In college, you deal with many essay types: term papers, book reports, and personal narratives — all are important to write for a high final grade. Persuasive writing is the trickiest one:

It requires a lot of research and writing strategies to structure your work so you convince readers to agree with your point of view. Not only do you share information, but you also persuade the audience, using solid arguments and evidence in your paper.

In this article, you’ll learn how to write a persuasive assignment and what writing strategies can help you make it worth the highest grade.

What is Persuasive Writing?

Persuasive writing refers to any text aiming to convince the reader of a writer’s opinion. It can be an academic essay, a political or social speech, sales copywriting work, a marketing blog post, etc.

Unlike other writing forms meant to share information, persuasive texts include solid evidence and logical arguments. They appeal to emotions and need to be compelling enough to influence readers and make them agree with an author’s point of view.

What is the Purpose of Persuasive Writing in College?

When a professor assigns persuasive writing in college, they want you to craft a paper where you’ll use logic, solid arguments, and evidence to convince readers.

It’s critical to understand the difference between persuasive and argumentative essays here:

While both require research and arguments, a persuasive essay is about choosing a side and providing evidence only about that chosen aspect. You mention counterarguments here but explain why they don’t work.

Argumentative essays are about representing both sides of a topic. You don’t convince anyone here but describe arguments and counterarguments for readers to decide which side to choose.

What can you use as evidence to persuade the audience of what you say?

• Academic research
• Statistics
• Expert quotes
• Case studies with examples
• Logical reasons

And now, to practice:

How to Write Persuasive Assignments

Choose a Topic

Given that persuasive essays aim at convincing the readers, their topics are to be polemical. In other words, you take an issue with at least two points of view in society. No one needs a persuasive article on “People need air to breathe:” It’s common knowledge, and there’s nothing to prove here. But “People need cannabis for better health” might work: It’s an issue someone would agree while others would disagree with.

Some professors assign a particular topic for persuasive essays, but often they ask you to choose it. (They want to check your critical thinking skills and the ability to prove your point on polemical issues.)

If you want your essay to succeed, consider topics in spheres like animal rights, politics, gender issues, or climate change. However, ensure you write about what worries you and have enough arguments and evidence to persuade readers of your position.

Here go some topic ideas for your persuasive writing:

1. Nuclear weapons are effective to prevent foreign attacks.
2. Every American should learn a foreign language.
3. Feminism is no longer a struggle for women’s rights.
4. The power of kindness is in its weakness.
5. It is necessary to cancel the mandatory exams in schools.

Two rules here:

(1) Consider topics that inspire you personally, and (2) take topics that are up-to-date and with enough discussion in literature and online: It won’t be problematic to research and find evidence on them.

Do Research

You won’t write an efficient persuasive paper with no research on the topic. Given that you need to convince readers of your opinion, you should understand the topic from multiple angles and decide what side you choose to prove in your writing.

So, once you choose a topic, it’s time to gather the information: Consider academic studies, relevant media news, expert opinions, and historical examples. You’ll need to examine and evaluate them to see what the world already has about this issue and which resources you can use as references in your essay.

Here’s how to evaluate sources: Consider those fitting the five following criteria.

1. Current: check the publication date.
2. Relevant: check if the info answers your question and is deep enough to cover the issue.
3. Accurate: check where the info comes from (educational or governmental resources, reputable organizations, etc.).
4. Authoritative: check the authors’ credentials.
5. Purposeful: check the purpose of the resource (educate, entertain, persuade). Is their information based on facts? Is their point of view objective?

Choose Your Opinion

Remember the core difference between argumentative and persuasive writing:

Argumentative is about describing both sides of the issue and letting the audience choose which one to support. Persuasion is about convincing the audience of your opinion on the issue.

So, you need to choose a polemical topic and decide whether you agree or disagree with it. Which side are you going to support in your essay?

When choosing, ensure you have enough evidence in your references to prove your point to readers. You’ll need credible arguments to sway the audience to your side.

Write an Outline

Okay, now you have a topic, you’ve chosen the side to prove, and you’ve done research to find solid references that will help support your arguments. It’s time to outline your essay so you don’t miss anything when writing.

Persuasive essays have a standard structure:

1. Introduction, with a hook, background, and thesis statement.
2. Essay body, with 1-2 paragraphs describing your arguments and evidence + 1 paragraph describing your opponent’s arguments and your counterarguments why you disagree with that opposite point of view.
3. Conclusion summing up your points and restating your thesis for the audience to have food for thought after reading your essay.

You are welcome to use the below template for outlining your persuasive essays. Once you fill it in, it will be much easier to write your paper step by step.

Write and Edit Your Persuasive Essay

Now you have everything to sit and start writing your persuasive essay’s draft:

• In the introduction paragraph, describe the issue and state the point you’ll support throughout your paper.
• In body paragraphs, remember to include evidence from credible resources to prove your point and convince readers to agree with you. You can also represent the opposite point on the issue but still provide arguments for why you disagree.
• In the final paragraph (conclusion), wrap up your points and restate your thesis once again for readers to remember it. You can finish with a question for the audience to think about.

