What Are The Different Types Of Essays?

As a student, what types of essays do you recognize? Still, scratching your head? Perhaps the right question to ask first is:

What is an essay?

A essay is generally a short piece of writing explaining the writer's perspective to a set group of audience. An essay can take a form of a story, an article or a paper.

Each kind of an essay has a unique purpose and objective as we will learn below.

An essay is a piece of writing that usually consist of a much shorter number of sentences than a typical article or book would have. It can be as short as one sentence in length, but it is typically at least two paragraphs long.

The point of an academic essay is to explore some idea by any means necessary. A lot of essays are written with the intent to persuade their readers into agreeing with their argument. Others try to teach something or present new ideas.

One thing essays all share in common though is that they never include lists and definitions. Instead, they make connections between different concepts and ideas in order to explore the main idea thoroughly even if the reader disagrees with what the writer is saying.

There are five main kinds of essays:

Descriptive essay,
Expository essay,
Compare and contrast essay,
Argumentative essay,
Narrative essay.

The idea of writing an essay might sound boring, but if you can master the necessary skills needed to write a good essay, you will find yourself writing more without getting bored. Most of the pieces you will come across in life fall under the five categories mentioned above.

But why would anyone want to explore a topic?

Exploring a topic is an easy way to become more interested in it and discover new things about it. It is also the best way to retrieve at least some piece of information that might be useful later on. Often times, you'll find yourself learning something or getting inspired by it. It'll also give you a better opportunity to find out what is interesting about the subject and explain it in your own words, which can lead to great knowledge discovery.

Different Types of Essays

When we consider essay types, it's actually something of a misnomer because we really should talk about different kinds of essays instead, as there are so many different types of essays. This is the first thing that you need to understand when it comes to essay types; you'll never be able to classify them in a way that will fit every possible essay that could exist. Because of this, it's important for you to bear in mind two main things: all essays have similar formatting and they all have similar goals.

The Format of Essays

Essay writing is a lot like architecture design in that there are so many different kinds, but no matter the shape or structure, all essays will have the same basic format. When it comes to essay types, what this means is that you'll need to present your ideas in three separate sections. These three sections will be your introduction, body paragraphs, and conclusion.

Introduction – The first section of your essay is the easiest to write; it's what you introduce to your reader. It'll be the last part that they'll read, so you'll need to make sure that it's interesting enough for them to continue reading. You'll want to keep your introduction as limited as possible though, so you don't reveal everything for your essay and you still have more to explore.

Body – This is where the bulk of the work will come in; it's where you'll be explaining things and connecting different ideas. The body can vary depending on what type of essay you'll be working on, but it will always have the same basic format and structure. The body of your essay should be an argument. That doesn't mean that it has to sound as harsh or formal as a legal argument even though there are some similarities between the two; it's just meant to help you organize your thoughts so you end up with a well-developed and well articulated essay.

Conclusion – Now that you've made your argument, it's time to leave your reader with some final thoughts on the subject matter. What does it all mean? How does this relate to other things? What do we need to learn from what you just did in your body? It can be a good idea to make an effort to tie in different things that you wrote about or ideas that were mentioned in your introduction. It'll show your reader that you know what you're talking about and it will encourage them to think more critically about the topic.

Learn more about how to format an essay, how to plan an essay, essay outline, and essay structure.

The Goals of Essays

Writing essays should always help you become better at communicating. That doesn't mean that you'll never want to write an essay with the purpose of hiding information or convincing people without reason; it just means that using essays as a way of practicing communication is going to be beneficial when compared to doing something else. The goal of any kind of essay will be connecting together related ideas and present them in a new light, but this goal can only be reached if you want to explore what you know and discover new things. This is the point of essays, so it's better if you keep that in mind as you're writing your next essay.

By understanding different types of essays, it'll be easier to navigate through them and make more sense out of them. Because there are so many types of essays, it's important for you to consider why they exist at all before trying to figure out how each one functions individually. The reason why we have different kinds of essays is because not every kind could fit into other formats; this means two things: firstly, some kinds aren't worth learning about because they won't apply to what you need or use and secondly, your main focus should be on learning the different types of essays that can be used in most kinds of situations.

