So what is the first step in writing an informative essay? A professor expects you as a high school or college student to have the answer to that question at your fingertips. That is not always the case though. Since it is a commonly assigned paper in class, many people have a divergent opinion on it.
Many have argued that either every essay you write in high school, college, or university is a perfect example of an informative article. The premise is that the essays offer more information on a given topic.
At this point, let us hit the road straight. If your teacher asked you to write an informative essay as your homework assignment, there are always two things involved. You can either struggle with choosing the informative essay topics or get a cheap online essay writing service to customize an essay for you.
As the writing journey can be tough, Gradecrest comes in as a reliable essay helper that teaches you as a student every detail you have to know about creating an outstanding informative essay.
In this article, you will learn:
To cut the chase, let us begin by understanding, "what is an informative essay?"
An informative essay is a type of a typical academic assignment written by high school, college, and university students. It aims to educate or inform the audience on a given topic, analyze data and present facts, and to elaborate on different terms or theories.
For one to create an outstanding informative essay, they must have an in-depth understanding of the subject matter. For this, you necessarily need not be an expert in the chosen topic. Instead, you have to research and understand the facts, and then share with your audience in a carefully crafted essay.
Informative essays, just like their name sounds, are meant to teach the readers about new information. They are not an assignment targeting the presentation of opinions.
Informative essays must be written to detail, with coherence, and methodologically.
For instance, you could be writing about the impacts of democracy on the global peace. To write an essay, you will have to explore what democracy is, then delve into how it affects the world's peace, and give relevant examples using countries that support democracy like America.
Informative essays belong to the expository essay class that also comprises:
We can bet that there is no simple guide to writing a great informative essay and outline as detailed as ours online. If you are tasked with writing an informative essay, and you do not know where to start, here are some great steps to follow:
The first and most critical step before starting an informative essay is to read the prompt keenly. Within the prompt, you will acquaint yourself with specific instructions, including formatting requirements, the word count, the number of sources, and the essay rubric. Surprisingly, by reading the prompt, you can always narrow down your choice of the topic to write an informative essay on.
Having read the prompt, choosing a topic to write an essay on should not be hard. The prompt will set you into motion by letting you adopt a theme for your essay. Choosing a topic is critical as it defines the scope of your essay writing process. Therefore, when brainstorming about the topic to choose, always go for one that interests you and that you can find information on easily. Also, when selecting the topic, focus on the course and consult with the professor to determine the relevance of the chosen topic. As you decide, consider current events, controversial issues, or contentious societal issues. Here is a list of informative speech topics that can as well serve as informative essay topics.
Conventionally, academic writing commences with in-depth and objective research. You are never allowed to present biased information when writing an informative essay. Such information is an annoyance for informative writing. Therefore, base your arguments on facts and use the information gathered to make a meaningful conclusion for your audience. Another useful, informative writing technique is to use specificity when researching. Given the topic, you can narrow down your search for information to specific idea points. Specificity helps you pick a section and inform the audience authoritatively. Besides, as you research, you should prioritize information. This informative writing technique helps you to categorize information into funnels that feed the thoughts and reasoning of the audience sequentially. Remember to focus on scholarly sources as they add weight to your arguments and conclusions in the paper.
Related article: How to get free textbooks online.
4. Craft the Outline
Even though all essays have a similar structure, each has some minute distinctions. Mostly, the structure of an informative essay is just like that of an argumentative essay.
When developing an outline for your informative essay, first focus on creating an irresistible informative essay title that will grab your readers' attention. The title is a window inviting your readers into your world.
You should also have a powerful beginning themed with a hook or grabber as they enter the world. As soon as they leave the hook, they should dive into the background part of the introduction. The background should focus on introducing the essay's purpose, facts on the topic, and statistics, if necessary.
Then, your essay should have a thesis outline for the introduction. After outlining the intro, focus on the body paragraphs. Selectively choose the topic sentences, supporting facts, and concluding sentences as well as transitive words.
If there are counterarguments on the topic, also be sure to state them. Finally, the conclusion should restate the thesis and summarize the essay. The conclusion should remind the reader of the main issue.
There is always joy in finally having the opportunity to connect the dots from research to create a great essay. However, all excellent essays ever written began with first drafts. Begin writing the essay from top to bottom as you support your arguments with facts from research. We always advise that you write your essay, as you cite. There are tools such as citethisforme.com, Citefast, or BibMe, that can help you manage your in-text citations and bibliography. Ensure that the paragraphs are balanced. Also, each idea should be written in its paragraph to avoid confusion. Remember, unless it is an informative essay about a person and that person is you; do not write in the first person. Also, avoid passive writing unless it is necessary. The active voice always ensures that your essay is up to date. When writing the body, carefully select the topic sentences. Ensure that the topic sentences are followed by facts from research to support the thesis statement. Finally, your concluding sentences must reflect some reasoning on the paragraph and offer a transition to the next paragraph. When composing the body paragraphs, you can adopt the CEE (Claim, Evidence, and Explanation) strategy.
