types of expository essays

Expository Essay

Types Of Expository Writing

Types of Expository Writing - Definition and Examples

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Expository Writing Definition

Expository writing is a genre of writing that is used to explain, describe, inform, or clarify a particular expository essay topic to the reader.

Unlike other forms of writing that may involve personal opinions or persuasion, the characteristics of expository writing include a focus on providing factual information in a clear and organized manner.

Expository essay writing is a very common form of writing; journals, newspaper articles, and essays usually demonstrate this type of writing.

While writing an expository essay, you need to explain everything in detail to make the idea clear for the reader. You can take help from expository essay examples to see what elements make a perfect expository essay.

What are the Types of Expository Writing?

There are 10 types of expository essay writing, including:

Compare and Contrast Essay

Cause and Effect Essay

Problem and Solution Essay

Process Essay

Definition essay.

Classification Essay
Descriptive Writing
Exploratory Writing
Anecdotal Evidence
Sequential Writing

Let’s take a look at common types of expository writing one by one.

Compare and Contrast Essay

The compare and contrast essay is a type of essay in which the writer compares and contrasts two things. The writer compares the similarities between the two selected subjects and contrasts the differences in those subjects. The subjects should belong to the same category.

In the cause and effect essay , the writer tries to find the cause of something; why did something happen? and what effects it might have. This type of essay has built around the reason that caused something to happen and its possible impacts.

There are two ways to structure a cause and effect essay:

Block structure: All the causes are presented first, and then all of their effects.
Chain structure: Each of the causes is followed by its effect straight away.

This essay could be based on assumptions or could be based on facts, but either way, they should be validated.

Problem and Solution Essay

In the problem solution essay , the writer identifies a problem and then proposes its solution. The writer examines the particular subject from various aspects and perspectives prior to providing a solution. This essay is somewhat similar to the cause and effect essay.

The process essay refers to the process of something, i.e., how to make an apple pie. This type of writing includes a step-by-step process of making or doing something.

This is how you write a process essay; it provides the complete process of doing something. The goal is to provide the process in such a way that the reader can follow the sequence without any mistakes.

The definition essay is a type of expository essay that gives a complete description of the topic. It explains what the term or the topic of the essay exactly means. Some terms have concrete meanings like glass, book, etc. Whereas some have abstract meanings like love, respect, honor, etc.

The definition essay revolves around explaining the purpose, what, why, and how aspects of the topic of the essay. This essay could start with the dictionary definition and ultimately provide the extended definition.

Classification Essay

Classification essays are a type of expository writing that categorizes and organizes objects, people, ideas, or concepts into distinct groups based on shared characteristics, features, or criteria. The goal is to help readers better understand the relationships and differences between these categories.

Descriptive Writing

Descriptive writing is a type of expository writing that aims to paint a vivid picture of a person, place, object, event, or concept in the reader's mind. It uses sensory details and vivid language to create a sensory experience for the audience.

Exploratory Writing

Exploratory writing aims to investigate a topic or question from multiple angles, often without taking a definitive stance. It allows the writer and reader to explore various viewpoints and ideas.

Anecdotal Evidence

Anecdotal evidence refers to personal stories, individual accounts, or isolated examples that are used to support a claim or argument. While anecdotal evidence can be compelling and relatable, it is based on personal experiences and may not reflect broader trends or realities.

Sequential Writing

Sequential writing, also known as chronological writing, involves organising information or events in a clear, time-based order. This approach is often used when presenting a series of actions, or events in a logical sequence, making it easier for readers to understand a process.

Types of Expository Writing Examples

You can use these types of expository writing PDF examples as a guide when writing your own paper. These examples show you what types of information to include and how it all comes together in one cohesive piece.

Types of Expository Writing Middle School

Types of Expository Writing Structure

Expository Writing Examples Pdf

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Tips for Expository Writing

The following are some easy types of expository writing strategies and tips. They will help you write an amazing essay.

Write your introduction in the most interesting way possible. Start with a hook, thesis statement, or exciting detail to make readers want more.
Make your essay clear and concise so that it doesn't confuse readers.
There are many ways to support your topic. You can use facts, data, and authentic sources.
It is important to consider the audience of your paper before you start writing.
Use authoritative sources to gather data for your paper.
To avoid any errors in the essay, proofread and edit it before submitting it.

As we've explored various types of expository writing, it's clear that each type serves a unique purpose.

By choosing the right type, you can engage readers and make complex ideas accessible to a wide audience.

Still, if you need help with an expository essay or any other type of essay, you can hire a professional essay writer.

My PerfectWords.com is an online writing service that you can rely on for getting quality essay help.

Our expository essay writing service has a team of experts that can create a perfect essay in no time. They can cater to all of your expository essay writing needs. From choosing a topic to crafting an expository essay outline to essay writing, they do it all.

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Frequently Asked Questions

What are the 4 characteristics of expository text.

The four main characteristics of expository text are;

Informative
Organization of the text

What are the five elements of expository writing?

The main five elements of expository writing are;

Topic sentence
Organization
Transitions
Evidence and examples

How many types of expository writing are there?

There are generally eight common types of expository writing:

Process/How-To Writing
Cause and Effect Writing
Compare and Contrast Writing
Problem-Solution Writing
Definition Writing
Classification Writing

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The four main types of essay | Quick guide with examples

The Four Main Types of Essay | Quick Guide with Examples

Published on September 4, 2020 by Jack Caulfield . Revised on July 23, 2023.

An essay is a focused piece of writing designed to inform or persuade. There are many different types of essay, but they are often defined in four categories: argumentative, expository, narrative, and descriptive essays.

Argumentative and expository essays are focused on conveying information and making clear points, while narrative and descriptive essays are about exercising creativity and writing in an interesting way. At university level, argumentative essays are the most common type.

In high school and college, you will also often have to write textual analysis essays, which test your skills in close reading and interpretation.

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Argumentative essays, expository essays, narrative essays, descriptive essays, textual analysis essays, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about types of essays.

An argumentative essay presents an extended, evidence-based argument. It requires a strong thesis statement —a clearly defined stance on your topic. Your aim is to convince the reader of your thesis using evidence (such as quotations ) and analysis.

Argumentative essays test your ability to research and present your own position on a topic. This is the most common type of essay at college level—most papers you write will involve some kind of argumentation.

The essay is divided into an introduction, body, and conclusion:

The introduction provides your topic and thesis statement
The body presents your evidence and arguments
The conclusion summarizes your argument and emphasizes its importance

The example below is a paragraph from the body of an argumentative essay about the effects of the internet on education. Mouse over it to learn more.

A common frustration for teachers is students’ use of Wikipedia as a source in their writing. Its prevalence among students is not exaggerated; a survey found that the vast majority of the students surveyed used Wikipedia (Head & Eisenberg, 2010). An article in The Guardian stresses a common objection to its use: “a reliance on Wikipedia can discourage students from engaging with genuine academic writing” (Coomer, 2013). Teachers are clearly not mistaken in viewing Wikipedia usage as ubiquitous among their students; but the claim that it discourages engagement with academic sources requires further investigation. This point is treated as self-evident by many teachers, but Wikipedia itself explicitly encourages students to look into other sources. Its articles often provide references to academic publications and include warning notes where citations are missing; the site’s own guidelines for research make clear that it should be used as a starting point, emphasizing that users should always “read the references and check whether they really do support what the article says” (“Wikipedia:Researching with Wikipedia,” 2020). Indeed, for many students, Wikipedia is their first encounter with the concepts of citation and referencing. The use of Wikipedia therefore has a positive side that merits deeper consideration than it often receives.

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An expository essay provides a clear, focused explanation of a topic. It doesn’t require an original argument, just a balanced and well-organized view of the topic.

Expository essays test your familiarity with a topic and your ability to organize and convey information. They are commonly assigned at high school or in exam questions at college level.

The introduction of an expository essay states your topic and provides some general background, the body presents the details, and the conclusion summarizes the information presented.

A typical body paragraph from an expository essay about the invention of the printing press is shown below. Mouse over it to learn more.

The invention of the printing press in 1440 changed this situation dramatically. Johannes Gutenberg, who had worked as a goldsmith, used his knowledge of metals in the design of the press. He made his type from an alloy of lead, tin, and antimony, whose durability allowed for the reliable production of high-quality books. This new technology allowed texts to be reproduced and disseminated on a much larger scale than was previously possible. The Gutenberg Bible appeared in the 1450s, and a large number of printing presses sprang up across the continent in the following decades. Gutenberg’s invention rapidly transformed cultural production in Europe; among other things, it would lead to the Protestant Reformation.

A narrative essay is one that tells a story. This is usually a story about a personal experience you had, but it may also be an imaginative exploration of something you have not experienced.

Narrative essays test your ability to build up a narrative in an engaging, well-structured way. They are much more personal and creative than other kinds of academic writing . Writing a personal statement for an application requires the same skills as a narrative essay.

A narrative essay isn’t strictly divided into introduction, body, and conclusion, but it should still begin by setting up the narrative and finish by expressing the point of the story—what you learned from your experience, or why it made an impression on you.

Mouse over the example below, a short narrative essay responding to the prompt “Write about an experience where you learned something about yourself,” to explore its structure.

Since elementary school, I have always favored subjects like science and math over the humanities. My instinct was always to think of these subjects as more solid and serious than classes like English. If there was no right answer, I thought, why bother? But recently I had an experience that taught me my academic interests are more flexible than I had thought: I took my first philosophy class.

Before I entered the classroom, I was skeptical. I waited outside with the other students and wondered what exactly philosophy would involve—I really had no idea. I imagined something pretty abstract: long, stilted conversations pondering the meaning of life. But what I got was something quite different.

A young man in jeans, Mr. Jones—“but you can call me Rob”—was far from the white-haired, buttoned-up old man I had half-expected. And rather than pulling us into pedantic arguments about obscure philosophical points, Rob engaged us on our level. To talk free will, we looked at our own choices. To talk ethics, we looked at dilemmas we had faced ourselves. By the end of class, I’d discovered that questions with no right answer can turn out to be the most interesting ones.

The experience has taught me to look at things a little more “philosophically”—and not just because it was a philosophy class! I learned that if I let go of my preconceptions, I can actually get a lot out of subjects I was previously dismissive of. The class taught me—in more ways than one—to look at things with an open mind.

A descriptive essay provides a detailed sensory description of something. Like narrative essays, they allow you to be more creative than most academic writing, but they are more tightly focused than narrative essays. You might describe a specific place or object, rather than telling a whole story.

Descriptive essays test your ability to use language creatively, making striking word choices to convey a memorable picture of what you’re describing.

A descriptive essay can be quite loosely structured, though it should usually begin by introducing the object of your description and end by drawing an overall picture of it. The important thing is to use careful word choices and figurative language to create an original description of your object.

Mouse over the example below, a response to the prompt “Describe a place you love to spend time in,” to learn more about descriptive essays.

On Sunday afternoons I like to spend my time in the garden behind my house. The garden is narrow but long, a corridor of green extending from the back of the house, and I sit on a lawn chair at the far end to read and relax. I am in my small peaceful paradise: the shade of the tree, the feel of the grass on my feet, the gentle activity of the fish in the pond beside me.

My cat crosses the garden nimbly and leaps onto the fence to survey it from above. From his perch he can watch over his little kingdom and keep an eye on the neighbours. He does this until the barking of next door’s dog scares him from his post and he bolts for the cat flap to govern from the safety of the kitchen.