Once your essay draft is ready, don’t hurry to submit it to a professor. Wait for a couple of days — and then reread it with a fresh eye to proofread and edit it if necessary.

Re-check your arguments again, and ensure the essay structure is logical and all the paragraphs are clear and coherent. Are your points and evidence solid enough to persuade readers of your opinion? Remember to check your essay for grammar and style errors: Apps like Grammarly or ProWritingAid can assist you.

10 Successful Persuasive Writing Strategies

Here at CopyCrafter, our writers deal with many persuasive essays daily. They’ve shared several practical tips on how to work on your writing assignment so that it turns out successful and A-worthy.

We know you don’t have much time to deal with long reads, so the given persuasive writing strategies go in brief. 😉

1 — Choose a Topic You’re Passionate About

We bet you’ll agree with us on this one:

It’s much easier to research and write about something that is interesting to you. If your professor doesn’t assign any particular topic but invites you to choose yours, think of issues that bother you and that you’d like to share with the audience.

First, it will be easier to research such topics because you already know some facts and evidence about them. And second, they’ll motivate you to examine the question deeper and learn new facts rather than sit and hate your professor for assigning it.

2 — Know Your Audience

To persuade people of your opinion on the topic, you need to know who will read your essay. Do you know their age, interests, or background? What do they know and think about the issue you’re going to represent?

Depending on the audience, you might consider different arguments and evidence for your essay. Also, it will help you understand what words to use and what emotions to appeal to for readers to believe you.

3 — Speak Directly to the Reader

Speaking to the reader is an effective writing strategy, so do your best to address your audience directly as “you:” It makes your writing feel more like a conversation than teaching, encouraging readers to lower their objections and listen to your points.

4 — Research, Research, Research Both Sides

Let’s face it: No one cares about opinions if they don’t follow E-A-T (expertness, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness). Today, we all are online, with personal blogs and social media, sharing thoughts and trying to communicate something to the world. But why should the world care?

In persuasive writing, the depth of research and information matters. As an author, you need to know both sides of the issue to have enough arguments and evidence to prove your point.

So, don’t hurry up to write until you examine and evaluate the facts. For that, do not be lazy to research the topic you’re going to represent in your writing.

5 — Write a Clear Thesis Statement

A thesis statement is the central idea of your writing. It introduces your point of view to the audience and helps them understand what you’ll try to communicate in your paper. That is why it should be clear and transparent.

A clear statement is your weapon to avoid confusion. Otherwise, readers won’t understand the purpose of your essay and will leave disappointed.

6 — Hook the Reader from the Start

Get your audience interested in your writing: Think of a so-called hook to grab their attention from the very beginning. The first sentence of your essay can be an intriguing question about the topic you’ll cover, a quote from an expert sharing some controversial information, unexpected statistics, an interesting fact, etc.

Give them a reason to continue reading your work. What’s so special about it? What’s in there for them? Why should they care? But please do not manipulate readers’ emotions and do not lie: Use straightforward language, be concise, and choose words that sound persuasive. (More on that below.)

7 — Choose Words Carefully

Word choice is critical in persuasive writing because they help emphasize your points, evoke emotions, and convince readers that your opinion is correct and worth trusting. Words are your instrument to build connections and personal relationships with the audience, so do your best to use strong language in your essays.

What does it mean?

Use active verbs, the right tone of voice, and power words (those descriptive and helping the readers understand what you want to say). Avoid redundant adverbs, slang and jargon, and wateriness: be precise.

Don’t repeat linking words and sentences; say no to irrelevant information. If the reader can’t follow your thoughts or you make too many immaterial points, you will lose your reader’s interest and have no chance of persuading them.

8 — Emphasize Your Point

Make the most of exaggeration and hyperbolic statements to express urgency or support your point. It doesn’t mean to lie in an attempt to impress readers: It’s a great persuasive technique when you want to convey an impactful image for readers to “hear” you.

Another writing trick to try is appealing to emotions. Readers are more likely to believe you if they feel you understand them and can relate to their experience. Thus, you’ll target their sensitivities and provide arguments for why their opinions on the discussed topic may change.

9 — Repeat Your Arguments

We speak about strategic repetition here, when you find different ways to make the same point: metaphors, rephrasing, storytelling, and other literary devices. Don’t ignore them while writing:

They’ll prevent you from using monotonous language and the same patterns. Readers won’t think anything like, “Oh my, s/he has mentioned it several times already,” and you will be able to reinforce your point without annoying the audience with repetitiveness.

10 — Ask for Feedback

When you think you have completed your writing, read through it thoroughly and check every part. Invite a few friends or family members to check it and give you their honest opinion, take feedback from unbiased people, and use their comments to make any final and effective changes.

Ready to Write an Essay That Persuades Readers?

