Essays Types

1. Persuasive Essay - Persuasive essay attempts to explain a specific topic with intention to persuade the audience that your view point is most logical, valid and informed. This type is also known as argumentative essay. Most persuasive essays are created out of the class as they require deep reserch in a topic.

1.1. How to write a persuasive essay - Persuasive essay writing consist of several steps to take: prewriting phase including essay outline, drafting essay, writing essay, revising your work, editing, and finally publishing. As any other kind of essay, this one will have the same standard structure involving introduction, body part and conclusion.

1.2. Persuasive essay topics - Examples of persuasive essays are "Fast food should not be sold to kids in schools", "There must be different education for boys and girls in schools" "Genes as the decisive factor in human behavior". Remember that your supporting facts and arguments should be logically and scientificaly based, not emotionally. This is the only way to appear credible and convince the audience in your point of view.

1.3. Persuasive essay examples - Example of persuasive writing you may find in a situation where you try to convince somebody to accept your opinion as valid and most plausible in a given topic. This essay may also be created to persuade the reader to take a certain action.

2. Descriptive Essay - It is an essay genre in which students are supposed to describe something, such as object, experience, place, person. This genre develops students imagination, creativity and ability to describe the image of a person, place or experience in certain words.

2.1. Descriptive essay topics - There are plenty of ideas to use in your essay. You may describe your best friend or a family member, or you may tell about your favourite place to spend time. If you have a pet, you may decsribe it as well.

2.2. How to write a descriptive essay - There is a well-defined step by step process of writing this kind of essay. Those steps include the following actions: choosing a topic, creating a statement, creating an outline, writing your work, reviewing your essay, checking for grammar and errors.

2.3. Descriptive essay example - If you describe a person, you need to remind about all the details of their phisycal appearance as well as their psychological portrait. Think about feautures that make this person special and unique and describe it in the best way possible.

3. Expository Essay - Expository essay intends to explain a certain topic or idea to an audience. It provides information and analysis as well as focuses on a particular topic clearly illustrating its examples.

4. Definition Essay - The basic requirement of definition essay is to write a personal, still academic definition of a choosen word. The definition must be long and detailed enough, that's why it's important to choose the word you will be able to write about a lot.

4.1. Definition essay examples - It is recommended to choose more abstract term which is more vague in reader's mind. For example, instead of the word "friend" use "friendship". There is much more to this word if you'll try to define it.

4.2. How to write a definition essay - Firstly, choose an abstract word which meaning is quite complex, but choose the one you are familar with. It's also recommended to find the word in a dictionary as well as research its origin. Structure your essay, write an analysis, then clasify the term and provide additional details about it. Remember to use examples to make the meaning of your word clear enough.

5. Classification and Division Essay - It is an essay that takes the whole concept or idea and splits it up into smaller parts and then divide those parts into different categories. Very often this essay exploits rhetorical style, i.e. the language of persuasion.

6. Personal Essay - Personal essay can also be called autobiographical since the author writes about personal experience without a need to prove his/or her point. The subject and the theme are the only things which should necessarily be introduced. This essay is based purely on personal feelings, emotions and opinions.

7. College Application Essay - It is basically an essay that student is supposed to write while applying at college. Writing college application essay helps his/her to show best qualities and skills as well as increase chances stand out from the rest of the applicants.

8. Five Paragraph Essay - It is the structure of essay where the first paragraph is presented by introduction, second third and fourth include supporting details among which are examples, quotes, facts and accurate statistics, and the fifth paragraph is presented by the conclusion which briefly summarizes the whole essay. It is for standardized tests that students normally have to write a five paragraph essay.

9. Argumentative Essay - It is a certain essay type which requires a topic investigation, evidence collection, generation and evaluation as well as establishment of a position on a topic in a brief manner. Argumentative essay assignments aim at conducting research of literature or materials published previously.

9.1. Argumentative essay topics - It is always better to choose argumentative essay topic which is debatable and able to raise controversy on what is usually taken for granted. "Do the benefits of medical marijuana justify its legality?" or "Is animal testing necessary?" could serve as debatable topics for argumentative essays.