With that, I am left alone with the fish, whose whole world is the pond by my feet. The fish explore the pond every day as if for the first time, prodding and inspecting every stone. I sometimes feel the same about sitting here in the garden; I know the place better than anyone, but whenever I return I still feel compelled to pay attention to all its details and novelties—a new bird perched in the tree, the growth of the grass, and the movement of the insects it shelters…

Sitting out in the garden, I feel serene. I feel at home. And yet I always feel there is more to discover. The bounds of my garden may be small, but there is a whole world contained within it, and it is one I will never get tired of inhabiting.

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Though every essay type tests your writing skills, some essays also test your ability to read carefully and critically. In a textual analysis essay, you don’t just present information on a topic, but closely analyze a text to explain how it achieves certain effects.

Rhetorical analysis

A rhetorical analysis looks at a persuasive text (e.g. a speech, an essay, a political cartoon) in terms of the rhetorical devices it uses, and evaluates their effectiveness.

The goal is not to state whether you agree with the author’s argument but to look at how they have constructed it.

The introduction of a rhetorical analysis presents the text, some background information, and your thesis statement; the body comprises the analysis itself; and the conclusion wraps up your analysis of the text, emphasizing its relevance to broader concerns.

The example below is from a rhetorical analysis of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech . Mouse over it to learn more.

King’s speech is infused with prophetic language throughout. Even before the famous “dream” part of the speech, King’s language consistently strikes a prophetic tone. He refers to the Lincoln Memorial as a “hallowed spot” and speaks of rising “from the dark and desolate valley of segregation” to “make justice a reality for all of God’s children.” The assumption of this prophetic voice constitutes the text’s strongest ethical appeal; after linking himself with political figures like Lincoln and the Founding Fathers, King’s ethos adopts a distinctly religious tone, recalling Biblical prophets and preachers of change from across history. This adds significant force to his words; standing before an audience of hundreds of thousands, he states not just what the future should be, but what it will be: “The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.” This warning is almost apocalyptic in tone, though it concludes with the positive image of the “bright day of justice.” The power of King’s rhetoric thus stems not only from the pathos of his vision of a brighter future, but from the ethos of the prophetic voice he adopts in expressing this vision.

Literary analysis

A literary analysis essay presents a close reading of a work of literature—e.g. a poem or novel—to explore the choices made by the author and how they help to convey the text’s theme. It is not simply a book report or a review, but an in-depth interpretation of the text.

Literary analysis looks at things like setting, characters, themes, and figurative language. The goal is to closely analyze what the author conveys and how.

The introduction of a literary analysis essay presents the text and background, and provides your thesis statement; the body consists of close readings of the text with quotations and analysis in support of your argument; and the conclusion emphasizes what your approach tells us about the text.

Mouse over the example below, the introduction to a literary analysis essay on Frankenstein , to learn more.

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is often read as a crude cautionary tale about the dangers of scientific advancement unrestrained by ethical considerations. In this reading, protagonist Victor Frankenstein is a stable representation of the callous ambition of modern science throughout the novel. This essay, however, argues that far from providing a stable image of the character, Shelley uses shifting narrative perspectives to portray Frankenstein in an increasingly negative light as the novel goes on. While he initially appears to be a naive but sympathetic idealist, after the creature’s narrative Frankenstein begins to resemble—even in his own telling—the thoughtlessly cruel figure the creature represents him as. This essay begins by exploring the positive portrayal of Frankenstein in the first volume, then moves on to the creature’s perception of him, and finally discusses the third volume’s narrative shift toward viewing Frankenstein as the creature views him.

If you want to know more about AI tools , college essays , or fallacies make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples or go directly to our tools!

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At high school and in composition classes at university, you’ll often be told to write a specific type of essay , but you might also just be given prompts.

Look for keywords in these prompts that suggest a certain approach: The word “explain” suggests you should write an expository essay , while the word “describe” implies a descriptive essay . An argumentative essay might be prompted with the word “assess” or “argue.”

The vast majority of essays written at university are some sort of argumentative essay . Almost all academic writing involves building up an argument, though other types of essay might be assigned in composition classes.

Essays can present arguments about all kinds of different topics. For example:

In a literary analysis essay, you might make an argument for a specific interpretation of a text
In a history essay, you might present an argument for the importance of a particular event
In a politics essay, you might argue for the validity of a certain political theory

An argumentative essay tends to be a longer essay involving independent research, and aims to make an original argument about a topic. Its thesis statement makes a contentious claim that must be supported in an objective, evidence-based way.

An expository essay also aims to be objective, but it doesn’t have to make an original argument. Rather, it aims to explain something (e.g., a process or idea) in a clear, concise way. Expository essays are often shorter assignments and rely less on research.

The key difference is that a narrative essay is designed to tell a complete story, while a descriptive essay is meant to convey an intense description of a particular place, object, or concept.

Narrative and descriptive essays both allow you to write more personally and creatively than other kinds of essays , and similar writing skills can apply to both.

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Expository Writing: Definition and Examples

Hannah Yang

What is expository writing, what is an expository paragraph, expository writing examples, how prowritingaid can help you with expository composition.

One of the most common types of writing is expository writing. Whether you’re a student taking an English class or a professional trying to communicate to others in your field, you’ll need to use expository writing in your day-to-day work.

So, what exactly does this term mean?

The short answer is that expository writing refers to any writing designed primarily to explain or instruct.

Read on to learn the definition of expository writing as well as some examples of what this type of writing can look like.

Before we look at examples of expository writing, let’s start with a quick definition of what this term actually means.

Expository Writing Definition

The term expository writing refers to any writing that’s designed to explain something. We use the word expository to describe any passage of writing that’s supposed to present information and help you understand it in an objective way.

Some common examples of expository writing include academic essays, textbooks, instructional guides, and news reports. Good expository writing should be factual, objective, and clear.

To better understand what this term means, think about the difference between a scientific article, a short story, and an advertisement.

The scientific article is considered expository writing because its primary purpose is to explain a particular topic in more detail. It presents data, analyzes what that data means, and focuses on the facts.

On the other hand, the short story isn’t considered expository writing, because its core purpose isn’t to explain or inform—instead, it’s probably trying to entertain you or to take you on a journey. Short stories are narrative writing.

Similarly, an advertisement isn’t expository writing because its core purpose isn’t to explain or inform—instead, it’s trying to persuade you to buy what it’s selling. Advertisements are persuasive writing.

Here’s a quick rundown of what expository essays should and shouldn’t do.

An expository essay should:

Teach the reader about a particular topic

Focus on the facts

Follow a clearly organized structure

Present information and details from credible sources

An expository essay should not:

Try to change the reader’s mind about something

Present the author’s personal opinions

Include made-up narratives or stories

Follow experimental or nonlinear structures

An expository paragraph is exactly what it sounds like—a paragraph of expository writing.

A well-written expository paragraph should follow a specific format to make it as clear and easy to read as possible. Most expository paragraphs do the following things:

Start with a topic sentence, which explains what the paragraph will be about

Then, include 3 – 5 body sentences that provide supporting details for the topic sentence

Finally, wrap things up with a closing sentence that summarizes what the paragraph has said

Writing an expository paragraph is a great way to practice expository writing. That’s because the paragraph follows the same structure as a more complex expository essay, just on a smaller scale.

Most expository essays should follow this format:

Start with an introductory paragraph that includes the thesis statement, which tells the reader the core statement of the essay

Then, include 3 – 5 body paragraphs that provide factual evidence to support the thesis statement

Finally, wrap things up with a concluding paragraph that summarizes what the body paragraphs and thesis statement said

You can see the similarities between the two formats. If you can write a fantastic expository paragraph, you’ll be well-prepared to move on to writing a full expository essay.

Example of Expository Paragraph

Here’s an example of an expository paragraph that follows the structure described above.

The leading cause of death in the United States is heart disease, which can be fatal if it leads to heart attack or cardiac arrest. Heart attacks occur when a blockage in the coronary artery prevents oxygenated blood from reaching the heart. Cardiac arrests occur when the heart stops pumping entirely, which prevents the patient from breathing normally. Both of these problems can be deadly, even in seemingly healthy people who don’t have noticeable risk factors. As a result, heart disease is an important problem that many doctors and scientists are researching.

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There are many ways you can present information in an expository essay. Here are four of the most popular ways, along with examples of each one.

Problem and Solution Essay

A problem and solution essay presents the reader with a problem and then considers possible solutions to that problem.

Here’s an example passage you might find in a problem and solution essay:

Among the many proposed solutions to rising carbon emissions, one promising possibility is carbon trapping. Scientists are figuring out how to pull carbon emissions out of the atmosphere and trap it in less harmful forms, such as by injecting carbon dioxide underground so it will turn to stone.

Compare and Contrast Essay

This type of essay takes two subjects and compares and contrasts them. It focuses on highlighting the differences and similarities between those two things.

Here’s an example passage of this type of expository writing:

Though country music and R&B music have very different sounds, they also share many similarities. For one thing, both types of music embody a specific cultural identity. For another, both genres trace their roots back to the 1920s, when the Victor Talking Machine Company signed singers from the American South.

Classification Essay

In a classification essay, you describe the categories within a certain group of things.

Here’s an example passage you might find in a classification essay:

There are three ways in which artificial intelligence might become stronger than humans in the future: high speed, high collective intelligence, and high quality. A speed AI would be able to perform calculations and experience the world much faster than humans. A collective intelligence, like a hive mind, would be able to break down a complex task into several parts and pursue them simultaneously. Finally, a quality AI would simply be able to solve more complex problems than humans could.

Process Essay

In a process essay, you give the reader the steps for completing a specific process. This is similar to a how-to guide or an instruction manual.

Here’s an example passage you might find in this type of expository writing:

Caramelize the chopped onions in a frying pan. When the onions have caramelized, mix in the bell peppers, mushrooms, and tomatoes and stir for 4 – 6 minutes or until all the ingredients have softened. If you want to add meat, you can add ground beef and cook for another 4 – 6 minutes. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Good expository writing should be easy to read. After all, the purpose of exposition is to explain things to your readers, and you won’t be able to accomplish that if they have trouble understanding your writing.

That’s why ProWritingAid can help you write an expository essay. The grammar checker can help you ensure your sentences flow well, you’re not missing any necessary punctuation, and all your words are precise and clear.

Good luck, and happy writing!

Hannah is a speculative fiction writer who loves all things strange and surreal. She holds a BA from Yale University and lives in Colorado. When she’s not busy writing, you can find her painting watercolors, playing her ukulele, or hiking in the Rockies. Follow her work on hannahyang.com or on Twitter at @hannahxyang.

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Expository Essay: 3 Building Blocks to Propose an Idea and Defend It

by Dixie-Ann Belle | 0 comments

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If you saw the words “expository essay” on a writing assignment, would your mind draw a blank? Would you immediately feel as if you had stumbled into unexplored territory?

Well there's good news.

This post is written by guest writer Dixie-Ann Belle. You can learn more about Dixie-Anne at the end of this article. Welcome Dixie-Ann!

You might not realize it, but chances are this is not your first encounter with this type of essay. Once you have been writing essays in academic environments, you have probably already worked on expository writing.

In this article, I hope to help you recognize this essay type and understand the expository essay outline. Comprehending the building blocks is instrumental in knowing how to construct an exceptional expository essay.

Lay a Strong Foundation

Over the years, I have taught and tutored college students one on one as they write academic essays, in face to face classrooms and online, and I have noticed a pattern. They often approach essays in one of two ways.

Some consider them with apprehension and are fearful of making mistakes. Others feel confident that they have written many essays before and think they have already mastered expository writing.

Interestingly, it's the latter who often end up the most shaken when they realize that they are not as familiar as they think with this type of writing.

What I hope to instill in my students is that they should not feel intimidated whatever their situation or essay assignment.