Writing persuasive texts that have the potential to change someone’s way of thinking is not an easy task. If you want to succeed here, you need to know your audience, state your point of view clearly, and support it with arguments you can prove with evidence like research, quotes from experts, statistics, and relevant emotional appeals.

More than that, it would help if you could anticipate and respond to objections your opponents might have.

We hope this article has answered all your questions on persuasive writing, its purpose, and how to craft it when assigned. Still in doubt? Feel free to contact our professional writers for assistance.

Some students believe short story writing is the least challenging assignment they can get in college. They think it won’t take much time and effort to complete it because… well, it’s short, after all.

But there’s a catch:

Shorter doesn’t equal easier. Do you remember Mark Twain saying to his friend, “I didn’t have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead?” This writing form requires more diligence and clarity: You need an intriguing opening to hook readers, powerful words to communicate your character’s goal and conflict, and a compelling ending to wow readers and make them remember your story.

Short story writing’s structure reminds the format of a personal narrative, but here you don’t write about yourself. You craft fiction with all the components of storytelling in it.

Seems too challenging?

This article will help you learn how to write a short story. No time to read as the due date is coming? Ask our online assignment help to assist you with short story writing.

What Is a Short Story?

Because of their length (1,000 to 5,000 words), short stories are less complex than longer narratives like novellas (typically 30,000 words) or novels.

In a short story, you can build a world and have multiple characters, but this world won’t be as extended as in a novel, and every character won’t have a backstory or a meaningful character arc like you’d provide in a lengthier work. So, here go the restrictions:

• No big worlds or intricate plots like in The Lord of the Rings.
• No backstories or meaningful character arcs like in Harry Potter.
• No subplots or complex narratives like in Game of Thrones.

Okay, what’s in there in a short story instead?

Short Story Components

Your story is short, but it doesn’t mean its theme is less profound than a longer work’s theme. While you have fewer words, characters, and a simpler setting for writing a short story, it still needs to impact readers.

When planning your story, ensure to think of the following elements:

1. Mood or feeling. What do you want to evoke in readers? Is it an emotion of joy, grief, or loss? An idea concerning some life lessons or morals? Do your best to define the clear goal of your story: It will help you decide on the language, plot, and other instruments for writing it.
2. Descriptive language. Your story is short, so every word needs to be clear and essential to the concept, context, and plot development.
3. Point. What do you want to say with your short story? You need to know a clear point before writing your story so you could reflect on it throughout the text.

Speaking of short stories, we often mean a traditional storytelling technique: setting, hero’s journey, conflict, resolution, and all this stuff. It works for a short story writing assignment in the college, either. However, if you write a fiction story outside your academic life, feel free to break the rules and play around with conventions:

You are welcome to try writing flash fiction or microfiction, aka stories under 1,000 words. Or, practice anecdotes, aka short narratives with a moral lesson. Regular writing of fables, feghoot, sketches, or vignettes can be a good practice, too: They are short scenes that can become a part of your massive literary work later.

In the literary world, all these numbers are nominal. Take the famous, “For sale: baby shoes, never worn,” for example: In six words, the author provides all five elements every short story has:

1. Character: a person, an animal, or a creature who does an action in your story.
2. Plot: a series of events to illustrate the conflict of your story.
3. Theme: the central message of your story, a point you want to communicate to readers.
4. Conflict: what drives your story’s plot; the obstacles a hero overcomes or the goal they want to reach. A conflict can be internal or external.
5. Setting: the time and place where your story occurs.

The above short story about baby shoes is a palmary example of how critical language patterns are for communicating the point. That story relies on the reader extrapolating meaning from the words, and it succeeds.

What’s in a Short Story College Assignment?

When it comes to college assignments, a six-word story is not an option, of course, but it’s a great way to practice your writing skills! Also, it may serve as a warm-up before you start working on a short story or any other assignment.

A short story college assignment is not that different from traditional short story writing. A professor will ask you to craft a 500-1,000 word piece that includes storytelling elements.

So, you will need to:

• Choose a theme as the basis of your story.
• Decide on a setting and a plot to communicate the theme to the audience.
• Create a character who’ll have a goal and a conflict.
• Use indirect characterization and descriptive pictures to bring your characters to life and make them and your whole story believable.
• Think of a conflict resolution at the end of the story and the emotion (thought, idea) you want to evoke in readers. In other words, what’s the point of your short story?

Yes, the whole process looks challenging and time-consuming. No worries! Below is your step-by-step guide on how to write a short story.

Hint:

The prewriting phase is the most difficult one, and it takes much more time than writing a draft.

Reminder:

If you don’t have time and energy for short story prewriting and writing, you can ask professional academic writers for help. Here at CopyСrafter, we are ready to assist you 24/7.

How to Write a Short Story

1 — Decide on the Idea

Short story ideas are numerous. It’s a self-contained work of fiction, so do your best to mine imagination and craft an engaging story that evokes emotions from the audience.

It’s critical:

Before you sit and write a story just the way it goes in your mind, you need to decide on the theme and mood you want to convey. What idea or point of view do you want to communicate with your story? How will you represent it?

