Expository or Informational Writing

In his book The Writer's Way, author Jack Rawlins argues that an expository paper should have the following characteristics:

1. "In information writing, the reader is going to go out and do something practical with the information." This means that your paper should explain something you know or believe to an audience that needs that information. Use the building of a good thesis statement as the foundation for this success.
   
   
2. Since this is an information or expository paper, you do not have to construct an argument or establish a position. You are primarily concerned with presenting information.
   
   
3. Take a fresh approach to your topic. The key to this step is to personalize. Whatever your angle, explain yourself using your knowledge and your experience.
   
   
4. Try to write a paper that someone (for example, yourself) can actually use. Students usually hate expository essay assignments because they feel just like busy work. But you shouldn’t hate a paper you write that helps you think through a difficult idea or concept that matters to you.
   
   
5. And like all our writing assignments, remember the two goals you are trying to accomplish for your audience: to inform and entertain.

While I might suggest your profile could be organized using either a topical or chronological method, information papers can use a number of organizing strategies. These might include:

• Extended Definition (using various ways of defining--see below--to explain a concept in detail)
• Example (using a primary illustration--or illustrations--that everyone recognizes to explain a difficult concept)
• Process (using a step-by-step, recipe-like method to explain a concept, such as how to change the oil in your car or how to bake a cake)
• Classification (using significant parts to describe the whole)
• Comparison-Contrast (putting attributes side by side to illustrate features--see our Dave Barry essay)
• Cause-and-Effect (establishing a causal relationship, such as an essay explaining what caused the American Civil War)

Definition (literally, to limit what can be said about a concept) is the specific application of how we will present information in this assignment. And in addition to the methods mentioned above for writing expository essays, consider as well these ways of defining. By the way, another unconventional set of definitions was produced a century and a half ago by Ambrose Bierce.

There are other features about expository writing we could describe, but to get us started, these points are sufficient.