I encourage them to make sure they understand the foundations of the expository essay structure. I try to get them to grasp the basic blocks that need to be there, and once they do, they have a good chance of crafting a substantial piece of writing.

What is an Expository Essay?

Students are typically assigned one of at least four types of essays: the persuasive/argumentative essay, the descriptive essay, the technical essay, or the expository essay.

Writing an expository essay is one of the most important and valuable skills for you to master.

According to the Purdue Online Writing Lab:

The expository essay is a genre of essay that requires the student to investigate an idea, evaluate evidence, expound on the idea, and set forth an argument concerning that idea in a clear and concise manner.

Keep in mind that your expository writing centers on giving your reader information about a given topic or process. Your goal is to inform, describe, or define the subject for your readers.

As you work to achieve this, your essay writing must be formal, objective, and concise. No matter what your discipline, it's almost guaranteed that you will be required to write this common type essay one day.

Some expository essay examples could include:

Define the term ‘democracy'
Compare and contrast the benefits of cable television vs streaming
Outline the process that generates an earthquake
Classify the different types of tourism
Outline the aspects of a good fitness program

The possibilities are endless with expository writing, and it can cover a wide variety of topics and specialties.

3 Building Blocks of a Great Expository Essay

To make sure you're on the right track with this type of paper, it helps to understand the three building blocks of the expository essay format and how to apply them to the final expository essay structure .

1. Write an introduction

Most students know that an introductory paragraph should grab the interest of the reader. However, they might not realize that it should also provide context for the essay topic.

Ask yourself : What are you talking about in this essay? Why is this topic important? Some background details could help to establish the subject for your reader.

For example:

If you were writing an essay on the impact smartphones have on society, you might want to start with some information on the evolution of smartphones, the number of smartphones in society, the way people use the phones and more.

The introduction should start off with general information.

You then work your way down to the more specific and principal part of your introduction and the crown of your whole essay, the thesis statement.

What is the thesis statement?

Your thesis statement states in concise language what this essay is going to be about. It is one clear sentence which expresses the subject and the focus of this piece of writing. If there is a prompt, the thesis statement should directly answer that prompt.

Our smart phones topic might create a thesis statement like: Smart phones have many positive impacts for adults in the business world.

Right away the reader has some idea of what's ahead.

2. Write your body paragraphs

With your thesis statement clear in your mind and your introduction setting the scene, it is time to write your body paragraphs.

Each body paragraph contains supporting information including factual evidence for your essay topic. Each paragraph should each focus on one idea.

Depending on your word count and the teacher requirements, you can write any number of body paragraphs, but there are usually at least three for a basic five paragraph essay.

Each body paragraph should start with a topic sentence. A topic sentence is one single statement that explains the point of the paragraph. It directly refers to your thesis statement and tells you what the body paragraph is going to be about.

Remember our smart phone thesis statement? You need something that will relate to that thesis sentence and will alert the reader to what is to come.

Here's one possibility:

Smart phones can help increase productivity for professional adults.

This topic sentence not only reminds us that you are talking about positive impacts for adults with smart phones, it now shows us what the following paragraph will cover.

The best body paragraphs will go on to include different types of details, all of which would support your topic sentence. A good abbreviation to encapsulate the different details is spelt TEEES.

The TEEES Body Paragraph Structure

Let's break down this abbreviation and explore the types of details you'll need in your body paragraphs

T: Topic sentence

You'll begin with your topic sentence establishing the purpose of this paragraph. We'll use our example from above:

Smartphones can help increase productivity for professional adults.

E: Explanation

This is where you expand on your topic and include additional supportive information.

If you were talking about smartphones and productivity, maybe you could mention what elements of the smartphone make it optimal for productivity.

E: Evidence

This is the information from reputable sources you researched for your topic. Here's where you can talk about all the information you have discovered from experts who have carefully studied this subject.

For our smartphone essay, perhaps you could mention a quote from a technology reporter who has been following the rise of smartphones for years.

E: Examples

This would be concrete subject matter to support your point.

Maybe here you can list some of the smartphone apps which have proven to increase productivity in the workplace.

S: Significant/Summarizing sentence

This is the last sentence in the body paragraph which summarizes your point and ends this part of your essay. There should be no doubt in the reader's mind that you have finished talking about your topic, and you are moving on to another in the next paragraph. Here's how we could conclude this paragraph on smartphones and productivity:

Smartphones have transformed the productivity of the modern workforce.

3. Write the conclusion

Once you have written your body paragraphs, you're in the home stretch. You have presented all of your points and supported them with the appropriate subject matter. Now you need to conclude.

A lot of students are confused by conclusions. Many of them have heard different rules about what is supposed to be included.

One of the main requirements to keep in mind when ending an expository essay is that you do not add new information.

This is not the time to throw in something you forgot in a previous body paragraph. Your conclusion is supposed to give a succinct recap of the points that came before.

Sometimes college students are instructed to re-state the thesis, and this puzzles them. It doesn't mean re-writing the thesis statement word for word. You should express your thesis statement in a new way.

For example, here's how you could approach the conclusion for our smartphone essay.

You've come up with three points to support your thesis statement, and you've explored these three points in your body paragraphs. After brainstorming, you might decide the benefits of smartphones in the workplace are improved productivity, better communication, and increased mobility.

Your conclusion is the time to remind your reader of these points with concise language. Your reader should be able to read the conclusion alone and still come away with the basic ideas of your essay.

Plan Your Essay Based on an Expository Essay Outline

While writing fiction, it is sometimes okay to “pants” it and just leap into writing your story.

When writing essays in academia, this is rarely a good idea. Planning your essay helps organize your ideas, helps you refine many of your points early on and saves time in the long run.

There are lots of great brainstorming techniques you can use to get your ideas together, but after that, it's time to create a topic to sentence outline.

There are three steps to creating your topic to sentence essay outline.

Develop a powerful thesis statement. Remember, this is the overarching idea of your entire essay, so you have completed a significant step once you have one done.
Come up with the ideas you would like to support your thesis statement.
Based on your points, craft your topic sentences.

Here is an example of a topic to sentence outline:

Having these important foundation details completed is a great way to develop your essay as you build on each part. It is also an effective method to make sure you are on the right track.

Depending on your instructor (or tutor, if you have one), you can show your outline to them to get feedback before you launch into your entire essay.

Even if you don't have anyone to provide a critique, the outline can make it easier to revise how you will approach the rest of your paragraph essay.

You now have some firm foundations to help you as you construct your expository essay.

How do you organize an expository essay? Let us know in the comments .

Take fifteen minutes to practice writing your own expository essay.

First, choose an expository writing assignment topic. If you can't think of one, use one of the expository essay examples below .

What are the nutritional elements of a healthy breakfast?
What are some of the most influential types of music?
Compare and contrast the benefits of electric and gas cars.
What are the major steps to planning a stress-free vacation?
How do smartphones affect mental health?
Define true love.

Craft a thesis statement about your topic. Then, write three topic sentences for your body paragraphs.

With the time you have left, start writing your essay. You might be surprised how much you can write in fifteen minutes when you have a clear outline for your essay!

When your time is up, share your outline and your essay in the Pro Practice Workshop here . After you post, please be sure to give feedback to your fellow writers.

Happy writing!

Dixie-Ann Belle

Since she started scribbling stories in her notebooks as a child, Dixie-Ann Belle has been indulging her love of well crafted content. Whether she is working as a writing teacher and tutor or as a freelance writer, editor and proofreader, she enjoys helping aspiring writers develop their work and access their creativity.

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Purdue Online Writing Lab Purdue OWL® College of Liberal Arts

Expository Essays

Welcome to the Purdue OWL

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Copyright ©1995-2018 by The Writing Lab & The OWL at Purdue and Purdue University. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, reproduced, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without permission. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our terms and conditions of fair use.

The Modes of Discourse—Exposition, Description, Narration, Argumentation (EDNA)—are common paper assignments you may encounter in your writing classes. Although these genres have been criticized by some composition scholars, the Purdue OWL recognizes the wide spread use of these approaches and students’ need to understand and produce them.

What is an expository essay?

The expository essay is a genre of essay that requires the student to investigate an idea, evaluate evidence, expound on the idea, and set forth an argument concerning that idea in a clear and concise manner. This can be accomplished through comparison and contrast, definition, example, the analysis of cause and effect, etc.

Please note : This genre is commonly assigned as a tool for classroom evaluation and is often found in various exam formats.

The structure of the expository essay is held together by the following.

A clear, concise, and defined thesis statement that occurs in the first paragraph of the essay.

It is essential that this thesis statement be appropriately narrowed to follow the guidelines set forth in the assignment. If the student does not master this portion of the essay, it will be quite difficult to compose an effective or persuasive essay.

Clear and logical transitions between the introduction, body, and conclusion.

Transitions are the mortar that holds the foundation of the essay together. Without logical progression of thought, the reader is unable to follow the essay’s argument, and the structure will collapse.

Body paragraphs that include evidential support.

Each paragraph should be limited to the exposition of one general idea. This will allow for clarity and direction throughout the essay. What is more, such conciseness creates an ease of readability for one’s audience. It is important to note that each paragraph in the body of the essay must have some logical connection to the thesis statement in the opening paragraph.

Evidential support (whether factual, logical, statistical, or anecdotal).

Often times, students are required to write expository essays with little or no preparation; therefore, such essays do not typically allow for a great deal of statistical or factual evidence.

A bit of creativity!

Though creativity and artfulness are not always associated with essay writing, it is an art form nonetheless. Try not to get stuck on the formulaic nature of expository writing at the expense of writing something interesting. Remember, though you may not be crafting the next great novel, you are attempting to leave a lasting impression on the people evaluating your essay.

A conclusion that does not simply restate the thesis, but readdresses it in light of the evidence provided.

It is at this point of the essay that students will inevitably begin to struggle. This is the portion of the essay that will leave the most immediate impression on the mind of the reader. Therefore, it must be effective and logical. Do not introduce any new information into the conclusion; rather, synthesize and come to a conclusion concerning the information presented in the body of the essay.

A complete argument

Perhaps it is helpful to think of an essay in terms of a conversation or debate with a classmate. If I were to discuss the cause of the Great Depression and its current effect on those who lived through the tumultuous time, there would be a beginning, middle, and end to the conversation. In fact, if I were to end the exposition in the middle of my second point, questions would arise concerning the current effects on those who lived through the Depression. Therefore, the expository essay must be complete, and logically so, leaving no doubt as to its intent or argument.

The five-paragraph Essay

A common method for writing an expository essay is the five-paragraph approach. This is, however, by no means the only formula for writing such essays. If it sounds straightforward, that is because it is; in fact, the method consists of:

an introductory paragraph
three evidentiary body paragraphs
a conclusion

Home / Guides / Writing Guides / Paper Types / How to Write an Expository Essay

How to Write an Expository Essay

Every student has to write an expository essay at least once in their educational career. These are actually fairly simple essays to write, but they do require some serious research skills. Like most academic essays, the expository essay requires formal writing with an introduction, body, and conclusion.

Guide Overview

Focus on the thesis
Listen to the assignment
Explain, don’t argue
Revise and edit, revise and edit
Choosing the right topic

Tips for Writing a Kick-Butt Essay

Want to really impress your professor? Here are a few ways you can turn an ordinary essay into something that will blow their socks off.

Focus on the Thesis

Your thesis is the central point of the entire essay, so if it’s amazing, you’re off to a great start. Begin with this and make sure you decide on something that is impressive to kick off the essay.

Listen to the Assignment

Your professor may give you hints on what they’re looking for. If you just write down the basics of the assignment, you could miss out on some key points. For example, your professor may hint at a preferred topic or give tips that could result in a higher score. Write it all down and then analyze what is wanted before you write.