All the elements in your short story will work together to give your idea to the readers. What kind of story do you want to tell, and why? Start your brainstorming session — and write down the genre of your story (humor, horror, drama, romance?), its theme (a central message you want to convey), and the emotion you want to evoke (joy, grief, compassion, anger, etc.).

If you already have ideas on the setting and characters for your short story, write them down too. The key plot points are also worth noting: They’ll help you fill in details later.

2 — Think of a Character’s Goal and Conflict

Please don’t move on to outlining and writing a short story before you have a protagonist and a conflict. You need to know them beforehand; otherwise, you won’t understand what to write and how to move your story’s plot to the end (resolution).

A conflict is what shapes your characters, drives your plot, and allows you to communicate your theme to readers.

As you remember, your story is short and has a limited word number. That’s why one main character with one conflict is a great way to start. Think of the goal your protagonist wants to reach and a few obstacles they will overcome to succeed.

The following worksheet can help you create a character for your short story:

If your story has several characters, try describing each of them with the above worksheet. It will allow you to understand each hero better and craft their words and deeds accordingly.

3 — Choose a Strong Opening

How to start writing a short story? Consider the restrictions of this format:

You won’t have a lot of room for wordy descriptions and exposition, and that is why start with a catchy opening that will hook readers and immerse them in your plot at once.

Some writers practice the in media res trick: Open your story in the middle of the action and fill in details later. In other words, take the reader straight to the central scene of your plot.

Or, you can try these ideas for opening your short story:

1. Scene-setting. A reader joins the character in a pause before the action.
2. Conflict establishment. The exact moment when a character gets into trouble.
3. Mystifier. Throw a reader into a situation without giving any details yet.
4. You, as the third-person narrator, speak to a reader.
5. You, as the first-person narrator, speak to a reader.
6. Quotation.
7. Puzzler. You set up the conflict while making a reader guess what happens here.

Here go examples of each one:

4 — Outline Your Story

Now it’s time to write a detailed outline for your short story. Fill in this plot diagram, and you won’t miss any critical moment while writing:

5 — Write a Draft

You have a character worksheet and a plot diagram at hand, so the time has come to craft a rough draft of your short story. When writing, remember that you have a certain number of words to develop a plot, communicate a theme, and resolve a conflict:

Don’t waste space.

Your every sentence should be vital for driving a story. Focus on the story’s message and ask yourself, “Does this sentence need to be here? Does it serve to illuminate the story’s mood?”

Words and syntax matter in short stories to communicate mood and emotions and help readers “see” your setting and sympathize with the characters. Writers know it as the “Show, don’t tell” principle:

Use active verbs and descriptive adjectives that appeal to the human five senses and allow readers to “see, hear, smell, taste, and feel” what happens in your story. To make it easier, prepare a so-called setting worksheet beforehand: Write down metaphors, comparisons, images, associations, and other lexical items that will help you build a story using descriptive writing.

Tip: Don’t think of including all of them while writing a draft! Your goal is to get something out on the page and communicate your story’s overall aim. So, sit and write; avoid the temptation to edit your draft while writing. You’ll have a chance to improve the language when editing.

6 — Decide on a Compelling Ending

The end of your short story is even more critical than its opening: Readers wait for an exciting resolution, and they’ll be disappointed if you spoil your beautiful narrative with a weak finale. The most compelling resolutions center on your characters:

• What has changed about the protagonist of your short story?

Your characters can’t stay the same. Otherwise, what was the reason for their journey? The changes can be positive or negative, but they should have a place.

Also, focus on the mood you planned to evoke in readers: What would be the best way to finish the story to capture that mood and convey the desired message? Ensure your ending follows naturally from where your story began, and don’t leave readers with too obvious resolutions.

7 — Edit, Edit, Edit!

So, your draft is ready. Congratulations, the hardest part of your short story writing is over! Now it’s time to re-read it several times and revise your story, if necessary.

When editing, think of the following:

• Do I give enough information for my readers to picture the story’s characters and events?
• Are my story details specific and relevant to the overall theme and mood?
• Do I use descriptive language? Do my words and sentence structures fit the characters?

For your story to get an A+, it needs a vivid and descriptive setting, named and clearly described characters with problems that are easy for readers to understand, and a logical solution to the character’s conflict. Use dialogues to bring your characters to life and add creative details to contribute to the reader’s enjoyment.

And remember to correct spelling and grammar errors before submitting your story to a professor or publishing it somewhere. Meet all the written requirements (# of words or pages, font, margins, etc.): It would be a pity to get a lower grade because of such technical details, wouldn’t it?

Need Help With Short Story Writing Assignments?

Now that you know and have everything for short story writing, it’s time to craft a masterpiece that will impress your professor and all the readers who’ll see it. Are you ready to follow the tips from this post and structure your story in the best way possible? Maybe, you already have a theme or a protagonist with a conflict to describe in your work, huh?