9.2. How to write an argumentative essay - There are several essential steps of writing any argumentative essay. They include the following: choosing a topic, understanding the format, structuring your argument, using research and sources, writing your work, editing and proofreading, citing sources.

9.3. Argumentative essay definition

9.4. Argumentative essay sample - Pick an issue for your essay that you find interesting. Avoid topics which are too obvious or have little interest and value for your audience. It is important to include a debatable style of conversation and attempt to explain your point of view.

10. Compare and Contrast Essay - It is a kind of an essay which purpose is to compare and contrast several things, objects, people or phenomena. It aims at showing how those things are similar and different from one another.

10.1. Compare and contrast essay examples (college) - For college topic you may choose the following examples: "Pros and cons of traditional and distant education", "The difference between research paper and essay","The difference between research and evaluation".

10.2. Compare and contrast essay outline - While writing a compare and contrast essay outline there are several essential things you need to include. Show that one thing is more important than another, identify and clarify common misunderstandings, create a new way of grasping and doing something, consider and discuss something unknown yet and support every claim with acurate facts and sources.

10.3. Compare and contrast essay topics - Examples of compare and contarst essay may be the following: "Differences between the American and the British mentality", "Free or paid college education, advantages and disadvantages", "Big city or small town, which one is more comfortable to live in".

11. Narrative Essay - The main purpose of a narrative essay is to tell a story from a writer's perspective defining a certain point of view. If someone asked you to tell them about something, this would be the same narrative essay, but in a verbal form.

11.1. Example of narrative essay - Good example of a narrative essay could be a story about person's childhood, place where he/she grew up and lived. Another good idea would be to share a story about someone's unique and fateful experience that changed their life forever.

11.2. How to start a narrative essay - Begin your essay by telling your reader about the experience you are going to write about and show what is your attitude towards it. Writing about your experience, give an emotional assessment to your words, for example, saying "this was the happiest day of my life" you give your reader a chance to understand that events that happened to you influenced your life positevely.

11.3. Narrative essay definition

12. Cause and Effect Essay - It is a type of an essay where the writer attempts to analyse the reason and the consequences of the action taken. Cause and effect essay may be organized in different ways. It may take either chronological or reverse chronological order where points are presented from least to most important and vise versa.

12.1. Cause and effect essay topics - Good examples of this essay might be the following: The long term effect of watching TV on a daily basis ; The impact of electronic music on human brain ; How drinking alcohol results in mass crime commitement.

12.2. Cause and effect essay examples - Discussion of cause and effect of global warming is one of the typical examples of writing a given type of essay. This will include research on a given topic as well as explanation of how one thing influences another and what we have as the result.

12.3. How to write a cause and effect essay - As to structure of cause and effect essay, there are two ways to organise it using "block" or "chain" structure. For the first type, causes come first and effects follow them, while with chain structure cause is followed be the effect.

13. Reflective Essay - It is an essay that helps the writer to examine and analyze their experience in life. It makes us think deeply about ourselves, who we were, how we changed and what we learned from that experience.

14. Analytical Essay - This essay attempts to analyse, examine and interpret book, poem or any other work of art. Introduction &presentation of the arguement, analysis of the text, personal response and conclusion are the key qualities every analytical essay should have.

15. Character Analysis Essay - When you analyse a character's role in history, personal traits and conflicts they faced, you write a charachter analysis essay. In this essay it's necessary to think critically, ask questions and draw conslusions about the character.

15.1. How to write a character analysis essay - Firstly, choose your character and read the story in which this character is involved. Take notes, make an outline and choose the main idea that will relate to your character. Write an introduction and descrbe the physical appearance of the character, discuss his/her background, language use and personality. You may also draw reader's attention on chatacter's relationships with others and show how he/she changes throughout the plot. Think critically about all events happend in a story and draw your conclusions.

15.2. Character analysis essay outline - When you chose the main idea related to your character, create an outline of all supporting material you gathered. If there are some evidences you have that add depth to your character, include them as well. It will help you remain organized when you move through the analysis.

15.3. Character analysis essay example - For example, you may pick Dorain Gray by Oscar Wilde as the character you would like to analyse. Start with his appearance, then move on to his personality, analyse features of character and how he positions himself towards others in book. Consider also his behaviour, manners and the language he uses.