Expository Essay Examples

Pay Attention to Our Expository Essay Examples

If you are looking on the internet for the definition of an expository essay, you may be confused. Some books and sites define them as “how to” essays, while at the same time others give lengthy and confusing definitions which include all possible types of essays. Our expository essay examples can help you to understand what exactly is an expository essay.

Expository essays are simply essays which explain something with facts, but don’t use opinion to inform the reader. As you can see in our expository essay samples, they may include:

• Papers which describe how to do something.
• Papers which analyze events, ideas, objects, or written works.
• Papers describing the process.
• Papers which explain/describe the historical event.

Expository essays are often written in the response to a specific prompt which asks an author to disclose a concrete theme. Essay questions on tests are usually written down in this very style and can appear in the following ways:

• Explain events leading to the war for independence.
• Explain how to balance a checkbook.
• Describe the function of a chicken’s egg.
• Explain the process of changing a tire.

An expository essay should have the same main structure that a typical essay has, containing an introductory paragraph, body paragraphs, and a conclusion. According to the context, the length of your essay may vary. If you don’t know what length to choose for your essay, check out the word limit of our expository essay examples for college.

The introductory paragraph will contain a thesis statement and the theme should be grounded. If you are not sure how to write your introduction, you can look though expository essay introduction examples on our site. The conclusion of your essay should present a brief summary of your main points and a restatement of your goal or a thesis statement. Read the full guide on how to write an expository essay.

In expository essays, you can discuss the topic using facts, but not opinions, requiring an evaluation and research while clearly and briefly presenting your arguments. Teachers often include expository essays in their programs, especially for college students – that’s why students can become successful if they practice writing this type of paper. When teachers integrate writing in the study plan, students can use expository writing essay examples to write better papers themselves.

Students can practice writing by choosing some of the expository essay topics presented on our site or come up with their own topics. You should remember that essays are based on facts, and not on the writers’ feelings and opinions. If you don’t want to write a lengthy paper, you can use our example of short expository essay writing that you can find on our site.

The Structure of an Expository Essay

• Introduction

Volume – 2-3 sentences.

The task: to bring the reader to the problem.
Example sentence: Television has firmly entered into the life of every modern person, and it is difficult for us to imagine how we would live without daily viewing of films and programs.

• Formulation of the problem

The task: to clearly and unequivocally formulate the problems demonstrated in the text to which you have arguments, to name the author, and to inform about the reading of the text.

Volume: 2-4 sentences.

Example: Many scientists, psychologists, and doctors warn that the habit of spending evenings in front of the television screen will lead us to nothing good. Does the excessive hobby of watching television negatively affect the cognitive and creative activity of a person, and is this kind of leisure dangerous?

• Comment on the problem

Task: explain the problem, describe it.

Volume: 2-5 sentences.

Example: The social problem is especially relevant nowadays because of the fact that people, instead of developing their abilities and imagination, acquire new skills, and prefer to spend their free time in front of a screen. The examples I have found in the text help the reader to look at the problem differently, to assess the seriousness of what is happening.

• The position of the author

The task: to tell how the author answers the question posed, how he or she relates to the problem.

Volume: 1-2 sentences.

Example: The author is deeply convinced that the general enthusiasm for television programs creates a consumer attitude toward art and reduces the cognitive and creative activity of a person.

• Your position

The task: to declare your agreement with the opinion of the author, to formulate a thesis, which you will prove by arguments in the next paragraph.

Volume: 1-2 sentences.

Example: Indeed, it is hard not to agree with the author of the article. I fully share his/her position and believe that people have really become more passive, and television has a negative impact on the interest in art and the life of the person as a whole. I’ll try to prove it.

• 1st argument + literary example

The arguments can be:

1) Facts of reality that can not be questioned; nature laws; data obtained experimentally; experts’ opinions, statistics – all of these are STRONG arguments.
2) WEAK arguments – arguments based on personal confidence or doubt from the person arguing, the authority of third parties (links to opinions of famous people, quotes).

That is, for example, you can write:

The main danger of television, in my opinion, is that it enslaves the soul of a person, imposing a certain way of thinking, a style of life, aspirations, ideals, and values – often false, empty. Accustomed to simple, standardized information that comes “from the screen” and the assimilation of which does not require any mental stress, a person soon finds himself unable to perceive more complex things – works of art, classical music, classical literary works, they become simply uninteresting to this person, and they are considered boring …

A well-known publicist V. Smith in one of his articles calls television the gift of the Danais, that it is imaginary, illusory goodness, which is fraught with a threat. Those who sit for hours in front of the screen, the publicist calls “slaves on the galleys.” Smith sees the negative impact of numerous television channels and programs on human activities and culture. [This was a literary example, confirming and illustrating the arguments, which was prepared in advance.]

• 2nd argument + literary example or 2 examples from life or science

It is also better to give an example from literature here, but if previously you have already used our little trick with your favorite writer, it’s better not to risk it. The same goes for the case when you had only one normal example and you have already used it. We write further:

In addition, psychologists say that a lengthy watching of serials does great harm to the development of a teenager or a child. Children who spend time at the screen are characterized by a closed character, and it is usually difficult for them to be in the company of their peers, because they are shy and passive, do not show interest in games and amusements, and do not have other hobbies.

In addition, the TV takes from a person the most valuable thing that he has – time that could be spent on much more important and significant things, for example, on communication with loved ones, which often leads to sad consequences.