If you still have questions or need practical help with short story writing assignments in college, please don’t hesitate to contact us. CopyCrafter’s professional writers assist with any academic paper type — just ask.

A personal narrative is a story about you. Simple as that, right?

Not quite.

Once you get the assignment to write a personal narrative essay, tons of questions arise: what exactly to write, how to format this story, how to know if its structure is correct, and what makes it different from other essay types like short story assignment, for example?

This article will answer all your questions and help you understand how to write a personal narrative to get A+. The process may seem time- and energy-consuming, but we promise: It’s not so if you get the core idea behind this writing format.

But still:

If this guide isn’t enough for you to proceed with the paper, our team is always here to provide you with homework assignment help.

What is a Personal Narrative?

A personal narrative is a story with a plot that allows authors to connect to people. It’s about the author’s growth, lessons learned, and reflections on experiences.

It can be an autobiography, a short story about an event that happened to you or a person who influenced you, a personal essay you wrote for magazines like Time or The New Yorker, etc.

Personal Narrative Topics and Ideas

As a rule, teachers don’t assign any particular topic when asking you to write a personal narrative. And such a freedom of choice can be a problem for some students: You stumble and don’t know what to write because you can’t decide on any particular topic that will be interesting enough to engage readers.

Personal narrative ideas and topics are many. You can write about your interests, childhood, school years, student life, relationships, travels, etc. It can be a story about achieving a goal, your realization or failure, your best friend, your biggest mistake or the happiest moment of your life, your childhood memory, and so on.

But when you decide on what to cover in your story, ensure to specify why you choose this moment and why it is important to share.

Here go a few topic examples for your narrative essay:

• This friendship breakup cost me a year of my life.

• It was the moment I changed my life philosophy.

• How I stole a cat that meowed on my dog.

• If I were a politician, I’d be…

• Why I’ll never support vegans again.

The Components of a Personal Narrative

A personal narrative is a story, right? So, it stands to reason that it needs to include all the elements of a story: a plot, characters, setting, conflict (climax), and resolution (conclusion).

• Plot: Events happening in your personal narrative.
• Characters: You are a protagonist of the story, and other people you mention there will be the supporting characters.
• Setting: Location and time when the events of your story happen.
• Conflict: The problem you resolve in a story, the challenge you need to overcome, or a moment of tension for you to win through.
• Resolution: The moral of your story. Why do you tell it? What have you learned, and what do you want the readers to understand?

Why Do We Write Personal Narratives?

The purpose of a personal narrative is simple: tell a story that happened to you and reveal the lessons you’ve learned from that experience. This form of writing helps you express thoughts, ideas, feelings, and opinions so that readers get involved and inspired by your story.

Today we use personal narratives on social media when writing about events and experiences that happened to us. You can write it in a blog post, magazine, case study, journal, etc. As a student, you may need to use a personal narrative in the admission essay or cover letter asking to tell your professional story for a potential employer.

In college, students often get an assignment to write a personal narrative essay. The purpose is to learn storytelling and emotional writing, with a focus on self-growth, reflections, and lessons learned from the experience.

With narrative essays, you will learn to tell stories so that others will listen to you.

What is a Personal Narrative Essay?

A personal narrative essay is a form of academic writing where you tell a story about your experience, using the components of storytelling and providing sensory details to get readers involved in what you want to say.

In a narrative essay, you don’t develop arguments and don’t try to persuade readers. That’s what makes it different from other academic papers: You tell a story and let the audience draw their own conclusions from it.

The purpose of narrative essays is to show off your writing skills and provide insight into your thoughts for readers to understand you better. Here you examine universal truths via personal experience.

Below are general characteristics of a personal narrative essay for you to follow:

• It’s informal.
• It comes from the 1st person. (Use “I” or “we” as you are a storyteller here.)
• Its purpose is to inform, not teach or criticize.
• It’s non-fiction: You tell real-life stories that happened to real people and are based on actual experience.
• It follows the structure of academic essays but includes the storytelling elements such as a plot, setting, conflict, characters, resolution, and others.

How to Write a Personal Narrative Essay

Choose a Topic

First, you need to choose what you want to tell the audience. Personal narratives are stories, so do your best to write about something interesting enough to hook readers. It’s okay to write about your interests, the people who influenced you, your experience in childhood or school years, etc.

These tips can help you decide on the topic:

• Think of what bothers you: What would you like to share or discuss with others?
• Go to social media: What do your peers discuss? What does bother them, and what stories do they share with followers?
• Try freewriting: Take a pen and start writing down everything that comes to your mind. After 10-15 minutes, stop and re-read: Are there any ideas you could share in your story?

And here go some personal narrative topic ideas to inspire you:

Write an Outline

A personal narrative has all the components of a story, but it’s your academic assignment anyway. It means you follow an essay structure here, with all critical elements like a thesis in your introduction, three paragraphs in an essay’s body, a conclusion, etc.

To ease the process, organize thoughts, and ensure you don’t forget anything, write an outline for your narrative.