Read on to see how to write a research paper or how to write a term paper for school.

Types Of Essays To Know More About

Now that you have an idea about essays in general, it's time to get specific and start looking at different types of essays that exist today. As mentioned earlier, the reason why we have so many essay forms is because there wasn't always time to write long papers or essays; some practical persons created these other forms so people could conveniently use them as well.

These are the most important ones:

Analytical Essays:

If you're not sure what this is, an analytical essay is pretty much a paper that scrutinizes and analyzes a certain idea or point of view. You can think of this as being an essay form for people who tend to enjoy the finer things in life and analyzing everything they do; if you've never read A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift then it might be useful to take some time to familiarize yourself with it because this kind of essay usually debunks whatever its examine through satire.

Narrative Essays:

A narrative essay - These types are written from a first person perspective about a personal experience or account so readers know how one person felt about whatever subject is being scrutinized. The best narrative essays use simple, yet powerful statements to get their points across but it should be easy to figure out how these points fit into some larger picture.

What's a narrative? It is a personal account of events.

Therefore, a narrative essay is a more personal piece of writing. You share your point of view or account of the events to the reader. It could be a story, which we often refer to as 'creative non-fiction.'

You have to write such an essay in the first person to engage the reader. They also require a clear structure, introduction, body and conclusion composed with a concise language.

Narrative essays are the closest thing to pieces of journalism. If you can write good narrative essays, then you are likely to be a successful journalist.

Examples of narrative essay papers include: who am I essay, personal personality essay, personal academic essay, an essay about yourself . e.t.c

Compare and contrast essay

In this type of essay, a writer must mention the differences and similarities between the select topics to help the reader make a decision.

Your compare and contrast essay can be on any topic. The beauty about comparative essays is that you just need to write what you observe or research (for research papers).

Persuasive Essays:

These are probably the most popular types of essays around; why is that? Because they are made by writers who want to convince readers that certain points are true by using evidence, appealing to common sense, and/or using emotional appeal that may cause feelings of sympathy or fear. Nothing is really off limits to these writers in the end and they'll do what it takes to get their point across even if that means misusing evidence, making logical fallacies, or pointing out whatever negative stuff about whatever subject they're analyzing.

Persuasive essays are similar to expository essays but are a lot more in-depth as they are well-researched, with quantitative and qualitative information to support the points you want to present.

Also, the article requires you to address the main issues that may oppose your stand on the topic. Your objective is to persuade the reader to agree with you on a particular matter. So, you are biased towards a specific direction and want the reader to join you.

The general structure for this remains the same as an expository essay.

Descriptive Essays:

They are what they sound like in the end; a descriptive essay examines a thing based on its appearances and give readers an idea of what being one with said thing might be like. This type of essay can range from describing some famous statue in a museum to writing about how cool your latest used car purchase was. A lot of people don't know this but you can quickly learn how to write good descriptive essays by doing some research first then starting off with using short sentences when you're first describing whatever it is you want to write about.

Descriptive essays are all about the language— similes, metaphors, and adjectives. They vividly describe anything you are asked to write about. For example, it could be an assignment to write about your recent hiking experience.

Just like expository essays, you will require an introduction, body and conclusion. However, descriptive is more on the creative side where you describe an experience or something in detail.

Expository Essays:

Pretty much the same concept as an expository essay except, instead of just describing something or explaining things, exposition essays are also trying to persuade their audience at the same time too. They're usually based off a lot of research and facts so they can act as an argument for one point of view on any topic; these types of essays really come in handy if you need proof that your opinion is right so take some time learn how to make better ones.

An expository essay is a type of essay that is a lot like a report; they pretty much explain things and give readers an overview of the topic being scrutinized so they know more about it. Expository essays tend to avoid making judgments or evaluations about what they're examining because they still want their audience to make up their own minds.

