If you are already studying at college, you should know that there are many different types of academic papers. Many students might face difficulties with the definition of the type of paper. If you recognize yourself in these words, we assure you that you need to read our article. It will certainly help you finally understand what academic writing is and find the main differences between the main types of essays. Let’s start with four main kinds of papers.
So here are they:
- Narrative
- Descriptive
- Expository
- Argumentative
In the next paragraphs, we’ll take a closer look at every single type, but first of all, let’s find out how to choose the type of essay writing.
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How To Choose Type of Essay Writing?
As you already may know, you can receive an essay as a task absolutely from every professor in your college. And nothing is surprising because the essay is an ultimate tool to show your knowledge in every sphere. You can write an essay for biology, history, law, and even math. The only thing that matters is what type of essay you choose. As you may have already noticed, we mentioned four main types of essays. Now let’s find out how you should choose the tone and type of your essay.
Read the Assignment Carefully
This is a mistake that a lot of students make often. They struggle to start writing as soon as possible without reading the assignment carefully. Suppose you do not want to make the same mistake and choose the incorrect type. You must read all the requirements carefully and start writing after that. Ensure the key to successful writing is already included in the given task.
Write According to the Subject
Another important thing you need to understand is that you should choose the type of essay according to your subject. For example, choosing a narrative essay will not be professional if you are studying math or law. Because in this situation, your essay will need a more informal manner with added evidence. For example, in this case, it will be better to choose an argumentative essay. The same method you can use with other subjects.
Consult with Your Teacher
Another important tip that will allow you to make your essay perfect. If you have doubts regarding the kinds of papers, consulting with your teacher will not be redundant. It’s always to spend additional time discovering the details you do not understand. Be sure that this easy step will prevent you from heaps of extra work.
Types of Writing Essays: What Is the Structure?
You may also have a question if the different kinds of papers have different structures, and we have also answered that question. The good news is that there will be no special structure for every type of essay. Instead of this, there is one common structure for all types of papers that are known at the current moment. So you can sleep calmly in case you are worried that you’ll need to know a different structure for different kinds of papers.
Also, for your convenience, we’ve collected the main parts of all types of papers. So here they are.
Introduction
Despite the kinds of papers, your paper will always have an introduction. Like any film that can’t have an opening scene, your paper will have an introduction. This part is essential because it will include the beginning of your essay and a thesis statement – the main idea of your work. This part is crucial for successful work because if you will do things right and intrigue readers with your introduction, half the job is already done.
Body
All types of papers you will prepare for your school will include the body. This is a part of your paper where you will need to strengthen your idea with solid ideas and pieces of evidence. If you are writing a narrative essay, the body will be the part where you will have to provide some key moments of your story and highlight the points that are crucial for understanding the sense of your story. It will help the readers learn from your history the lesson you laid in it.
Conclusion
The conclusion is the part where you will summarize your research. And, of course, no matter the type of essay, you will have to make a logical ending. Here you may remind yourself of the details of the thesis statement to your readers. You can share your thoughts on the whole research that you have done through your paper. But of course, do not forget that conclusion is the part where you need to summarize the mentioned facts and not provide the new ones.
What Are Different Types of Essays: Taking a Closer Look
As we promised you at the beginning of our review, we’d like to provide you with more details on the four main types of essays we mentioned at the beginning of our article. So let’s find out the main differences between the four major kinds of papers. Let’s start with the narrative type.
Narrative Type
The main difference that will distinguish this type of essay from others is that in such type, you will tell your readers some story. It doesn’t matter if you will create this story or base it on real experience because the crucial thing you need to understand here is that your story needs to evoke certain emotions and, of course, teach something to your readers.
Descriptive Type
This kind of essay will be close to the one described above. In this type of essay, the student is usually asked to describe some object or situation that he could observe. The main point of this essay is that the writer needs to share his experience based on something which made an impression on him.
Expository Type
This kind of essay is used to help students develop their ideas. Unlike other essays, the writer must provide his idea and not describe the existing one. Even though this type may seem complicated to you, it’s one of the most interesting essays, where the student receives an opportunity to create his view on certain situations.
Argumentative Type
This is probably one of the most famous among all kinds of papers. This is a work where you will need to base your position on some situation based on solid evidence and irrefutable facts. If you write your paper correctly, you can rest assured that your readers will completely take your position.
All Types of Essays: Are There Any Other Types of Essays?
Did you think that there are only four types of essays? In this case, we want to surprise you because there are many more of them. Probably, you can write essays on every subject, and this is the reason for such a large number of types of essays. Nevertheless, let’s not waste time and look at other types of essays, in addition to the four discussed.
Persuasive Type
Sometimes your teacher may ask you to write a persuasive essay, but do not rush to worry about it. Because it’s pretty similar to the one we discussed earlier, namely the argumentative one. In the persuasive essay, you will also need to defend one’s position based on facts. But also, in this type of essay, you may use your own experience as a tool to persuade your opponent.
Exemplification Type
This is a great example of what complete writing freedom may look like. In this essay, you’re free to discuss any subject; more importantly, you will not have to waste much time on this type. Here you will have to base your position on some examples which will confirm your position. In this type of essay, you’re free to choose any information as evidence, starting from illustrations and finishing with statistics.
Comparison and Contrast Type
Unlike the other types of essays, you will have to focus on two subjects in this type of work. It can be anything, any two subjects or phenomena. But of course, you should not forget that they must be easy to compare. In your essay, you will have to create a detailed analysis of the chosen subjects. Based on the goal of your paper, you must pay attention to certain facts in the described objects.