Long before you actually put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard to write the essay, you need to complete the pre-writing phase. This is where you do research and outline your essay. You’ll be amazed at how much better your writing is when you have these basic elements in place first. If you need help with these basic elements consider using an Expository Essay Template.

Explain, Don’t Argue

If you’re not careful, an expository essay can turn into a persuasive or argumentative essay. Focus on explaining the topic, rather than convincing people of something about it.

Revise and Edit, Revise and Edit

Going over the essay once to edit and polish isn’t really enough. If you’re tight on time, such as when writing an essay for an exam, just once will do. However, if you have time, it’s a good idea to edit immediately, then let the essay sit overnight or even longer. When you come back, you won’t be as close to the writing and can look at it more objectively.

Choosing the Right Topic

Topics for an expository essay vary widely, but ideally, you should select something you’re interested in writing about. Topics can answer a question such as “How can we prevent bullying in school?” or they can describe something like a historical building in your area. Other interesting topics to inspire you include:

How does technology affect our relationships?
How to treat a burn
What are the must-haves for a freshman in college?
How to handle anxiety attacks naturally
How to train your dog to stop barking on command
Research the history of a monument in your area
Why roller skating is a great exercise

As you can see, there’s no limit to the types of topics you can choose for your essay and it really comes down to what the professor assigns you and what you enjoy writing about. How narrow your topic is will also depend on how much you plan to write. An entire history of the Civil War won’t fit into two page, for example, so you’ll need to narrow it down to a specific battle or element of the Civil War.

Writing an expository essay can actually be a fun experience if you approach it the right way. When you enjoy the topic and are interested in it, your essay will show that and will stand out from those written out of boredom.

Finally, if you’re ever facing writer’s block for your college paper, consider WriteWell Essay Templates to help you get started.

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Expository Writing: The Craft of Sharing Information

Expository writing is a form of writing that aims to present information in a factual and objective manner in order to describe a topic. It’s commonly used in academic papers, business reports, encyclopedia articles, and some nonfiction books.

In this article we’ll take a closer look at the characteristics of expository writing and provide some examples of how it is used. Let’s dive in.

It's a type of writing that informs and educates

Illustration of a student taking notes of what the teacher says

Unlike creative writing , which aims, broadly speaking, to entertain, the purpose of expository writing is to inform and educate readers about a particular subject by presenting accurate information in a clear manner. For this purpose, the writing style should be neutral and objective, and information should only come from reliable and citable sources.

Of course, telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth can be a daunting (if not impossible) task. Even the most rigorous scientists, journalists, and authors sometimes end up referencing inaccurate data, or inadvertently fall back on their biases when presenting their research.

In general, expository writing aims to avoid expressing personal opinions and using flowery language or literary devices that may leave things open for interpretation. At the same time, readers should know that there is no such thing as a purely objective account and always consider an author’s potential biases and shortcomings.

You’ll find it in textbooks, reports, and manuals

Expository writing can be used in various contexts and formats where readers expect accurate information or a neutral description of a situation, such as business reports, academic papers, textbooks, encyclopedias, news articles, and instruction manuals.

Here are some examples of expository writing:

But before we dismiss expository writing as just “boring stuff,” we should also note how this mode of writing can be used (and is sometimes necessary) in creative works.

And in literature, to some extent

You can find some elements of expository writing in narrative exposition , which authors use in novels to share background information about the characters and the world they live in. For example, notice how Tolkien introduces Bilbo Baggins in the first page of The Lord of The Ring :

Bilbo was very rich and very peculiar, and had been the wonder of the Shire for sixty years, ever since his remarkable disappearance and unexpected return. The riches he had brought back from his travels had now become a local legend, and it was popularly believed, whatever the old folk might say, that the Hill at Bag End was full of tunnels stuffed with treasure.

In just one paragraph, we learn a little bit about Bilbo (he is rich, peculiar, and over 60 years old). But more importantly, the narrator describes how he is perceived within his community — what his legend is amongst other Hobbits.

Still of Bilbo Baggins in The Lord of The Ring

Similarly, creative nonfiction often combines expository writing with a more creative approach to share information in a captivating way. Here is how Micheal Pollan describes plants' capacity for photosynthesis in The Botany of Desire :

Plants are nature’s alchemists, expert at transforming water, soil and sunlight into an array of precious substances, many of them beyond the ability of human beings to conceive, much less manufacture.

Pollan’s words are poetic, musing on plants' ability to transform elements into new substances, but it is also factual, in the sense that it refers to actual natural processes. However, in both cases, the writing might be too much on the creative side to qualify as “purely expository.”

Now that we have a better sense of what expository writing is and where you can find it, let’s look at some of its most common and practical applications.

It’s used to define a subject

In reference texts like dictionaries and encyclopedias, expository writing is used to define subjects or topics, from historical figures and events, to concepts and nouns.

Here are some examples from three different sources:

Encyclopedia: Martin Luther King, Jr.

Martin Luther King, Jr., original name Michael King, Jr., (born January 15, 1929, Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.—died April 4, 1968, Memphis, Tennessee), Baptist minister and social activist who led the civil rights movement in the United States from the mid-1950s until his death by assassination in 1968. ( Encyclopedia Britannica )

Handbook: Generalized Anxiety Disorder

Excessive anxiety and worry (apprehensive expectation), occurring more days than not for at least 6 months, about a number of events or activities (such as work or school performance) . ( The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders , 5th Edition)

Dictionary: Tree

A woody perennial plant having a single usually elongate main stem generally with few or no branches on its lower part. (The Merriam-Webster Dictionary)

All the above definitions try to describe the respective subjects in a straightforward, yet detailed manner, using vocabulary that leaves little room for doubt and misunderstanding.

These types of definitions are, in a way, like the axioms of human communication 一 they are the foundation upon which we make sense of the world. To communicate and collaborate effectively with one another, we must agree on the meaning of words. If we couldn't agree on the definition of what a tree is, for example, we couldn’t have a mutual understanding of leaves, branches, roots, fruits, rainforests, and so on. And if that were the case, our civilization would have likely never been built 一 that’s how important definitions are!

It can elaborate on ideas

Expository writing is also used to elaborate on ideas, by presenting data to support a thesis, and formulating a conclusion. This can be achieved through different mediums, like a scientific paper, a newspaper column, or nonfiction book .

Book cover of Steven Pinker's The Better Angels of Our Nature

[F]rom the 13th century to the 20th, homicide in various parts of England plummeted by a factor of ten, fifty, and in some cases a hundred—for example, from 110 homicides per 100,000 people per year in 14th-century Oxford to less than 1 homicide per 100,000 in mid-20th-century London.

The way Pinker provides the information is helpful in many ways. First, it provides context by clarifying the time frame and geographical interest of the data presented. Second, it emphasizes how the rate has been declining almost exponentially (by a factor of ten, fifty, a hundred) to better get his point across. Third, it clarifies what the data means by making a stark comparison between homicide numbers in 14th-century Oxford and mid-20th-century London. As a result, the reader can better understand the scale to which violence has decreased, and Pinker appears as an authority on the subject.

This type of exposition has been at the core of human reasoning since the times of Thales, Aristotle, and Plato. It has helped regular citizens grasp, in a short space of time, ideas that took thinkers and scientists many years to formulate. When innovative concepts are laid out clearly, methodically, and in layman's terms, it can truly democratize knowledge and expand the collective wisdom of humankind.

☝️ Please note that expository writing is different from argumentative or persuasive writing, which aim to take a stand and prove a (subjective) point or opinion, though expository writing can be used in argumentative or persuasive writing.

This type of writing effort, just like the others, requires referencing a healthy amount of trustworthy (and un-cherry-picked) sources to support their arguments. If, as an author, one of your aims is to convince and compel your reader — you can work with a nonfiction editor who can nudge you in the right direction and double-check your reasoning.

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And it can solve a reader’s problem

Another use for expository writing is to help an audience solve specific problems, teaching them anything from how to cook lasagna, change a lightbulb, or hem a dress. You see this in articles and guides, where the author lays out the steps to follow to complete a process.

For example, in our post on how to publish a book on Amazon , we tell the reader to start by logging into KDP, then creating a new title, adding a description and so on.

The best blog posts, guides, and manuals answer even the smallest of questions and doubts the reader might have, using graphs, images, and videos to complement the text. They (metaphorically) hold the reader’s hand, and guide them through a problem or challenge they’re faced with, saving them time and stress (as anyone who’s been helped by random bloggers on the Internet can attest to).

Expository writing can also be fun to read

Just because expository writing often deals with cold hard facts and processes, it doesn’t mean it should be written unenthusiastically or that it shouldn’t bring out a reaction in the reader. Depending on how much your medium allows it, you can infuse your science-backed claims with a little bit of humor and personality. For example, biologist Robert Sapolsky does it brilliantly in his book Behave :

There are misconceptions as to which ape is our “closest relative.” In my experience, someone who is fond of duck hunting and country music usually votes chimp, but if you eat organic food and know about oxytocin, it’s bonobo. The reality is that we’re equally related to both, sharing roughly 98 to 99 percent of our DNA with each.

The sentence is fun and engaging to read 一 it invokes a cartoonish image that pokes at the stereotypical right and left-wing voters, but sticks to the facts when it comes down to it, and succeeds in educating the reader about our shared genetics with apes.

Photo of a monkey with a shocked expression

A book might allow more freedom than a scientific paper, but when possible it’s a good idea to make expository writing fun 一 after all, people learn better when they’re fully engaged.

And it can be the foundation of great satire

Lastly, some satirical outlets like The Onion use the serious and authoritative tone of expository writing as a comic device to skewer the self-serious nature of news media. Take, for example, this report on the Great Trout War , which is written in the style of an AP or Reuters report:

WASHINGTON—In response to decades of hostility coming to a close, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced Thursday that the Great Trout War had finally ended. After 12 years of conflict, trout leaders have signed an accord at the Lake Superior Summit putting an end to the war that has taken countless trout lives,” said Fish and Wildlife Service director Martha Williams, explaining that the U.S. would now be pulling troops out of their bases in the Cuyahoga and Rio Grande rivers.

The contrast created by the momentous tone and the absurdity of the content makes for some great satire. While this type of content contains zero facts 一 may the trout dynasties forgive us 一 it might be making a very uncomfortable point about US military operations abroad. Still, it stands as a good example of the form and style of expository writing; one that is certainly enjoyable to read.

Expository writing aims to present information in a clear and unbiased way around a wide variety of topics, from science, to business, to history, to literature. The type of content produced through this type of writing is a fundamental part of how we learn and make sense of the world. This article itself is an exercise of expository writing, and we certainly hope it succeeded in making you more informed about the subject.

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How to Write Excellent Expository Essays

WHAT IS AN EXPOSITORY ESSAY?

An Expository essay ‘exposes’ information to the reader to describe or explain a particular topic logically and concisely.

The purpose of expository writing is to educate or inform the reader first and foremost.

Though the term is sometimes used to include persuasive writing , which exposes us to new ways of thinking, a true expository text does not allow the writer’s personal opinion to intrude into the text and should not be confused.

Expository Writing follows a structured format with an introduction, body paragraphs presenting information and examples, and a conclusion summarising key points and reinforcing the thesis. Common expository essays include process, comparison/contrast, cause and effect, and informative essays.

EXPOSITORY ESSAY STRUCTURE

TEXT ORGANIZATION Organize your thoughts before writing.

CLARITY Use clear and concise wording. There is no room for banter.

THESIS STATEMENT State position in direct terms.

