroded. Plainly, we must soon cease to treat the parks
as commons, or they will be of no value to anyone.
In this excerpt, Harden uses an example that appeals to the reader’s logic. If the human population continues to rise, causing
park visitors to increase, parks will continue to erode until there’s nothing left.

The History of Narrative Storytelling

The word narrative derives from the Middle French narrative and originates with the Late Latin narrare, which means “to tell,
relate, recount, explain.” It was first used in English in the 1560s to indicate “a tale, a story, a connected account of the
particulars of an event or series of incidents.”

For as long as human civilization has existed, people have been recounting narratives. The ways that narratives are expressed
and transmitted to an audience has evolved through the centuries, but the essential impulse—to tell a story—has remained
unchanged.
Storytelling began with the oral tradition. Myths, legends, fables, ballads, and folktales were performed aloud to entertain and
inform an audience. These narratives were memorized using mnemonic devices such as oral-formulaic composition, which
utilizes repetition of the same phrases that fit into specific metrical  conditions. The canonical spiritual works of world religions
—such as Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, Islam, and Catholicism—have roots in the oral tradition, as do  epic poems like
Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, the Norse Eddas  and Sagas,  the Mesopotamian Epic of Gilgamesh, and the Anglo-Saxon Beowulf.
As written languages developed, they were used to transcribe narratives from the oral tradition. Some of the earliest written
narratives are the Sumerian stories in the Epic of Gilgamesh, which dates back to 2250–2000 BCE. With the advent of
handwritten manuscripts and wood block-printed texts, written narratives continued in almost every culture in the Eastern and
Western worlds. In the 15th century, Johannes Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press allowed the precise and rapid
creation of metal moveable type in large quantities, thus making printed texts more readily available and affordable.
Although both oral and written narratives have always focused on themes like love, adventure, heroes, life lessons, and
supernatural and divine forces, modern narratives have evolved to include genres such as Westerns,  science fiction, espionage,
and mysteries/police procedurals. The popularity of different narratives depends on cultural context and often waxes and wanes
based on interests and concerns of the era.
The Elements of Narrative
To build a narrative, writers rely on several other literary elements, including but not limited to characterization, conflict,
frame stories, linear vs. nonlinear narration, pacing, point of view, and tone.
Characterization
This literary technique introduces and develops a story’s character(s). There are two types of characterization: direct/explicit
and indirect/implicit. Direct characterization is when the narrator tells the audience specific details about a character; this
information can also be provided by another character in the story. Indirect characterization is when the audience must deduce
aspects of a character for themselves by observing the character’s thought process, physical description, behavior, or dialogue.
Conflict
The opposition of forces or people, which creates dramatic action, is a narrative’s conflict. There are two categories of conflict:
internal and external. Internal conflict exists only as man vs. self—when a character experiences opposing emotions or desires
simultaneously. External conflict, on the other hand, can exist in five different forms: man vs. man, man vs. mature, man vs.
society, man vs. technology, and man vs. the supernatural. When employing any of these, the narrative’s conflict constitutes a
protagonist’s struggle against forces outside themselves.
Frame Story
This is a literary form where one all-encompassing story contains one or more related stories. This technique unifies the
stories’ narratives by providing smooth transitions and an overall theme. Frame stories can be found in Homer’s epic poem  The
Odyssey, Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, Ovid’s Metamorphoses, and Giovanni Boccaccio’s Decameron.
Linear vs. Nonlinear Narration
The order in which events are told is another way to build narrative. If an author chooses to recount events in a chronological
order, then their narrative is linear. If the narrative is told out of sequence, it’s nonlinear. The advantage of linear narration is
that it’s easier for the reader to understand, and it builds tension as the narrative progresses through the natural rise and fall of
the central conflict. Nonlinear narration, on the other hand, adds aesthetic interest to a written work and builds emotional
resonance for readers.
Pacing
The rate at which a story develops, or its pace, is controlled through elements like the length of scenes, depth of description,
and intensity and frequency of action. Genre often affects pacing as certain types of writing require a faster pace (like action-
adventures, horror, espionage, and crime thrillers) while others need a slow, extended pace (such as historical dramas or
sweeping family sagas).
Point of View
The narrator or speaker provides a story’s point of view; as such, the reader only experiences events as the narrator sees and
describes them. There are three main types of point of view: first person, where everything is narrated from one single
character using the pronouns I, me, and mine;  second person, which is written as if the reader is a character and uses the
pronouns you and your;  and third person, which is told from an authorial point of view outside the story and uses the
pronouns she/her, he/his, and they/them/ theirs.
Tone
This indicates the general character or attitude of a piece. There are as many types of tone as there are attitudes and emotions.
A piece of writing can be cheerful or depressing; romantic or sincere; elegiac or optimistic. Even an objectively written news
article maintains a tone—in that case, the tone is neutral.
Narrative Poetry
Narrative is not restricted to fiction, nonfiction, and theater. Although some poems focus on an image, an emotion, an idea, or a
mood, other poems tell a story. When a poem focuses on recounting a series of events, it is called a  narrative poem.
The epic poems The Iliad, The Odyssey, The Epic of Gilgamesh, The Aeneid, The Kalevala, and Beowulf are all narrative