Below is a sample you can use to incorporate all necessary components of a story into your narrative essay:

Write a Draft

Now it’s time to write your narrative essay. Follow the outline and describe each part in detail: Remember that readers weren’t there, so you’ll need to “paint” the picture for them to understand everything.

How to start a personal narrative?

The first paragraph of your essay is a story setup (exposition). Think of a catchy first sentence (a hook) to grab readers’ attention and mention why your story matters (thesis).

The following three paragraphs are your story itself, with all events, the conflict, and a resolution:

• Paragraph 1 is a rising action: tell about the setting, introduce characters, and start writing about the event.
• Paragraph 2 is a climax: here goes the conflict, and you write about how the characters (you) deal with it.
• Paragraph 3 is a falling action: write here about conflict resolution and its aftermath for characters.

Finally, the last paragraph of your essay (conclusion) is a story resolution. Here you write about the moral of your story, why it matters, and share a call to action for readers.

In other words, your story draft follows the structure all authors and screenwriters know as a narrative arc:

Edit It to Follow the Structure

The most challenging part is over — your narrative is ready! Now it’s time to re-read it and check if it follows the structure and has all the storytelling elements for the audience to get engaged and say, “Wow!” after reading it.

Guidelines to follow while writing and editing:

• It’s your story, so write your narrative in the 1st person. (Use “I” and “we” pronouns.)
• The length of narrative essays varies, but think of at least 600 words.
• Pay attention to tenses: As a rule, personal narratives describe the events that happened in the past, so many authors use the past tense. If you decide to write about the present, ensure you keep the present tense consistent throughout your story.
• Tell a story in chronological order.
• Consider the “Show, don’t tell” principle: Provide readers with enough details to imagine and understand your story. The ideal variant is to evoke emotions and make them sympathize.

Proofread Your Essay

The final stage is proofreading: Re-read your narrative essay once again to check it for spelling and grammar mistakes and revise your language for better clarity and readability.

Misspellings, double spacing, too complex sentences — do your best to revise all these for your essay to sound great.

If you use quotes or citations throughout your narrative, ensure to provide proper references to them. Delete repeats, and paraphrase sentences where it might be hard for a reader to understand what you mean.

A good practice would be to ask a friend to read your story before you publish or submit it to a professor. They will provide feedback for you to know if your narrative is interesting enough and how you can make it even more compelling.

Personal Narrative Examples

The best way to learn how to write personal narratives is to read magnificent examples of this writing form, agree? Given that such texts aren’t that long, tons of inspiring examples are easy to find and read online.

For example, here goes The Death of the Moth by Virginia Woolf. Notice how the author uses contract and swings a reader’s emotions with power words and images. By giving human feelings to the moth, Woolf piques empathy, leading us from pity to pathos, triumph, and awe.

Or, let’s take Siri Tells a Joke by Debra Gwartney. In this short text, the author goes through losses and reflects on her grief and how she learned to live without her dearest people nearby.

When reading these examples, imagine you’re Sherlock: You need to examine them to find writing clues to their success. Why are they so great? What makes them so intriguing to readers: opening scenes, vivid imagery, power words authors use to grab attention and make readers sympathize?

The more instruments you’ll distinguish in popular narrative essays, the more you’ll be able to use when writing your work.

And here go your extra resources to check for more writing tips and narrative essay examples:

• Narrative Essay: Characteristics and Examples
• The Narrative Essay: It Differs From a Simple Story
• How to Write Narrative (video by Jeremy Thompson)

Over to You

We hope you have a better idea of how to write personal narrative assignments now. All you need to do is choose an engaging topic and format it as a story with a plot, characters, and lessons you’ve learned from that experience. And remember:

It’s personal yet academic work if assigned in college. Follow the essay structure: Use a hook and thesis in the introduction, develop a story in body paragraphs, and mention the moral of your story in the conclusion.

Any questions left?

Copycrafter’s writers are here 24/7 to assist you with writing assignments. Don’t hesitate to ask for professional help here!

Expository writing is among the most common assignments students get in college. A tiny problem:

While teachers assign expository essays often enough for mentees to get an idea of how to do this type of academic paper, many students still have difficulty writing them.

Indeed:

With so many essay types to deal with in college, it’s challenging to understand and remember all the differences between them: narrative, argumentative, persuasive, and others – it seems impossible to master and get high grades for all of them.

No worries! This article will tell you everything a student needs to know about expository writing. And if you still find it too hard or time-consuming to craft, feel free to ask Copycrafter’s assignment assistance professionals for help.

What is Expository Writing?

Below you’ll find more information on expository writing definition, purpose, and types.

Expository Writing Definition

Expository writing is a form of structured academic paper using facts to investigate a topic and inform readers about it.

It’s critical to understand the difference between expository and argumentative essays here:

• Argumentative essays: A student uses arguments and counterarguments to prove their opinion on the topic.
• Expository essays: A student doesn’t take any side, doesn’t develop any arguments, and doesn’t express their opinion on the topic. Focus on providing facts to inform and explain, with no personal evaluation: Do your best to have a neutral point of view.

