How to Write an Expository Essay

When you think of an essay, you probably think of a boring school assignment that you only do because you have to. My goal is to change your thinking. Essays can be interesting and fun if written correctly, and I’m going to give you some helpful hints to help you along the way. Starting at the beginning with brainstorming and going all the way through to your final, completed essay.

When you write and essay, you first will want to brainstorm some ideas about your topic. This step isn’t required, and won’t be published with your final work, but will save you time later, and can make your essay a lot easier to write and will give it a more professional and more organized look. Your brainstorming can be done in any number of ways, a couple of the most common being a spider web or list. The best way of deciding what method to use for brainstorm is to think about what kind of essay it is that you will be writing.

An essay listing steps to doing something is generally done by listing the steps in chronological order, and in this case the brainstorm will be done on a timeline or written as a list. An essay that lists what happens and why it happens (also called a cause & effect essay) will commonly be done as a 2 column list with the causes on the left and the effects listed for each cause written on the right. There are many more forms of essays and many more forms of brainstorms to go with them, and each person’s technique of brainstorming is slightly different, so decide what you think will help you the most at making a well organized essay and do it.

The next step to writing an essay is to come up with your introductory paragraph. Your opening sentence is one of the most important parts of your essay. This is the first opportunity to grab your reader’s attention, so make it good. Many writers choose to start an essay with an interesting fact or joke about the subject of their essay. There are many ways of starting your essay, so again, choose a method that’s best for you. Also in your introductory paragraph you need to have your thesis statement. A thesis statement is a sentence that states the point of your essay. For example, if you were writing an essay about how to groom a dog, your thesis statement might be, “I’ll show you the proper way to groom a dog.” Remember also, that the rest of your essay must be related to your thesis.

After the introductory paragraph come the body, or middle, paragraphs. The body paragraphs are where you put all the details of your essay. They should be organized paragraphs that explain the details about one, or a couple of, topics. Use your brainstorming sheet to do this. On your brainstorming sheet, decide which paragraph will contain which details and mark them as such on the brainstorming sheet. Then write the information