Informative essays are a favorite type of assignment in both high school and college, especially at the beginning of a semester. They are often used as a stepping stone to the more complex essay assignments that will be required during the academic year.
What Is an Informative Essay?
When writing an informative essay, you are not expected to express your opinions or present an argument. Instead, this essay should be designed to educate your reader about a particular topic. This type of essay is professors’ favorite because they are just great for developing the necessary writing skills for longer assignments such as research papers and more complex essays.
Choosing Your Topic
If you have not been assigned a specific topic as a part of your assignment, then it is better to select one that you are already interested in. This will make your research so much easier allowing you to become an expert in the subject before writing your informative essay. Your topic should not be generalized, but rather specific. Also make sure that there is enough relevant information out there for you to work with otherwise you might struggle to achieve the desired length for your essay. Above all else, the topic must be something that is going to be interesting to read about!
Structuring an Informative Essay
Your essay should start with an introduction paragraph. It should contain a hook that will pique your reader’s interest immediately and make them want to learn more. You will also want to state your thesis in a couple of sentences. Essentially, the purpose of your introduction is to summarize the rest of your essay therefore you may prefer to simply take a few notes at the beginning and then flesh it out after completing the rest of the paper.
The body of the essay should contain most of your content, allowing one paragraph per point you are discussing. It is recommended that your work should contain approximately 3 key points. This makes an informative essay the ideal candidate for the 5 paragraph essay model that you may have heard about. This is a basic essay structure which includes an introduction, 3 paragraphs of body and a concluding paragraph. If you are following this model, then make sure that you select 3 most important points to cover in the body.
Finally, round off your essay with a concluding paragraph. Your conclusion should act as a summary of everything that you have already discussed in the body of your essay. It is also an opportunity to reinforce your original thesis statement. Think of it as your last chance to drive your message home!
Tips To Keep In Mind When Writing
There are a number of basic tips and tricks that students should keep in mind which are going to help them to write a really good informative essay. Some of these tips are as follows:
- Focus on length. Sometimes, your assignment will be issued with a particular word count. However, if this is not specified then you should be aiming for an essay that is between 3 and 5 pages in length. This gives you enough space to provide plenty of information about your topic, but is still short enough to ensure that you are not tempted to throw in a lot of unnecessary filler.
- Gather credible sources. The purpose of an informative essay is to educate the reader about your topic, so you need to make sure that your essay provides accurate information. As a general rule of thumb you should pull information from a minimum of 4 different credible sources. This will give you sufficient evidence to draw upon allowing you to write a fantastic essay.
- Choose appropriate language. When writing an informative essay, you need to use appropriate language. The style of your writing should be formal and academic and your language choices should always reflect this. Avoid using contractions and colloquialisms.
- Be objective about your topic. There is no place for opinions or persuasive arguments in an informative essay. It is important to remain objective about your topic and present only facts in your paper.
- Take notes during your research. While researching your topic, you should keep a notepad handy and take note of any particularly interesting facts that you come across. This will be very valuable when you come to write your essay, or even create an outline for it. It is important to keep track of the source of these facts as you will need to cite them if you use these facts as supporting quotes in your essay.