The characteristics of expository writing aren’t that difficult to remember. Expository essays:

1. Teach readers about the topic.
2. Provide detailed information (insights) on the topic.
3. Describe and explain facts on the topic.
4. Are written with formal language, in the 3rd person (he, she, it, they), and in a precise, logical manner.

The Purpose of Expository Writing

Expository writing is about providing the reader with a factual and objective description of a topic. The purpose is to present the information in a linear and logical format, with no author’s opinion or attempts to change the reader’s mind or perspective.

Examples of expository writing include journalistic articles, business writing, or science papers.

Why do you need to write expository essays in college?

No, it’s not because your professors hate you and want to bury you in tons of writing assignments. They want to help you develop valuable skills that will also come in handy when the study years are over. When working on expository writing, you gain:

• Critical thinking. Doing research for your paper, you learn to evaluate sources, evidence, and facts from different angles and perspectives, which is a must-have skill for Gen Z today. In the world of content shock and a short attention span, it’s critical to understand what information is worth your attention and trust.
• Prioritization. While you gather information for your expository paper, you need to stay precise when writing it. Thus you learn to prioritize one fact or evidence over others and express your thoughts briefly.
• Time management and organization. With expository writing, you learn to organize thoughts, express them logically, and save time communicating with people. These are must-have soft skills in many professional spheres today, so they won’t go in vain once you get them.

Types of Expository Writing

Expository assignment writing has several types, depending on how you want to structure it to represent the information better. The most common types of expository essays are five:

1. Definition (descriptive). It’s an essay where you define a subject and explain its meaning. For example, you write about a historical figure and tell readers about his actions, motivations, places he visited, etc.
2. Problem/solution (cause/effect). Here you explain an existing problem (the cause of something) and then explore effective solutions for it. Speaking of expository writing, these are usually papers about the relations between two subjects (cause and effect) or how specific problems have been solved.
3. Classification. Such expository essays are about the characteristics of many subjects within one category. You break down a broad topic into categories, start with a general one, and then define and explain each subgroup within it.
4. Compare and contrast. Here you define two or more subjects and describe their similarities and differences.
5. Process (how-to). These essays explain a step-by-step process of something: how it works or how to do it. This blog post is a kind of process expository writing, by the way: Here we tell you how to write essays step by step.

How to Write an Expository Essay?

And now, to the most interesting part:

Let’s reveal the process of expository assignment writing, step by step!

Step 1: Choose a Topic

As a rule, teachers assign a topic for your expository writing. But sometimes they say you’re free to choose what to write about, and that’s when your brainstorming begins.

How to choose a good topic for your expository essay?

You can write about everything: health, politics, education, movies, science, history, social media, etc. Think of the niche you know best and make a list of topics that are interesting to you: Consider something you can explain to readers (it will be easier to research). Also, think of topics that will meet your teacher requirements (if they gave you any).

Try to avoid too general topics. Yours need to be specific for the audience to get interested. Here go a few topic examples:

• Some practical advice to tackle bullying in schools.
• How social media helps students pass exams.
• The reasons for terrorism in modern times.
• Where to invest money after college, and why.
• The science behind love: how we need to understand this feeling.

So, here are the rules again: A topic should be interesting to you and easy to research as you’ll need to find credible references for it; also, you should be able to explain it to the reader.

Step 2: Write a Thesis

You can’t write an essay without a thesis statement: It’s the heart of your paper, and your teacher will pay much attention to it. No need to mention that your overall grade for expository writing will depend on how well you introduce a thesis.

What is a thesis in essays?

An essay thesis is a sentence or two in the introduction. It’s a claim that identifies the central idea and purpose of your writing.

Please note that a thesis is NOT a mere fact but a statement that gives readers something to think about. It’s an issue you’ll describe and explain throughout your essay.

Step 3: Outline Your Expository Essay

Before you sit and write your essay draft, it would be helpful to prepare a detailed outline, aka a plan for you to know what to include in every paragraph.

Speaking of paragraphs, by the way:

Expository essays have the standard structure of any academic paper you write in college: an introduction, body paragraphs (3-4, depending on your topic and teacher requirements), and a conclusion. When writing an outline, do your best to mention a thesis statement in the introduction, prepare factual and logical evidence for each body paragraph, and think of a thesis restatement in the conclusion.

This template can help you write detailed outlines for your expository writing assignments:

Step 4: Write an Introduction

When the thesis and outline are ready, it’s time to write your expository essay. Start with an introduction and ensure to mention the following elements there:

• 1 sentence: a general statement on the topic with an attention-grabbing hook for readers.
• 2-3 sentences: the context for your readers to understand the topic.
• 1 sentence: a thesis statement for readers to see what you’ll expose in the essay.

For many students, introductions are the most challenging part of essay writing. They sit and stare at a blank page, can’t find any words, and don’t know how to start an essay. If you’re among them, here’s a tip:

Write an introduction after the other parts of your essay. It’s okay to craft a body and a conclusion first: Thus, you’ll see all the covered points and extract a hook and a thesis from there.