TOPIC SENTENCE Open each paragraph with a topic sentence.

SUPPORTING DETAIL Support the topic sentence with further explanation and evidence.

LINK End each body paragraph by linking to the next.

EXPOSITORY ESSAY TYPES

PROCESS Tell your audience how to achieve something, such as how to bake a cake.

CAUSE & EFFECT Explore relationships between subjects, such as climate change and its impact.

PROBLEM & SOLUTION Explain how to solve a problem, such as improving physical fitness.

COMPARE & CONTRAST Compare and contrast two or more items, such as life in China life vs life in the United States or Australia.

DEFINITION Provides a detailed definition of a word or phrase, such as self-confidence.

CLASSIFICATION Organizes things into categories or groups, such as types of music.

STRUCTURE & FEATURES OF EXPOSITORY WRITING

While there are many types of expository essays, the basic underlying structure is the same. The Hamburger or 5-Paragraph Essay structure is an excellent scaffold for students to build their articles. Let’s explore the expository essay outline.

INTRODUCTION:

This is the top bun of the burger, and here the student introduces the exposition topic. This usually consists of a general statement on the subject, providing an essay overview. It may also preview each significant section, indicating what aspects of the subject will be covered in the text. These sections will likely relate to the headings and subheadings identified at the planning stage.

If the introduction is the top bun of the burger, then each body paragraph is a beef patty. Self-contained in some regards, each patty forms an integral part of the whole.

EXPOSITORY PARAGRAPHS

Each body paragraph deals with one idea or piece of information. More complex topics may be grouped under a common heading, and the number of paragraphs will depend on the complexity of the topic. For example, an expository text on wolves may include a series of paragraphs under headings such as habitat, breeding habits, what they eat, etc.

Each paragraph should open with a topic sentence indicating to the reader what the paragraph is about. The following sentences should further illuminate this main idea through discussion and/or explanation. Encourage students to use evidence and examples here, whether statistical or anecdotal. Remind students to keep things factual – this is not an editorial piece for a newspaper!

expository essays | BlueandCreamSimpleExpositoryGraphicOrganizer | How to Write Excellent Expository Essays | literacyideas.com

Expository writing is usually not the place for flowery flourishes of figurative imagery! Students should be encouraged to select a straightforward language that is easy for the reader to understand. After all, the aim here is to inform and explain, and this is best achieved with explicit language.

As we’ve seen, several variations of the expository essay exist, but the following are the most common features students must include.

The title should be functional. It should instantly inform the reader what they will learn about in the text. This is not the place for opaque poetry!

A table of contents in long essays will help the reader locate helpful information quickly. Usually, the page numbers found here will be linked to headings and subheadings to be found in the text.

HEADINGS / SUBHEADINGS:

These assist the reader in finding information by summarizing the content in their wording.

expository essays | How to Write Excellent Expository Essays | literacyideas.com

Usually listed alphabetically, the glossary defines unusual or topic-specific vocabulary and is sometimes accompanied by pictures, illustrations etc.

The index lets the reader identify where to find specific information in longer texts. An index is much more detailed than a table of contents.

VISUAL FORMS OF INFORMATION

Expository essays sometimes support the text with visuals, such as:

Pictures / Illustrations / Photographs:

These can be used to present a central idea or concept within the text and are often accompanied by a caption explaining what the image shows. Photographs can offer a broad overview or a close-up of essential details.

Diagrams are a great way to convey complex information quickly. They should be labelled clearly to ensure the reader knows what they are looking at.

Charts and Graphs:

These are extremely useful for showing data and statistics in an easy-to-read manner. They should be labelled clearly and correspond to the information in the nearby text.

Maps may be used to explain where something is or was located.

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expository essays | nonfiction writing unit | How to Write Excellent Expository Essays | literacyideas.com

270 pages of the most effective teaching strategies
50+ digital tools ready right out of the box
75 editable resources for student differentiation
Loads of tricks and tips to add to your teaching tool bag
All explanations are reinforced with concrete examples.
Links to high-quality video tutorials
Clear objectives easy to match to the demands of your curriculum

Types of expository essay

There are many different types of expository texts (e.g. encyclopaedias, travel guides, information reports , etc.), but there are also various expository essays, with the most common being.

Process Essays
Cause and Effect Essays
Problem and Solution Essays
Compare and Contrast Essays
Definition Essays
Classification Essays

We will examine each of these in greater detail in the remainder of this article, as they have slight nuances and differences that make them unique. The graphic below explains the general structure for all text types from the expository writing family.

THE PROCESS ESSAY

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This how-to essay often takes the form of a set of instructions. Also known as a procedural text , the process essay has very specific features that guide the reader on how to do or make something.

To learn more about this type of writing, check out our information-packed article here .

Features of a process essay

Some of the main features of the process essay include:

‘How to’ title
Numbered or bullet points
Time connectives
Imperatives (bossy words)
List of resources

Example Expository Process Essay:

The cause and effect essay.

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The purpose of a cause-and-effect essay is to explore the causal relationships between things. Essays like this often bring the focus back to a single cause. These essays frequently have a historical focus.

The text should focus on facts rather than assumptions as an expository essay. However, cause-and-effect essays sometimes explore hypothetical situations too.

There are two main ways to structure a cause-and-effect essay.

The Block Structure presents all the causes first. The writer then focuses on the effects of these causes in the second half of the essay.

The Chain Structure presents each cause and then immediately follows with the effects it created.

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Example Expository Cause and Effect Essay:

The problem and solution essay.

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In this type of essay, the writer first identifies a problem and then explores the topic from various angles to ultimately propose a solution. It is similar to the cause-and-effect essay.

While the problem and solution essay can use the block and chain structures as outlined above – substitute cause with problem and effect with a solution – it will also usually work through the following elements:

Identifies a problem
Contains a clear thesis statement
Each paragraph has a topic sentence
Supports with facts, examples, evidence
The conclusion summarizes the main points

Suggested Title: What Can Be Done to Prevent Bullying in Schools?

Example Expository Problem and Solution Essay:

The compare and contrast essay.

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In this type of essay, students evaluate the similarities and differences between two or more things, ideas, people, etc. Usually, the subjects will belong to the same category.

The compare-and-contrast expository essay can be organized in several different ways. Three of these are outlined below.

In the three structures outlined, it is assumed that two subjects are being compared and contrasted. Of course, the precise number of paragraphs required in the text will depend on the number of points the student wishes to make and the number of subjects being compared and contrasted.

Suggested Title: In-Class or Remote Learning: Which Is Best?

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DEFINITION ESSAYS

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This type of essay provides a detailed description and definition of a word or phrase. It can be a concrete term, such as car or glass, or a more abstract concept, such as love or fear .

A definition essay comprehensively explains a term’s purpose and meaning. It will frequently contain some or all of the following elements:

A definition of the term
An analysis of its meaning
The etymology of the term
A comparison to related terms
Examples to illustrate the meaning
A summary of the main points

Example Expository Definition Essay:

CLASSIFICATION ESSAYS

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Like definition essays, a classification essay sorts or organizes things into various groups or categories and explains each group or category in detail.

Classification essays focus on:

Sorting things into functional categories
Ensuring each category follows a common organizing principle
Provides examples that illustrate each category.

Example Expository Classification Essay:

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One of the best ways to understand the different features of expository essays is to see them in action. The sample essay below is a definition essay but shares many features with other expository essays.

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EXPOSITORY WRITING PROMPTS

Examples of Expository Essay Titles

Expository essay prompts are usually pretty easy to spot.

They typically contain keywords that ask the student to explain something, such as “define,” “outline,” “describe,” or, most directly of all, “explain.”

This article will examine the purpose of an expository essay and its structure. It will also examine the primary language and stylistic features of this vital text type.

After this, we’ll explore five distinct tips for helping your students get the most out of writing their expository essays.

Expository Essays vs Argumentative Essays

Expository essays are often confused with their close cousin, the argumentative essay. Still, it’s easy to help students distinguish between the two by quickly examining their similarities and differences.

In an expository essay, students will attempt to write about a thing or a concept neutrally and objectively, unlike an argumentative essay where the writer’s opinions permeate the text throughout. Simple as it sounds, this may take some doing for some students as it requires the writer to refine their personal voice almost out of existence!

Luckily, choosing the correct viewpoint from which to write the essay can go a long way to helping students achieve the desired objectivity. Generally, students should write their expository essays from the third-person perspective.

Contrastingly, argumentative essays are subjective in nature and will usually be written from the first-person perspective as a result.

In an expository essay, the text’s prime focus is the topic rather than the writer’s feelings on that topic. For the writer, disassociating their personal feelings on a topic is much easier when they’re a step removed from the narration by using the third-person POV rather than the first-person POV.

Expository Essay Tips

Follow these top tips from the experts to craft an amazing expository essay.

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Tip #1: Choose the Right Tool for the Job

Surprising as it may seem, not all expository essays are created equal.

In fact, there are several different types of expository essays, and our students must learn to recognize each and choose the correct one for their specific needs when producing their own expository essays.

To do this, students will need to know the 5 types of expository essays:

The Cause and Effect Essay : This type of essay requires that the writer explain why something happened and what occurred due to that event and subsequent events. It explores the relationship between people, ideas, events, or things and other people, ideas, events, or things.
The Compare and Contrast Essay: In a compare and contrast essay, the writer examines the similarities and differences between two subjects or ideas throughout the body of the piece and usually brings things together in an analysis at the end .
The Descriptive Essay: This is a very straightforward expository essay with a detailed description or explanation of a topic. The topic may be an event, place, person, object, or experience. This essay’s direct style is balanced with the freedom of the writer can inject some of their creativity into the description.
The Problem and Solution Essay : In this expository essay, the student will work to find valid solutions to a specific problem or problem.
The Process Essay : Also called a how-to essay, this essay type is similar to instruction writing, except in essay form. It provides a step-by-step procedure breakdown to teach the reader how to do something.

When choosing a specific topic to write about, students should consider several factors:

● Do they know the topic well enough to explain the ins and outs of the subject to an unfamiliar audience?

● Do they have enough interest in this topic to sustain thorough research and writing about it?

● Is enough relevant information and credible sources available to fuel the student’s writing on this topic?

Tip # 2: Research the Topic Thoroughly

Regardless of which type of expository essay your students are working on, they must approach the research stage of the writing process with diligence and focus. The more thorough they are at the research stage, the smoother the remainder of the writing process will be.

A common problem for students while researching is that sometimes they don’t have a clear understanding of the objective of their research. They lack a clear focus on their efforts.

Research is not mindlessly scanning documents and scrawling occasional notes. As with any part of the writing process, it begins with determining clear objectives.

Often, students will start the research process with a broad focus, and as they continue researching, they will naturally narrow their focus as they learn more about the topic.

Take the time to help students understand that writing isn’t only about expressing what we think; it’s also about discovering what we think.

When researching, students should direct their efforts to the following:

REad our complete guide to researching here

Gather Supporting Evidence : The research process is not only for uncovering the points to be made within the essay but also the evidence to support those points. The aim here is to provide an objective description or analysis of the topic; therefore, the student will need to gather relevant supporting evidence, such as facts and statistics, to bolster their writing. Usually, each paragraph will open with a topic sentence, and subsequent sentences in the paragraph will focus on providing a factual, statistical, and logical analysis of the paragraph’s main point.
Cite Sources : It’s an essential academic skill to be able to cite sources accurately. There are several accepted methods of doing this, and you must choose a citation style appropriate to your student’s age, abilities, and context. However, whatever style you choose, students should get used to citing any sources they use in their essays, either in the form of embedded quotations, endnotes, or bibliography – or all three!
Use Credible Sources: The Internet has profoundly impacted knowledge sharing as the Gutenberg Press did almost 600 years ago. It has provided unparalleled access to the sum total of human knowledge as never before, with each student having a dizzying number of sources available at their fingertips. However, we must ensure our students understand that not all sources are created equal. Encourage students to seek credible sources in their research and filter out the more dubious sources. Some questions students can ask themselves to help determine a source’s credibility include:

● Have I searched thoroughly enough to find the most relevant sources for my topic?