These are the most common types of essays you will come across. There are essays you find in your exams. When writing expository essays, you have to research the topic or theme and then come up with an idea. You will also analyze the evidence and then structure an exposition about the concept.

Expository essay can be divided into several categories: definition, interpretation, cause and effect, response and analysis.

Definition essay – the writer, should include the official definition and personal definition of the given words.
A basic explanation – You interpret the process in a step by step manner, providing detailed information to answer the question, "how?"
Reflection – You explain the main topic of the piece based on evidence gathered. Reflective essay build on this aspect.
The cause and effect – Here, you discuss events, giving reasons why something is happening and the consequences. Learn how to write cause and effect essay step by step.

Narrative-Expository Essays

These are a combination between the two ideas mentioned above. In essence, these essays have some of the defining characteristics of a narrative essay as they are written from a first person perspective but, instead of merely describing something, these essays may also make their own assessments or evaluations on whatever it is they're examining.

Persuasive-Descriptive Essays:

With this type of paper, you're basically getting both worlds in one; you have some argumentative elements to persuade readers that your opinion is right and there's some descriptive context thrown in to help paint a clear picture about whatever subject matter being examined. This is probably the most balanced type of essay someone can ever write because it acts like an essay counterweight that balances out the issues with different arguments against them while setting up good points for why those arguments should be accepted.

Causal Analysis Descriptive Essays:

Essentially, a causal analysis essay is a combination of a cause and effect essay and a descriptive essay so you're looking at how an effect is caused while also giving readers a good idea about what being one with that effect would be like. Try to research any topic you want to write about before starting off on your own cause-and -effect essay; this will ensure that your next writing assignment won't just sound boring but you'll actually give some logical reasoning behind why things are happening instead of sounding like some random rant people may or may not care about.

Narrative-Persuasive Essays:

These essays pretty much combine all elements from the other narrative and persuasive essays together and stir them up to create some sort of fiesta; you have the narration from the first person perspective but, since these essays are trying to make a good persuasive argument as well, there's also some logical reasoning tossed in as well along with evaluating whatever it is you're writing about.

Descriptive Cause and Effect Essay:

These are pretty straightforward if you know what they stand for; this type of essay does just as its name implies by focusing on describing something and explaining how said subject comes about through cause and effect elements. Some may call descriptive cause and effect essay boring at times but the fact that they're written so well using proper rhetoric and grammar helps give credibility to what they're saying so, overall, they still end up getting the job done when it comes to writing good descriptive essays.

Explication essay:

These are essays that explain an issue, concept or thought in a thorough and detailed manner. Unlike the narrative essay, explication essay is usually written by attempting to convince readers that something is true instead of just providing narration. This type of writing requires a writer to present only facts and arguments for why their ideas should be accepted so it can seem like pretty dense at times but if you know what your talking about then the people reading your essay will still end up accepting whatever you're presenting as these types of essays require depth beyond just coming across as some random opinionated rant where someone is probably misinformed about whatever topic they're ranting about.

Proposal Essay:

This is a type of essay used when giving presentations on how something should be implemented or used. A proposal essay dedicates an idea by providing a problem, a solution and reasons why the solution will solve the original problem being presented. In order to write a proposal essay , you must identify what your main issue is and provide relevant facts that if someone were to implement this subject matter for real in the world, it would solve whatever problems may arise from not having such an idea out there at first place. This may seem like a lot of work but if you apply yourself with good research on this topic then everything should fall into place pretty well so don't think it's as hard as it looks otherwise you'll end up making things harder for yourself with misinformed information that seems relevant but ends up falling apart after just one person picks up on your lack of knowledge in that given field pertaining to the topic you're writing about.

Procedure Essay:

This is a type of essay used when giving instructions on how to go from point A to point B. A procedure essay dedicates a procedure by providing steps for what someone needs to do in order to complete whatever it is they are doing. In order for this type of essay to work, you must identify what it is you want your audience and/or readers to take part in and provide clear, concise steps on how they can accomplish such goals or ideas without any missing details so if anyone were ever lost along the way then they could just follow all the steps provided and everything should be taken care of accordingly so don't think this is the end of the world just because you're going into a totally unknown direction from what you normally write about that's been proven to work at first place.