Step 5: Draft an Essay Body

When writing essay paragraphs, refer to your thesis statement so you don’t miss any critical points. Each paragraph starts with a topic sentence to introduce what you will talk about, and it should contain the evidence (facts, data, quotes, etc.) to support your information.

Share facts that will help readers understand your point. Use straightforward language in your essay to avoid biased information or misunderstanding: active verbs, clear words, and meaningful adverbs.

Complete each paragraph with a logical transition to the next one: Use linking words and phrases to reinforce your message and make it easier for readers to follow your thoughts.

Step 6: Write a Conclusion

A conclusion is critical in expository writing because it wraps up your thesis and leaves readers with thoughts on the topic.

Important:

• Do not repeat (rewrite) your thesis from the introduction. You need to explain how the information from the essay helps to come up with this conclusion.
• Do not introduce any new points or ideas. You need to conclude the thoughts you’ve already covered in the essay body.

Your expository essay conclusion should have a minimum of three sentences:

The first one sums up what you said, the next one explains how your essay exposed your thesis, and the final one is something positive for readers to remember your essay and think about the topic you shared.

Step 7: Proofread and Edit Your Essay

Finally, the most crucial moment comes: Once the draft is ready, it’s time to proofread and edit it if necessary. But please do not do that just after writing. Give your text a few days to rest — and go back to check it later. It will help you see an essay with a fresh eye and notice tiny drawbacks you would have missed before.

So, first, read the draft to check if your essay:

• has a clear thesis;
• provides an unbiased analysis of facts and examples;
• supports all the information with evidence from credible resources;
• has logical transitions between sentences and paragraphs;
• is clear, linear, and logical.

After that, proofread your essay to fix typos, grammar, and punctuation mistakes. A good practice for that is reading your text out loud: It helps notice words, phrases, and grammar constructions that sound weird. Ensure you use clear sentences and straightforward language.

If proofreading and editing still sound challenging, try some online looks like Grammarly or Hemingway App. Or, you can always ask for professional editing help from Copycrafter or other corresponding services: A specialist checks your essay and gives feedback on what to improve there.

Expository Essay Writing Tips to Follow

Now that you know a step-by-step process for expository essay writing, here go some tiny yet practical tips to make it easier:

• Write a catchy headline for your essay for readers to get interested in it.
• No matter how well you know the assigned topic, you’ll need to research it before writing.
• It’s okay to start expository writing where you know the information best. It’s not a must to start with the introduction: Feel free to write an essay body or conclusion first; you’ll have time to revise and edit it anyway.
• Be clear and use concise language: Remember that your task is to inform and share facts, not write about your thoughts on the topic.
• Avoid biased information; use reputable resources for references: academic journals, studies, .edu sources, etc. Forget about Wikipedia.
• Consider your writing voice and tone: Expository essays are formal and go from the 3rd person, remember? So, no slang, redundant information, jokes, creative writing tricks, “I” and “we,” etc.
• Be linear and organize all the information in your essay logically so that it’s easy for readers to follow it. Use transitional words and phrases between paragraphs to link everything naturally.
• When editing, read your draft out loud: It will be easier to notice typos or grammar mistakes; plus, you’ll “hear” how it sounds and revise all weak points if necessary.
• Please do your best to complete the first draft of your expository paper a few days before the deadline and wait a day before revising it. Thus, you’ll look at it from a fresh perspective and can notice some drawbacks you didn’t see when writing.
• Ask a friend to read your essay. As a reader, not an author, they can tell if you need to revise anything for it to sound better.

FAQs

• What is expository writing?

Expository writing is a form of text that aims to inform readers and help them learn something new about the topic. It’s factual, linear, and objective. An author doesn’t express their opinion and doesn’t develop any arguments to persuade readers about the subject.

• What is the purpose of expository writing?

The purpose of expository writing is to share facts and evidence on the assigned topic to inform and educate readers about it. There shouldn’t be any personal opinions, arguments, or biased information: Expository writing is factual and objective. The goal is to give facts readers need about the topic to deepen their understanding.

• How does narrative differ from expository writing?

Narrative writing is about telling stories to readers. It can be a short personal story, fiction, or any other story that conveys emotions and experience. Expository texts are about facts, descriptions, and clear (logical) explanations to give information that educates readers about something.

• What are examples of expository writing?

Examples of expository writing are journalistic articles in newspapers and magazines, science papers exploring and explaining some concepts, and business texts describing how different processes work or what a person needs to do to make them work. Textbooks, technical guides, news — all they refer to expository writing, either.

• Can anyone help me with expository writing assignments?

Sure! Besides tons of online guides explaining how to write expository essays (like this one), you can go to thematic forums or communities to ask questions and get informative help there. Or, you are always welcome to ask for professional writing help here at Copycrafter: Our academic writers are happy to assist with any questions you might have on your expository writing assignment.