● Has this source been published recently? Is it still relevant?

● Has the source been peer-reviewed? Have other sources confirmed this source?

● What is the publication’s reputation?

● Is the author an expert in their field?

● Is the source fact-based or opinion-based?

Tip #3: Sketch an Outline

Every kid knows you can’t find the pirate treasure without a map, which is true of essay writing. Using their knowledge of the essay’s structure, students start whipping their research notes into shape by creating an outline for their essay.

The 5-paragraph essay or ‘Hamburger’ essay provides a perfect template for this.

Students start by mapping out an appealing introduction built around the main idea of their essay. Then, from their mound of research, they’ll extract their most vital ideas to assign to the various body paragraphs of their text.

Finally, they’ll sketch out their conclusion, summarize their essay’s main points, and, where appropriate, make their final statement on the topic.

Tip #4: Write a Draft

Title chosen? Check! Topic researched? Check! Outline sketched? Check!

Well, then, it’s time for the student to begin writing in earnest by completing the first draft of their essay.

They’ll already have a clear idea of the shape their essay will take from their research and outlining processes, but ensure your students allow themselves some leeway to adapt as the writing process throws up new ideas and problems.

That said, students will find it helpful to refer back to their thesis statement and outline to help ensure they stay on track as they work their way through the writing process towards their conclusions.

As students work through their drafts, encourage them to use transition words and phrases to help them move smoothly through the different sections of their essays.

Sometimes, students work directly from an outline as if on a checklist. This can sometimes be seen as the finished essay resembling Frankenstein. That is an incongruous series of disparate body parts crudely stitched together.

Learning to use transitions effectively will help students create an essay that is all of a whole, with all the joins and seams sanded and smoothed from view.

Tip #5: Edit with a Fresh Pair of Eyes

Once the draft is complete, students enter the final crucial editing stage.

But, not so hasty! Students must pencil in some time to let their drafts ‘rest’. If the editing process occurs immediately after the student finishes writing their draft, they’ll likely overlook much.

Editing is best done when students have time to gain a fresh perspective on their work. Ideally, this means leaving the essay overnight or over a few nights. However, practically, this isn’t always possible. Usually, though, it will be possible for students to put aside their writing for a few hours.

With the perspective that only time gives, when returning to their work, students can identify areas for improvement that they may have missed. Some important areas for students to look at in the editing process include:

Bias : Students need to remember the purpose of this essay is to present a balanced and objective description of the topic. They need to ensure they haven’t let their own personal bias slip through during the writing process – an all too easy thing to do!
Clarity : Clarity is as much a function of structure as language. Students must ensure their paragraphs are well organized and express their ideas clearly. Where necessary, some restructuring and rewriting may be required.
Proofread: With stylistic and structural matters taken care of, it’s now time for the student to shift their focus onto matters of spelling , vocabulary choice, grammar, and punctuation. This final proofread represents the last run-through of the editing process. It’s the students’ final chance to catch mistakes and errors that may bias the assessor (aka You! ) against the effectiveness of the piece of writing. Where the text has been word-processed, the student can enlist inbuilt spelling and grammar checkers to help. Still, they should also take the time to go through each line word by word. Automatic checkers are a helpful tool, but they are a long way from infallible, and the final judgement on a text should employ the writer’s own judgement.

Expository essays are relatively straightforward pieces of writing. By following the guidelines mentioned above and practising them regularly, students can learn to produce well-written expository essays quickly and competently.

Explaining and describing events and processes objectively and clearly is a useful skill that students can add to their repertoire. Although it may seem challenging at first, with practice, it will become natural.

To write a good expository essay, students need a good understanding of its basic features and a firm grasp of the hamburger essay structure. As with any writing genre, prewriting is essential, particularly for expository writing.

Since expository writing is designed primarily to inform the reader, sound research and note-taking are essential for students to produce a well-written text. Developing these critical skills is an excellent opportunity for students through expository writing, which will be helpful to them as they continue their education.

Redrafting and editing are also crucial for producing a well-written expository essay. Students should double-check facts and statistics, and the language should be edited tightly for concision.

And, while grading their efforts, we might even learn a thing or two ourselves!

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Expository Essay Writing

Types Of Expository Writing

Types of Expository Writing - Tips & Examples

Published on: May 12, 2020

Last updated on: Feb 24, 2024

Expository Writing Definition

Expository writing is a type of essay where the writer explains or investigates a specific subject. This type of expository writing includes essays, newspaper articles, textbooks, manuals, and other writing forms. Moreover, it is also different from other forms of writing, like fiction and poetry.

Keep in mind; you have to explain everything in detail while writing an expository essay. Here, the writer assumes that the audience has little or no background information about the topic.

This writing type depends on how well you describe or inform the reader about the particular subject. Thus, use the words that clearly show what you are discussing rather than telling the reader what has been discussed. The clarity of words in expository writing is essential, and it is considered the writerâs main skill.

Types of Expository Writing

Expository writing has different genres, and it depends on the goal of the writer. Each type has its purpose for writing. There are many different types of expository essays that you can choose to write on.

The following are the most popular types of expository writing:

Types of Expository Writing - CollegeEssay.org

Cause and Effect Essay

In cause and effect expository writing, you have to describe why something has happened and its effects. This type of essay is built on the consequences or effects of something. They can be either positive or negative.

Moreover, the cause and effect essay gives the reader a clear relationship between the two subjects. The main goal is to provide supporting evidence and demonstrate the cause and effect relationship between the two ideas. The results in the body paragraphs can be based on assumptions but must be valid.

Such types of essays are common in literary essays or social studies reports. Check out the given example to understand better.

Cause and Effect Essay Example

Problem and Solution Essay

In a problem-solution essay, the writer provides an analysis of the problems and their solution. The best method of writing this essay is to offer numerous solutions and highlight their pros and cons. Here, a writer has to justify the solutions and show how they can be implemented. Lastly, you can present your recommendations based on the solution.

The problem-solution essay has four components:

Have a look at the following example to get a better idea.

Problem and Solution Essay Example

Comparison and Contrast Essay

The compare and contrast essay is based on finding the similarities and differences between two or more subjects. A good way of writing this type of college essay is to choose the right theme for making your comparison.

For Example:

You can explore the similarities and differences between the two political personalities. For this, compare and contrast their education, skills, and behavior towards people.

Check out the given file to get a detailed example of writing this essay.

Comparison and Contrast Essay Example

Definition Essay

In a definition essay , you have to give a complete description of the topic. Moreover, this essay is all about what, why, and how of the essay topic. Here, you have to describe a place, event, concept, or experience that is appealing to the readerâs five senses.

Furthermore, such an essay requires the writer to describe something in-depth by adding your perspective. Ensure to use controversial words in your writing piece to make it strong.

The following is an example for you to write this type of essay.

Definition Essay Example

Classification Essay

In the classification essay, you have to divide the essay topic into different categories and groups. It must be based on each categoryâs predefined criteria. Moreover, you have to explain the categories in detail.

Such an essay type is useful to study the unique features of a particular thing. For a good classification essay, a writer must choose a topic that can be easily divided into smaller or more defined groups.

Have a look at the following example to get a clear idea.

Classification Essay Example

Process Essay

The process essay tells you about a task and the method to complete it. Similarly, it involves a step-by-step guide to making or doing something.

Suppose you have to write the process essay on how to make tea. First, address the problem and then explain the main steps involved in making tea.

Check out the following examples to get a comprehensive understanding.

Process Essay Example

Types of Expository Writing Examples

An expository essay explains the topic with facts and research. Here are some types of expository essay examples that can help a lot in the writing process.

Types of Expository Writing Middle School

Types of Expository Writing Structure

Tips for Expository Writing

Here are some easy tips for expository writing for you to write an amazing essay.

It is not mandatory to start writing with the introduction.
It is better to create the outline first.
Be clear and concise so that your essay should not confuse readers.
Support your topic with facts, data, and authentic sources.
Think about your audience before starting writing the essay.
Gather data from reliable sources written by experts.
Create a strong thesis statement.
Make a list of interesting examples for illustrating the key points.
Proofread and edit the essay before submitting it.

The guide mentioned above will help you understand these expository essay types.

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Frequently Asked Questions

What are the five elements of expository writing.

The five elements of expository writing are:

Organization
Thesis Statement
Transitions
Evidence and Examples
Conclusion

How do you end an expository paragraph?

The following are the steps that will help you to end the expository paragraph:

Summarize the entire essay.
Provide a strong closing of the essay.
Restate the thesis statement.

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How to Write an Expository Essay Better, Faster, and In a More Satisfying Manner

What Is an Expository Essay?

If you find yourself here, it's likely because you've recently received an assignment for an expository essay, or perhaps you're drawn to exploring ideas beyond the surface level. Whatever the reason, we're here to guide you through the expository essay definition, its outline, and examples.

Let's start by understanding what an expository essay is and its purpose. In simple terms, an expository essay provides information on a particular topic, elucidating aspects of a situation, person, idea, or event and conveying knowledge to the reader. Unlike persuasive writing, it doesn't seek to sway the audience's opinion but relies on facts to inform and educate about the subject.

From sharing personal experiences to outlining work assignments, expository writing covers a broad spectrum of questions, making it arguably the most prevalent form of writing worldwide. If at any point you feel overburdened with assignments, use our essay writing services to relax and wrap up your homework faster.

Why Students Have to Write Expository Essays?

Expository writing serves a distinct purpose – to impart knowledge to the reader. While it may offer entertainment or persuasion as secondary benefits, these are not the primary objectives of the author. A well-crafted piece of expository writing showcases the author's expertise on the subject and often reveals their journey of acquiring knowledge.

For instance, consider the task of crafting an essay about a mock trial your class conducted. In an expository essay, you would begin by introducing the assignment and detailing the case your class tackled during the trial. Subsequent body sections would systematically elaborate on each stage of the mock trial process – covering discovery, opening statements, cross-examination, closing statements, jury deliberation, and the final verdict – illustrating how your class navigated through each phase. Concluding the essay, you would present the verdict reached by your class and the judge's ruling.

Crucially, your expository essay on the mock trial does not take a stance on whether the ruling was right or wrong. Instead, it elucidates the procedural intricacies your class followed, offering a comprehensive understanding of how real court cases progress through the legal system. In essence, your essay is a presentation of facts and processes rather than expressing personal opinion or commentary.

Types of Expository Essays

As previously noted, expository essays manifest in various forms. These encompass the following types:

Classification

In the realm of classification essays, you delve into various subjects within a single category, examining the distinctive characteristics of each subject while highlighting the traits that connect them to others in the same category. For instance, a classification essay on herding dogs could commence with a thesis statement elucidating the differences between herding breeds from other dog categories. Subsequent paragraphs would then delve into specific herding breeds, such as corgis, collies, heelers, and more.

A definition essay elucidates its subject by presenting factual data. To illustrate, your definition essay might challenge prevalent myths surrounding a historical event by offering firsthand accounts from primary sources. It would also delve into relevant social, political, and economic trends that influenced the event, shaping perceptions of it. We’d also like to recommend you read our guide on how to write a descriptive essay .