Writing the first draft is never an assurance that you are done with the essay yet. You need to re-read the entire essay to check for grammar, vocabulary, and coherence. Most of the students prefer having a second opinion on their papers. Therefore, they are likely to seek help from essay editing services. Our custom writing service has experts who will edit your essay to make it a top-grade paper. Other times, you can have your roommate, classmate or friends proofread and edit the essay. The latter is never a guarantee for quality. We strongly advise our professor-equivalent editing services. After receiving the edited, formatted, and qualified informative essay, you can submit it before the deadline and get the best grades.
A thesis statement is a critical component of your informative essay as it is the foundation for the entire essay. The thesis statement can either be a single sentence or two sentences at the end of your first paragraph that reflect the question in the prompt or the main idea given the chosen topic.
Never make an informative essay thesis statement basic or too obvious. While it is a road map, avoid phrases like "this essay will." Instead, focus on writing a sentence that explains the gist of the entire essay. For instance, if you were writing about recycled plastics and environmental conservation, an excellent thesis would read:
"Recycling plastics is an assured way of reducing the environmental impacts of plastics as it helps manage the plastic menace choking our oceans."
Given the above thesis statement, the reader already knows that the first paragraph of your informative essay will expound on the plastic pollution menace, give examples of how recycling helps, and the subsequent paragraphs would uniquely build on the ideas.
There are many informative essay examples that you can find online and see how carefully and excellent the thesis statements are crafted.
At this point, many students always wonder, "can I pay someone to write my essay for me, and will they structure my informative essay correctly?" while this is a great question, it depends on whom you hire to write your informative essay. However, you can only judge by assessing the essay. If the essay contains what we are about to discuss as necessary or an informative essay outline, it suffices as a top-grade essay; otherwise, you were played!
Universally, an essay must contain (based on the assumption that it is a 5-paragraph essay):
Your introduction should begin with an essay hook or attention grabber to lure the readers. The informative essay introduction should then feature the background of the topic. In the background, give some statistics, evidence, and facts from research to help the reader place the context of the essay. When writing an informative essay outline, the introduction must feature the thesis statement as well. It can be the last one or two sentences.
In your informative paper outline, the body paragraphs seek to defend the thesis statement. As such, each paragraph should be coherent, clear, and constructive. Always begin every paragraph with a topic sentence. When doing so, pick a topic sentence that elaborates on the idea presented and connects to the thesis statement. Ensure that the paragraph has a main point that is supported by facts from outside sources. After the topic sentence, you can use the CCE format to develop the rest of the paragraph. You will make a claim and then support it with facts or evidence from credible sources.
If you are wondering how to conclude an informative essay, the conclusion, just like that of other essays, summarizes the entire paper. In conclusion, you must restate the impact of the arguments. You should also restate in a new version of the thesis statement and insights on the topic. As you finish your informative essay, plan to have an overall concluding statement that explains the significance of each argument and the topic.
We strongly emphasize that while choosing a topic is significant, the power to lure the readers at first glance depends on how you title your informative essay. Once you have gathered enough informative essay ideas, the process of coming up with an essay topic should be easy. Are you wondering how to select the best informative essay topic? Be our audience. Here are the steps involved:
That is that writing an informative essay is not a jail term. If you do not understand how to write the essay or do not feel like writing, you can always buy essays online. The beauty of buying essays online at GradeCrest is that all of them are written from scratch and to your specific and unique instructions.
Are you struggling with topics to write an informative essay on? Well, if the answer is yes, you should not anymore, because we have compiled a list of informative essay topics for you.
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If you are wondering where to get informative essay ideas, our list of unique essay topics can be a starting point. Also, check out our cause-and-effect essay topics for inspiration. However, our expert writers at Gradecrest can create the best topics for your selection and write the best informative essay. If you are struggling with writing an essay, let our professional, fast essay writing service help.
Although it looks, sounds, and appears simple, most students find writing informative essays tough. In the beginning, you were probably wondering how to write an introduction paragraph for an informative essay, an informative essay outline, and an informative essay.
Related Reading: Argumentative topic ideas for essays.
Well, we are sure that even if you are in middle school, high school, college, or university, this guide can make you an informative writing expert. We have covered some topics to write an informative essay on with the hope that they can spark your creativity or become the next topic for your essay. You do not have to struggle with the question of how you write an informative essay anymore; we have all the answers in the comprehensive guide. We will continuously update it until we have everything you need to ace your informative essays.