An essay (also known as college writing, college composition, college essay) is the essential subject of study in most universities in the United States and other countries to improve students’ thinking and writing skills during their first years of studies. In the process of apprenticeship, students study the principles of writing and the main types of essays.
Objectives, Audience, and Essential Essay Features
The essay’s main objectives are: informing, persuading, and entertaining the reader, self-expression of the author, or a combination of one or more goals. Their achievement depends on the author’s ability to determine his or her audience correctly. A good essay is notable for original thinking, a sense of style, and an effective organization. This article will familiarize you with various types of essays. For more information regarding classification essay, visit wr1ter.com.
Types of Essays
Let’s look at the description of various essay types used not only by students but also by professional authors.
– A narrative essay
A narrative essay connects events in a specific sequence, most often chronological. The fundamental part of the narrative essay is an action and a conflict. The narration is usually presented in the first or third person, is created around critical events, and often includes a dialogue that animates the action and helps engage the reader in the story.
– A descriptive essay
A descriptive essay sets out sensuous feelings: visual, auditory, tactile, olfactory, gustatory. One can create the general mood of this type of paper using a dominant impression. To make a description, one needs to select an observation point (movable or fixed), select and place details using spatial or (less commonly) chronological organization.
– An essay describing a process
A variety of descriptive essays often single out in a separate category, which describes different techniques to explain to readers how to make or do something.
– An illustrative essay
An illustrative essay clarifies ideas (general statements) using examples (illustrations). When choosing them, you need to make sure that they support the issue and that they are enough for this purpose.
– A classification essay
A classification essay divides a broad topic into categories according to a specific principle, defines each category’s salient features, and shows how these features vary between types. Segmenting the case in a classification essay simplifies the story by delivering information in small, carefully selected portions.
– A comparative essay
A comparative essay evaluates two or more subjects in terms of their similarities, differences, or both. A comparative essay often helps to choose between alternatives and also introduces the reader to unfamiliar topics. All comparison elements should have something in common and base on well-selected details showing how the compared features are similar and how they differ.
– A cause and effect essay
A cause and effect essay constitutes the category of causality. The papers that use causality analyze why specific actions and conditions occur and the consequences — the results of these actions and states. You can organize the causal analysis according to one of the following models: one cause — several consequences, several reasons — one consequence, a causal chain, several reasons — several consequences.
– A definitive essay
The goal of this type of paper is to clarify the meaning of words or concepts. Definitions are of three types:
- definitions using synonyms;
- essential definitions, which name a defined subject, put it in the broader category and distinguish it from other objects in this category;
- detailed explanations, which are a combination of different forms of essay (narrative, descriptive, description of the process, etc.).
– An argumentative essay
An argumentative essay is based on logically organized facts and aims to convince the reader to agree with some opinion, perform some action, or do both. The authors of argumentative essays achieve their goal through rational influence, based on absolute truth, opinions of authorities, primary sources of information, statistical data, emotional and ethical impact.