poems, as are other longer poetic works, such as The Canterbury Tales, Metamorphosis,  and The Rime of the Ancient
Mariner. There are shorter narrative poems as well, such as Alfred Lord Tennyson’s “The Lady of Shalott ,” Edgar Allan Poe’s
“The Raven,” and Alfred Noyes “The Highwayman .”
Why Writers Employ Narrative
Writers use narrative because it keeps audience members engaged. A strong narrative can heighten characterization and
augment the emotional or aesthetic elements of a work. It is human nature to want to know “what happens next,” so readers are
inclined to follow the full narrative arc once it begins. A compelling narrative will keep the audience consistently engaged and
interested.
Narrative’s Relationship to Story and Plot
Although people often use the words narrative, story, and plot interchangeably, they are not the same thing.
Story refers to a series of events related in their chronological order. Plot indicates a series of events that are arranged
deliberately to reveal emotional, thematic, or dramatic significance. This means the plot also conveys the causes, effects, and
meanings of events. According to E. M. Forster’s Aspects of the Novel, the sentence “The king died and then the queen died” is
a story, whereas the sentence “The king died and then the queen died of grief” is a plot.
Narrative, on the other hand, includes the sequence of events (the story), the causes, effects, and meaning of these events
(plot), and the techniques and decisions employed by the author that determine how these events are recounted to the audience.
One way to remember these distinctions is to think of what each provides. The story is what happens, the plot includes
the whys and significance of what happens, and the narrative is how what happens is recounted.
Examples of Narrative in Literature
1. Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
Coleridge’s long narrative poem opens with the Ancient Mariner stopping the Wedding-Guest, who is with two companions, in
the street:
It is an ancient Mariner,
And he stoppeth one of three….
He holds him with his glittering eye—
The Wedding-Guest stood still,
And listens like a three years’ child:
The Mariner hath his will.
Although the Wedding-Guest wishes to continue on his way, he is unable to resist the compelling story of the Mariner’s ill-
fated journey and inexplicable sin of killing an albatross. Coleridge utilizes the narrative technique of a frame story to contain
the Mariner’s tale within the larger experience of the Wedding Guest who listens—and learns—from the Mariner.
2. Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange
Burgess’s novel is told by a first-person narrator. Alex, a hardened young criminal, relates the nefarious doings of himself and
his “droogs” with great delight, peppering his memories with a distinctive slang:
There was me, that is Alex, and my three droogs, that is Pete, Georgie,
and Dim, Dim being relly dim, and we sat in the Korova Milkbar making up
our rassoodocks what to do with the evening, a flip dark chill winter bastard
though dry. The Korova Milkbar was a milk-plus mesto, and you may, O my
brothers, have forgotten what these mestos were like, things changing so
skorry these days and everybody very quick to forget, newspapers not being
read much neither.
Alex’s use of invented slang and run-on sentences  lends greater depth to Burgess’s characterization and forces the readers to
experience the narrative’s sequence of events alongside Alex, rather than having any objective distance from them.
3. Louise Erdrich, Love Medicine
Erdrich’s award-winning novel, which chronicles the lives of several indigenous families across six decades, opens with third
person point of view:
The morning before Easter Sunday, June Kashpaw was walking down the clogged main street of oil boomtown Williston,
North Dakota, killing time before the noon bus arrived that would take her home.
While this chapter is written in the third person, most chapters are told from other characters’ first person point of view.
Erdrich’s episodic, nonlinear approach heightens characterization and allows her to create a vast panoply of voices, bringing
fully to life a number of Chippewa living on an Ojibwa reservation.
4. Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye
Morrison’s debut novel also shifts points of view with its narrative structure. It begins with lines drawn from the  Dick and
Jane  early reading primers, moves to first-person narration, then continues with a third person narrator as the narrative jumps
back in time to the Great Migration.
In the novel’s final section, the point of view reverts to Claudia MacTeer’s first-person narration as she explains how complicit
the community was in the unfortunate events that befell Pecola Breedlove:
All of us—all who knew her—felt so wholesome after we cleaned ourselves on her. We were so beautiful when we stood
astride her ugliness. Her simplicity decorated us, her guilt sanctified us, her pain made us glow with health, her awkwardness
made us think we had a sense of humor. Her inarticulateness made us believe we were eloquent. Her poverty kept us generous.
Even her waking dreams we used—to silence our own nightmares. And she let us, and thereby deserved our contempt.
Morrison’s nonlinear narrative,with its shifting points of view, creates a fragmented effect, which reflects both the dissolution
of Pecola’s sanity as the book progresses and the way her community failed to sustain her.
5. Katherine Boo, Behind the Beautiful Forevers
Boo’s award-winning nonfiction examination of poverty in Mumbai begins with a Prologue. She sets the scene by introducing
some of the people whose lives she will follow:
Midnight was closing in, the one-legged woman was grievously burned, and the Mumbai police were coming for Abdul and his
father. In a slum hut by the international airport, Abdul’s parents came to a decision with an uncharacteristic economy of
words. The father, a sick man, would wait inside the trash-strewn, tin-roofed shack where the family of eleven resided. He’d go
quietly when arrested. Abdul, the household earner, was the one who had to flee.
Boo uses third person narration and a neutral tone. These choices allow her to maintain a sense of journalistic objectivity,
which is necessary for this type of nonfiction work. Her nuanced characterization and detailed description throughout the book
add to readers’ ability to trust her knowledge and breadth of research.