A process essay guides the reviewer through the steps required to complete a task akin to a recipe. The opening passage of a process essay outlines the covered process and the anticipated result. Each body chapter corresponds to a step in the process, leading to a conclusion that explains what the reader should have accomplished by following each step.

Compare and Contrast

In a compare-and-contrast essay, your key statement is substantiated by examining the differences and similarities between cited sources. For instance, an essay comparing and contrasting school dress codes might scrutinize variations in allowed clothing items and the precision of language in each policy. It could also explore the degree of ambiguity present in the rules of each dress code.

Cause and Effect

True to its name, a cause-and-effect essay delves into how specific events or actions trigger subsequent occurrences. These essays often trace chains of events to comprehend the reasons behind current circumstances. An example could be a cause-and-effect essay tracking the influence of shifting market trends on regional industries over the past few decades, ultimately shaping the present local economy. Our guide on writing a narrative essay could also help increase your knowledge and skills.

Expository Essay Structure

Structuring an expository essay follows the familiar format applicable to any essay assignment: an introduction, a main body for elaboration and support, and a concluding section that reinforces your thesis and restates key points. While there's no strict word count requirement unless specified by your instructor, your essay should comprehensively express your ideas, maintaining a logical and accurate flow. Adhering to the following format, with the flexibility to adjust the number of sections based on supporting points, will effectively guide your expository essay:

Introduction

In this opening section, you introduce your essay topic, present your thesis statement, and aim to engage the reader with captivating facts. Providing the necessary context and introducing supporting evidence help your audience grasp the essence of your focal sentence.

First Body Paragraph

Dedicate a separate passage for each supporting point you make. While the traditional five-paragraph structure is often considered standard, you may require more subsections to convey your thesis statement thoroughly.

Second Body Paragraph

Write smooth transitions between verses using appropriate transition words and sentences. These transitional elements convey the relationships between subparagraphs, clarifying the purpose of each point and its contribution to your overall argument.

Third Body Paragraph

As you approach the final writing clause, focus on transitioning to your conclusion. Avoid premature summarization; instead, offer insightful details comparable to your earlier items.

In the concluding section, restate your thesis statement and succinctly recap the key points covered in your body. Ensure a cohesive closure, addressing any remaining questions your professor might have and tying up loose ends neatly.

Expository Essay Writing Tips

While you now have a solid understanding of the expository essay format, there are additional considerations to bear in mind. This section will guide you through specific steps to take when tackling the task of writing an expository essay.

Do Your Research

Start by thoroughly reviewing the assignment guidelines to ensure a clear understanding of requirements, including potential topic restrictions and word counts. Consider writing down different concepts aligned with the types of expository essays and gauge which type best suits your chosen theme. Reflect on class discussions, teacher expectations, and personal interests to generate a list of potential questions. Conduct preliminary research on each topic to evaluate the availability of reputable sources and deepen your understanding, leading to a well-informed and engaging expository essay subject.

Create an Outline

Once you've selected a topic, initiate research with a focus on developing body paragraphs, considering three main ways to explain the topic. While researching, contemplate potential thesis statements, allowing them to evolve organically with the accumulation of evidence. Develop an expository essay outline, organizing information under the relevant chapters to streamline the writing process. Writing a preliminary thesis statement by the end of the planning stage provides a clear direction for your research and writing.

Prepare the First Draft

Now is the time to translate your outline into full sentences. It is often useful to leave the introduction till the end because after writing the central paragraphs, you will have a better idea of what to say in an introduction, but make sure that you write down your thesis statement. Use the information you have found to create a cohesive analysis of the topic in each paragraph. Make sure that the information you present is on point and connects to the other facts around it. Think about what the purpose of each body section is and question whether the info you are presenting fits that purpose or not. Make sure to use transition words within the paragraph and transition sentences between paragraphs to improve overall comprehensibility and flow.

Finish the Draft

Go over the first draft of the expository essay and focus on whether the different paragraphs make sense or not. Don't be afraid of writing sections over or completely getting rid of some pieces of information. As you write your draft, new ways of expressing the testimony that will make the overall text more powerful can come to mind. Make sure that you are not trying to make a persuasive argument and that you are using facts rather than opinions as evidence.

Check each sentence to make sure that it is clear and that it fits the purpose of the paragraph it is in. Look at the details you have included and ensure they are useful and enhance your understanding of the topic. It is better to have less information than more if the supporting data is distracting or does not add anything to the expository essay. Try to read the paper as if it is the first time you are coming across the subject matter to see if it makes sense or not. Congratulations, you are just one step away from writing and submitting an A-grade expository paper!

Revise the Document

As the writing stage is over, scan through the final draft of your expository essay to check for formatting errors, grammatical errors, spelling mistakes, etc., and make sure that it complies with all the guidelines of the assignment. Finally, ask a friend or relative to go over the paper to do the last check. If you feel like you still need to make a lot of changes, don't be disheartened, spend the extra time to consult our persuasive essay guide for more insights.

Expository Essay Example

In this section, we’d like to present an example of an expository essay written by one of our writers. Check it out, get inspired, and you’ll be able to write a composition of your own!

FAQs About Expository Essays

What is the purpose of an expository essay, how to start an expository essay, how to write a thesis for an expository essay, how to write a conclusion for an expository essay, how are a persuasive essay and an expository essay different.

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Expository Essays Made Simple: The Guide With Examples

What is an expository essay?

How to write, structure, and format it to reach its purpose?

This article is here to answer all your questions on expository writing. I’ll share the meaning and provide a few templates and examples for extra clarity.

Expository Essay Definition

Examples of such explanatory texts are:

Scholarly articles
Instructional or technical guides
Unbiased journalistic investigations
A news report
Business writing

It’s an expository text definition for us to understand the nature of this paper type. For more info, let’s learn the characteristics and elements of an expository essay.

What are the characteristics of expository essay?

Expository papers are factual and objective. They have a clear purpose, and their structure is linear and logical. In such essays, writers don’t share their opinions and don’t try to persuade readers.

Expository essays:

Teach readers about the topic.
Provide detailed information.
Describe and explain facts.
Clear, concise, and written with formal language.
Organized, in the 3rd person, with precise word choice.

What are the elements of an expository essay?

Strong thesis statement
Evidence and examples
Specific supporting details to explain the topic for a better understanding
Logical structure and transitions between paragraphs
Compelling conclusion to help readers remember the information better

What Is the Purpose of an Expository Essay?

The purpose of an expository essay is to present information and explain a topic. No personal opinions or biased statements are here, just facts with evidence.

The main focus is logic and coherence.

I’ve found the method for you to remember expository essays’ organization. It’s POET:

P — Purpose: analyze, tell, explain, and connect the information.
O — Organization: do research, outline, and structure your paper.
E — Evidence: use facts, statistics, expert quotes, and examples.
T — Thesis: be concise and straightforward.

Expository vs. Argumentative

An easy way to understand the meaning and purpose of explanatory papers is to compare them with other text types. Students most often confuse expository essays with argumentative (persuasive) ones. The above table demonstrates the differences for you to remember.

Types of Expository Writing

As a rule, teachers mention the type of expository essay in the assigned prompt. It helps you understand how to structure and present the information in your paper.

The five types of expository writing are:

Definition. These papers describe and explain concepts. You just tell readers about something: a person, a place, a situation, etc.
Classification. Here you need to break a broad concept into subcategories. Start with a general topic, and then tell about each subgroup. (Example: an essay about movie genres, cat breeds, book styles, etc.)
Process (how-to). These texts explain to readers how to create or do something. Give instructions, steps, and practical tips. We also know process essays as problem-solution papers. A writer introduces and describes a problem and then tells the audience how to solve it.
Compare-and-Contrast. Here you tell about the similarities and differences between at least two subjects. Or, you can describe the pros and cons of something. (Example: compare two novels of the same author; pros and cons of living in a village; etc.)
Cause-and-Effect. These essays explain why something happened and what the outcome was. (Example: why Executed Renaissance (1) happened in Ukraine in the 1930s and what effects it has now.)

Expository Essay Structure

In academia, expository essays are standard 5-paragraph papers. You write an introduction, three body paragraphs, and a conclusion.

Below is more information on what to include in every paragraph.

Introduction

The introduction of expository essays includes the topic and the main idea. Three elements to write here:

A writing hook to grab the reader’s interest
A topic’s background (introducing the topic)
A thesis statement summarizing the main idea (what you’ll tell about the subject)

Here’s an example:

Body Paragraphs

Expository papers have at least three body paragraphs, each exposing one idea. It’s critical to craft logical transitions between paragraphs and include evidential support.

Each paragraph should have a logical connection to the thesis statement. As for evidence, use statistics, citations, and other info you’ve got when researching. (2)

Here go your four E’s to consider:

Explanations
Elaboration

That’s what a body paragraph of your expository paper might look like:

Three elements to include:

Topic sentence (to state what this paragraph will be about)
Explanation of the topic in detail
Concluding sentences with a logical transition to the next paragraph

The final paragraph restates the thesis, given the evidence you provided in the essay. Summarize the topic, but don’t introduce any new information. Leave readers with a positive impression of your work.

Three elements of expository essay conclusions:

Readdressing the thesis in light of the provided information
A brief overview of the essay’s key points
The key takeaway for readers to remember from your essay

Expository Essay Format

Example of expository essay.

Below is your example of expository writing to see the structure and format. It’s a standard five-paragraph essay students write in college. The number of words and paragraphs may differ depending on the prompt you get from teachers.

Feel free to use it for inspiration and a better understanding of how to write:

What is the primary purpose of an expository text?

The primary purpose of an expository text is to inform readers about the topic. Such texts describe and explain concepts to educate the audience. They are objective. A writer shouldn’t express personal opinions or attempt to persuade readers. Expository essays are descriptive, not argumentative or persuasive.

How to write an expository essay?

First, review the prompt; it will tell you all the instructions. You’ll know a topic, a word count, a format, etc. Then, do research and gather all the information about your subject. What will you tell the readers? What evidence you’ll use to support your points? Once ready, create an outline. You’ll need to specify the thesis statement and think about how you structure an essay. Finally, write a draft and proofread and edit it before submitting it to a teacher’s review.

What is typically included in the introductory section of an expository essay?

An introductory paragraph starts with a hook to grab readers’ attention to the topic. Then, provide a topic’s background for readers to understand what you write about. Finally, finish your introduction with a thesis statement. In the thesis, summarize the main idea of your paper.

How long is an expository essay?

Target about 800 words for expository writing. It includes five paragraphs: an introduction, three body paragraphs, and a conclusion. Check your prompt carefully: It often mentions the number of words to write.

Over to You

I hope this article has answered your “What is an expository essay” question. Remember about the purpose: inform and educate readers. Imagine yourself as a lecturer who needs to tell the audience about the subject — and voila !

Follow the logical structure, write in the 3rd person, and use evidence to prove your information. The above tips and examples are here to help you.

References:

https://www.husj.harvard.edu/articles/the-executed-renaissance-paradigm-revisited
https://www.nhcc.edu/academics/library/doing-library-research/basic-steps-research-process
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Expository Essay – Definition, Types & Structure

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An expository essay is a type of writing where the author presents facts and evaluates a concept about a place, an object, a person, or an experience. The writer is expected to present information regarding the concept unbiased and accurately while ensuring it is written in the third person and delivered in chronological sequence. Writing an expository essay is a common task for high school and college students, and knowing what it entails sets a successful and an unsuccessful student apart.