Process analysis essay:

This is a type of essay used when detailing how something you're writing about was made or formed. A process analysis essay dedicates a product by providing an overview of all the steps that were taken in order to create whatever it is you're describing within this essay. For this type of essay to work, you must identify what your main point is and provide relevant facts on how the creation process occurred step by step so if someone were to get lost along the way then they could just follow everything provided to them in order to avoid any sort of mishaps that may arise from not knowing how something was made so don't take things lightly because if you do then your end result will reflect such careless attitude towards whatever subject matter you're writing about.

Rhetorical analysis essay:

This is a type of essay used when discussing the purpose or meaning behind something. A rhetorical analysis essay dedicates a subject matter by providing examples of what that thing meant in past situations or how it can possibly be interpreted for future usages. For this type of essay to work, you must identify what your main point is and provide relevant facts explaining why these ideas were created within your given field and why they still apply today so don't think such things are irrelevant because if you do then whatever perspective you're trying to get across will come out as sounding like some random, unintelligent rant so don't let yourself down otherwise you'll end up looking stupid later on down the road somewhere around that bend.

Problem solution essay:

This is a type of essay used when presenting a problem and its solution. A problem solution essay dedicates a subject by providing facts about what the situation is, how the problem can be solved and why this solution will fix whatever problems may have arisen from such state of affairs. In order for this type of essay to work, you must identify what your main point is first then provide reasoning on how these ideas are important within your given field so don't think you're alone in thinking you can handle such an unbelievable task like writing an entire essay on something people didn't even know existed before hand because if you do then things may not go as smoothly as they need to otherwise just stick with it and everything should end up working out perfectly fine so don't let yourself down otherwise you'll end up looking stupid later on down the road sometime around that curve.

Literary analysis essay:

A literary analysis essay is a type of academic essay used when discussing plot, meaning and other composition aspects related to the writing style. It dedicates a subject matter by providing facts on why certain subjects were chosen for such literature based creation and what underlying messages are within these works of art so if anyone were ever lost along the way then they could just follow all the steps provided in order to avoid any sort of mishaps that may arise from not knowing how something was created or written so don't screw up because if you do then none of your papers will turn out as good as this one ends up being later on down the road some place around that bend.

Thematic essay:

A theme analysis essay used when discussing certain topics, ideas or overall messages found within the text. It dedicates a subject matter by providing facts on why these things are discussed within such works and why they're important to a particular range of people so if you don't know what you want then please keep reading because I'm about to explain all the different ways you can use your time wisely in order for this essay to work towards helping you better understand just how everything was put into play on paper later on down the road somewhere around that curve.

Explanatory essay:

An explanatory essay used when detailing factual information about something. It dedicates a subject by providing examples of all the steps taken within the creation process and reasons why such actions were taken in the first place so if you want to write something good then this is what you have to do. You must identify what your main point is before putting pen to paper otherwise we may not know what you're trying to get across or how your written words are supposed to be read later on down the road somewhere around that bend.

Argumentative essay:

An argumentative essay is a form of writing that is written to convince the reader about something. The purpose of an argumentative essay is to take a side on a subject and argue for it. When writing an argumentative essay you need to present strong evidence, good reasoning and using appeals to emotion or logic, culture and society are also important elements in this type of essay.

An argumentative paper is a type of paper where you express your thoughts, feelings about some topic or phenomenon.

Learn how to write an argumentative essay or an argument analysis essay.

Response essay:

A response essay is used when discussing a certain event, subject matter and/or situation all based on the topic you're given at hand. It dedicates a subject by providing facts on why something was created or written about in the first place and why it's important to keep things similar. In order for this type of essay to work like it should, you must identify what your main point is before coming up with any possible solutions otherwise we may not know how you feel about the entire situation later on down the road somewhere around that curve.

Read more - Creative response essay, critical response essay, movie response essay.