 Most memorable day of my life

 Hard Work vs Smart Work
 Television – Advantages and Disadvantages Essay
  Writing a leave letter for going to temple
 Beauty Is In The Eye of The Beholder
 Short essay on Information Technology

Expository Essay Topics

 How was your first day at school?
 Describe your favorite vacation place.
 Describe your first work experience and what knowledge you gained during it.
 Explain how growing up with a sibling influenced your personality.
 Describe living a life with a pet.
 Define the meaning of true friendship

Best Narrative Essay Topics

 Your favorite vacation with your family.
 A trip you will never forget.
 A time you made friends in an unusual circumstance.
 Your first day at a new school.
 Talk about something that scared you a lot.
 Your most enjoyable Christmas.
 The best birthday party you've ever had

Easy Persuasive Essay Ideas

 What should the punishment for cheating be?
 Should students be allowed to have phones at school?
 What's the most interesting subject to learn?
 Should homework be required?
 Does your school handle bullying well?
 Are dress codes a good idea for schools?
 Is the school day too long?

Descriptive Essay Prompts

 # 1 Describe the strangest person you ever met.
 # 2 Describe a person you envied.
 # 3 Describe an inspiring friend or family member.
 # 4 Describe a spooky or haunted place.
 # 5 Describe a place you loved as a child.
 # 6 Describe a beautiful location in nature
 My Bestfriend