• Conclusion

In the conclusion, we summarize all our arguments, conclude, sum up, perhaps encourage the reader to think through a rhetorical question.
Volume: 2-3 sentences.

How Expository Essays Differ

While studying, students are faced with different types of essays which are distinguished by the volume, structure, composition, and style design, the author’s goal, topic, and methods of their creation. If to talk about the volume, essays are distinguished by lengthy and short ones. The first type has a volume up to several pages, the second type consists of about five or six sentences.

As a rule, short essays are written during the lesson. They are like exercises that are used for development of speech and formation of communicative skills of students. On the example of a short essay, the work on the word choice, the implementations of means which provide coherence and sequence of sentences in text, and the usage of impressive means of speech can be conducted.

However, such an essay can’t be the means of learning the composition design of a coherent text, as the format of a short essay doesn’t assume the division of the text into subtopics. The advantages of a short essay is that you can focus on one side of the issue. For example, if a student is asked to write an essay of six or seven sentences on a certain topic, he or she doesn’t have space to stray from this topic.

While working on a lengthy essay, students gain a number of skills: the composition design of a text, to create a plan and stick to it, to develop the communication of the subtopics and wholeness of the text, to follow the flow of the thought, to ensure the completeness of presentation, to quote, give examples, and to fully argue.

If to talk about the classification in the essay topics, on the basis of division, the subject, phenomena, or event that a student writes about is underlined. Of course, the topic of an essay is distinguished according to the students’ age. In elementary school, the subject is first of all the student’s life experience – that’s why topics connected with the work of people, nature, family, and events are suggested.

In middle school, the most time is dedicated to the essay based on the read material – that is why the topics usually correspond to the theme of a teenager’s reading: it is the person’s world, his or her actions, and the life of society. You can look at our expository essay examples for middle school and get some ideas.

In the texts suggested for essay writing, the protagonist is often a student’s contemporary – that is why for analysis, the situations which are close and understandable for students are taken. Moreover, in middle school, essays on the linguistic topic are popular, because in this age it is appropriate to talk with students about the role of the language in communication, activity, learning, people’s attitude to the language, as well as their expressive abilities and communicative properties. In such essays, students are suggested to think about language phenomena, functions of a language unit, and describe them in the text and give examples. If you want to understand what to write about, you can check out our expository essay examples for middle school students.

In high school, while learning how to write an essay, the theme connected with global problems of humanity is explored. Look at our expository essay examples, high school students will find them rather interesting, because the topics are corresponded to the topics students get in high school.

According to the source of the material, essays can be divided into the following categories:

• An essay based on life experience. Often, such an essay is written about what has been experienced recently: the events of school and city life. In this group, essays about vacations, excursions, season work, rest, and a person’s amusement, traditions, hobbies, observations of nature objects and phenomena, and historical events can be included. The main interest occurs in the essays based on the observation of an event which became iconic in the social, political, cultural, or sport life of the country. Direct participation of students in such events are hardly possible but any student can watch the progress due to the coverage in media.
• Essays on the basis of imagination and presentation. The theme of such essays can touch the description of what is right and good according to the author’s opinion. In such essays, a student can express his or her thoughts about properties of human nature, the laws of nature, and society development.
• Essays on a picture. This type of essay assumes that the source of the information is the reproduction of a painting that is perceptible while writing an essay. The goal is the description based on analysis of what a student saw and studying of the history of painting creation, the artistic manner of the author.

How to Use Expository Essay Examples

First of all, it is necessary to understand that in order to learn how to write an essay, you need to find a good sample, expository essay is rather difficult to write and you will probably need help. It is impossible to write an essay without preliminary preparation and a good example written by a professional writer. Stable skills and good results appear after you have read enough examples and after long writing practice. It is systematic training, purposefulness, and reading through essay samples that brings high results. You need to sharpen your skills in writing practice with direct help from samples you can find on our site.

Unlike other services, we have a wide range of samples of different essay types. Essay samples are actually the solution to your writing problem. Our essays contain strict argumentation, proper scientific style, and concretization. At the same time, it should be noted that some of our samples present very paradoxical, unusual statements that require imaginative thinking, and an unconventional approach to solving the problem. All of our essays were written with maximum concentration of strength and attention.

Also, we would like to add that you can’t present our samples as your own papers, because it is considered as plagiarism. Our essays not only meet all academic requirements, but are also original, as they are written from scratch. In our samples, you can see how to present scientific and factual material on the topic, but also to pleasantly surprise with non-standards and flexible thinking.

Reading though samples will reduce your time in the future, because you will start writing your essay with clear understanding how to write your own paper. Practice shows that to write an essay, it is necessary to have understanding of how to structure your ideas and samples can help you with that. It is most expedient to start writing essays after you have read a sample of the same type of essay.

Carefully read all samples of similar topics suggested on our site. As you can see, our samples are understandable, as the writers clearly represent what the statement is about. In order to remove doubts whether you can write your essay or not, a student should read through our samples that can help him or her. A student can do it if he or she has a template of an essay.

From the wide range of samples, you must choose those that are written on the similar topic and those of the same type of your future essay. It should be noted that often students choose topics that turn out to be complicated to write about – that’s why our essay examples can be helpful. You have found different variants of presenting thoughts, as our professional writers use different approaches for writing different essays.

Choose a sample on our site as your helper and show that you can write papers of the same quality!