Synthesis essay:

A synthesis essay is a combination of two or more sources into one paper. It is a short essay and focuses on bringing two different views or ideas together to discover the similarities between them. The process of synthesizing involves taking information from several sources, identifying main ideas, and constructing an argument using these concepts in order to create a new idea or theory. The goal is to come up with something that "makes sense".

Outline essay:

This is a type of essay used when detailing factual information about something in writing form without any real structure behind it so if you want to write something good then this is what you have to do. You must identify what your main point is before putting pen to paper otherwise we may not know what you're trying to get across or how your written words are supposed to be read later on down the road somewhere around that bend.

Learn more about how to create an essay outline.

Reaction essay:

A reaction essay is a type of essay used when discussing an event, subject matter and/or situation all based on the topic you're given at hand. It dedicates a subject by providing facts on why something was created or written about in the first place and why it's important to include such things in your paper later on down the road somewhere around that curve.

Poem analysis essay:

A poem analysis essay is used when discussing the themes, meaning and other composition aspects related to the writing style. It dedicates a subject matter by providing facts on why such subjects were chosen for such literature based creation and what underlying messages are within these works of art so if anyone were ever lost along the way then they could just follow all the steps provided in order to avoid any sort of mishaps that may arise from not knowing how something was created or written so don't screw up because if you do then none of your papers will turn out as good as this one ends up being later on down the road some place around that bend.

Critique essay:

Learn how to write a critique essay.

Other kinds of academic essay writing that won't be discussed in much details include:

Personal essay: A personal essay - This is a type of essay used when detailing factual information about something in writing form without any real structure behind it so if you want to write something good then this is what you have to do. You must identify what your main point is before putting pen to paper otherwise we may not know what you're trying to get across or how your written words are supposed to be read later on down the road somewhere around that curve.
Profile essay: A profile essay is used when describing a famous person and their accomplishments in life all the while explaining how they achieved such grandeur later on down the road somewhere around that bend.
Who am I essay: A who am I essay is used when describing a certain person and their accomplishments in life all the while explaining how they achieved such grandeur later on down the road somewhere around that curve.
Resume cover letter: A resume cover letter is used when describing your qualifications, skills and abilities to a prospective employer before you are even hired onto their staff later on down the road somewhere around that curve.
Personal mission statement essay: A personal mission statement essay describes your qualifications, skills and abilities to a prospective employer before you are even hired onto their staff later on down the road somewhere around that bend.
Letters to friend essay: A letter to a friend entails when you describe a certain person and their accomplishments in life all the while explaining how they achieved such grandeur later on down the road somewhere around that curve.

These are just a few kinds of essay writing tasks for varying academic projects that will be used and discussed in more detail later on our how to write an academic essay guide.

How to write different type of essays for middle school

Want to write an article? Follow these simple procedure;

Choose the type of paper you want to write
Choose the topic to write about
Pick a way to analyze based on hobbies and talents
Present the ways to do certain activities based on personal achievements
Go into details when describing landscapes, people and clothing.

Tips on how to write essays for high-schools

Focus on writing expository and narrative essays.
Choose a topic out of the interrelated ideas
Stay focused and avoid changing the subject while writing
Start training how to write high-quality cover letters to apply for the university of your dream

Tips on how to write essays for college

Write a list of ideas and conduct research
Create a concise story
Offer a new approach based on personal judgment
Stay honest in my personal opinion
Proofread the essay before submitting
Protect your essay with the copyright

For conclusive instructions, follow these guide:

Resources:

Research paper as a type of essay

Though a research paper cannot be categorized as an essay, you might find that your assignment requires you to know how to write a research essay. It contains the following sections

Title page
Outline
Abstract
Introduction
Methods - how to write methods section of a research paper.
Results and discussion - How to write the results section of a research paper.
Bibliography

At this point, I believe you already understand the basics of writing different types of essays, and you're ready to pick your pen and paper.

But if you are busy, you can always post your project here and let our experts help you write all types of college essays within no time.

Do you have any question regarding other types of college essays? Post your question and get help.

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