Inhaltsverzeichnis

1 Expository Essay – In a Nutshell
2 Definition: Expository essay
3 The purpose of an expository essay
4 Types of expository essays
5 Structuring an expository essay
6 How to write an expository essay

Expository Essay – In a Nutshell

An expository essay aims to provide a solution or explanation of a subject or issue at hand. Techniques in writing this type of essay can come in handy when a fact-based analysis is required in any field. Learn everything you need to know about writing an expository essay in this article:

There are 4 types of expository essays: Descriptive essay, process essay , compare and contrast essay , and cause and effect essay .
An expository essay includes 3 main sections : Introduction, body, and conclusion.
Learn tips and tricks to consider when writing an expository essay

Definition: Expository essay

A style of academic writing known as an expository essay tries to clarify, observe, and describe a thought, problem, or notion. It entails looking into a theory, assessing the supporting data, outlining the theory, and then developing an argument based on the research.

Expository essays follow a format similar to other types of academic essays , such as persuasive essays or argumentative essays . The primary distinction is that the expository essay necessitates more investigation and factual information to substantiate the claim. Common examples of expository essays include a process, or how-to essay that provides instructions on how to accomplish a task, assembly instructions, and newspaper articles.

The purpose of an expository essay

An expository essay is written when the researcher intents to provide a solution or an explanation about a specific topic or issue. The primary purpose of such an essay is to explain or analyze a complex topic and is often used to explore complex or controversial issues. Mostly, these essays investigate an idea or subject, evaluate the evidence available, develop the idea, and provide an argument regarding that idea clearly and concisely.

Types of expository essays

There are four main types of expository essays:

Descriptive essay

A descriptive essay gives details on a particular person, place, thing, or experience. The author describes the topic with sensory information describing an individual, place, thing, or experience while giving in-depth information about the subject. Providing an intricate description of something or an event is the primary objective of such an essay.

Process essay

A process essay describes how to carry out a task or how something is supposed to take place. The author must ensure that the steps in the process are described in chronological order. A process essay’s primary goal is to give comprehensive directions on carrying out a task with minimal mistakes.

A beach description essay can discuss the sound of the waves lapping against the shore, the salty air, and the sensation of sand between the toes. Additionally, a person’s physical attributes, psychological traits, and interests could all be discussed in a descriptive essay about that individual.

A process essay on how to bake a cake might describe the processes involved, from combining the ingredients to placing the cake in the oven. Also, planting crops must follow a specific process lest they fail in their tracks.

Compare and contrast essay

A compare and contrast essay explains the differences and similarities between two or more individuals, things, places, or experiences. In a comparison essay, two objects are compared, and their similarities and differences are discussed. This essay’s primary goal is to make the reader understand the subjects under comparison.

Cause and effect

A cause and effect essay explains the reasons for something or the effects of something. This essay will discuss the causes of a problem or situation and its consequences. The main purpose of a cause-and-effect essay is to help the reader understand the reason behind a problem or situation.

In a compare and contrast essay about two nations, you might talk about how the two nations’ cultures, languages, and religions differ. Further, a compare and contrast essay on two books can discuss how the themes are similar but the character development differs.

An essay on obesity’s causes and effects can go over the factors contributing to the country’s rising obesity rates. Also, a cause and effect essay about the Vietnam War can go into the conflict’s origins and how it affected the Vietnamese people

Structuring an expository essay

The structure of this essay is similar to that of other essays, such as the five-paragraph essay.

The introduction:

Introduces the essay’s core idea while providing critical background information. Start your introduction with a catchy sentence to draw the reader in, such as rhetorical questions, quotations, anecdotes, concessions, intriguing facts, or questions that will be addressed in your body section. The thesis statement for a narrative essay has a slightly different function than an expository essay because the former can introduce the plot’s events.

A three-paragraph body is the standard format for such essays. The topic is introduced in the first paragraph, followed by complementary information in the second paragraph, and then the bottom-line section as the third body paragraph.

The conclusion:

An expository essay also has a conclusion, acting as the summary of the essay’s main points.

How to write an expository essay

The most efficient method to begin an essay is simply, to begin writing. Get your ideas down on paper first without worrying about grammar or spelling. Check it for grammatical and spelling issues when you’ve finished writing your essay.

Make sure your thoughts are concise, and your essay flows naturally while editing. Read your writing aloud as a means to verify this. If you become lost or confused while reading your work, this is a good indicator that you have probably not adequately ordered your work.

What is an expository essay?

This type of essay explores a specific subject or issue in detail and is often used to analyze a complex or controversial topic.

What are the different types of expository essays?

The most common types of such essays include cause and effect essays, compare and contrast essays, process essays, and descriptive essays.

What is the purpose of an expository essay?

This type of essay is usually used when the aim is to analyze complex and controversial topics.

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What is Expository Writing: Types & How to Write
Self Publishing Guide

What is Expository Writing: Types & How to Write

In the realm of written communication, expository writing stands as a beacon of clarity and understanding. This style of writing serves as a guiding light for readers, illuminating complex ideas, concepts, and information in a straightforward and organised manner.

Read: A Complete Guide on How to Write & Publish an Anthologies of Poems in 2023

Whether you’re crafting an expository article, essay, or paragraph, this mode of writing is a powerful tool for conveying information effectively. Let’s delve into what expository writing entails, explore its various types, and uncover the art of mastering this style.

Understanding Expository Writing

At its essence, expository writing serves as a beacon of clarity, aiming to elucidate and inform. This genre delves into the art of shedding light on intricate subjects, providing readers with a profound comprehension and knowledge base. Unlike the world of creative writing, which often thrives on the interplay of ambiguity and emotion, expository writing finds its strength in lucidity and objectivity. Its primary objective is to educate, unravel complexities, and actively engage the audience by presenting a coherent structure of facts, evidence, and logical explanations.

Types of Expository Writing

Here’ s a list for types of Expository Writing:

Expository Essays
Expository Articles
Expository Paragraphs
Expository Essays : These essays stand as pillars of academic writing , revered for their systematic approach. When addressing a particular topic, expository essays adopt a balanced analysis. The introduction unveils the chosen topic, the body paragraphs meticulously present a buffet of evidence and analysis, and the conclusion acts as a succinct summary of the key points. Example : An expository essay examining the impact of social media on society would delve into both the positive and negative effects. The introduction would set the stage by introducing social media’s prevalence; body paragraphs would dissect its influence on communication, mental health, and relationships; and the conclusion would encapsulate the key takeaways.
Expository Articles : These literary gems are a staple in journalism and non-fiction writing . Expository articles present an all-encompassing overview of a subject, diving headfirst into its intricate details, root causes, ripple effects, and potential solutions. Often gracing the pages of magazines, newspapers, and online platforms, these articles serve as guides to unravel complex matters for the masses. Example : An expository article on climate change would not only expound on its environmental impact but also dissect the scientific consensus, historical context, human activities contributing to it, and potential strategies to mitigate its effects.
Expository Paragraphs : Even within longer compositions, the power of expository writing lies in its ability to distil complex ideas into bite-sized portions. These expository paragraphs serve as guiding lights, clarifying concepts, providing crisp definitions, and furnishing key information succinctly. Example : Within an article discussing the concept of artificial intelligence, an expository paragraph might provide a concise yet comprehensive definition of machine learning, its applications, and its implications for various industries.

Mansi Chauhan

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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Exploring spanish writing abilities of children with developmental language disorder in expository texts.

1 NeuroDevelop eHealth Lab, eHealth Center, Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC), Barcelona, Spain
2 Estudis de Psicologia i Ciències de l’Educació, Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC), Barcelona, Spain
3 Departament de Cognició Desenvolupament i Psicologia de l’Educació, Secció Cognició, Universitat de Barcelona (UB), Barcelona, Spain
4 Institut de Neurociències, Universitat de Barcelona (UB), Barcelona, Spain

Introduction: Numerous studies have shown that children with developmental language disorder (DLD), in addition to oral language difficulties, exhibit impaired writing abilities. Their texts contain problems in grammar, organization, cohesion, and length of written output. However, most of these studies have been conducted with English speakers. English is characterized by complex phonological structure, opaque orthography, poor morphology and strict word order. The aim of this research is to observe the writing abilities of children with DLD in a language with simple phonological structure, transparent orthography, rich morphology and flexible word order like Spanish in the production of expository texts.

Methods: Twenty-six children with DLD (mean age in months = 128.85) and 26 age-and sex-matched typically developing (TD) children (mean age in months = 124.61) wrote an expository text about their favorite animal.

Results: In order to analyze how the two groups plan and encode written texts, we looked at word frequency and sentence structure, grammatical complexity and lexical density, and omissions and errors. Compared to the TD group, the children with DLD omitted more content words; made more errors with functional words, verb conjugation and inflectional morphemes, and made a large number of spelling errors. Moreover, they wrote fewer words, fewer sentences, and less structurally and lexically complex texts.

Discussion: These results show that children with DLD who speak a transparent orthography language such as Spanish also have difficulties in most language areas when producing written texts. Our findings should be considered when planning and designing interventions.

1 Introduction

Developmental language disorder (DLD)—also known as specific language impairment (SLI)—is a neurodevelopmental disorder affecting around 7.5% of the child population ( Tomblin et al., 1997 ; Norbury et al., 2016 ) with no significant difference in sex distribution ( Calder et al., 2022 ). DLD is defined as a severe and persistent disorder in oral language acquisition and development, unassociated with a medical condition, such as hearing loss, intellectual disability, autism, or any neurological disorder or genetic syndromes ( Bishop et al., 2016 ). Moreover, DLD may co-exist with other neurodevelopmental disorders such as attention-deficit, hyperactivity, motor, speech and behavioral problems, or dyslexia ( Bishop et al., 2016 ).

Studies of children with DLD have found that they exhibit an heterogeneous oral language profile ( Conti-Ramsden, 2008 ) which may, to differing degrees, involve one or several expressive and receptive language components and which affects social and/or school development (e.g., Leonard, 1998 ; Bishop et al., 2017 ). Previous studies have documented significant difficulties across the different components of oral language including phonology, morphology, syntax, vocabulary, semantics, pragmatics, discourse, and verbal learning and memory ( Bishop et al., 2017 ). Research have found some phonological issues in productive phonology such as omissions of unstressed syllables and final consonants and changing syllabic structures (e.g., omitting final consonants and reducing consonant and vowel clusters; Aguilar-Mediavilla et al., 2002 , 2007 ; Bishop and Clarkson, 2003 ; Gallon et al., 2007 ; Broc et al., 2013 ; Larkin et al., 2013 ). Additionally, children with DLD struggle with other phonological abilities, such as in phonological awareness abilities including complex tasks like deleting phonemes, substituting phonemes, or producing rhyming words ( Thatcher, 2010 ; Vukovic et al., 2022 ; Korlaet et al., 2023 ). A considerable body of research has focused on studying morphological problems in children with DLD. They have deficits in the use of inflectional morphology, such as verb tense and agreement. Specifically, they omit the ending-s in the third singular person (e.g., ‘She read a book’ instead of ‘She reads a book’) and the past tense marker-ed (e.g., ‘Yesterday, I play with Rachel’ instead of ‘Yesterday, I played with Rachel; Van der Lely and Ullman, 2001 ; Abel et al., 2015 ). Research has shown that these children struggle also with functional words since they omit articles, pronouns and prepositions ( Bedore and Leonard, 2001 ; Restrepo and Gutierrez-Clellen, 2001 ; Sanz-Torrent et al., 2007 ; Coloma et al., 2016 ). Children with DLD produce syntactically simpler sentences ( Marinellie, 2004 ) and find it difficult to understand both complex syntactic structures, such as dependent clauses and passive sentences (e.g., Bishop, 1997 ; Leonard and Deevy, 2006 ; Novogrodsky and Friedmann, 2006 ; Montgomery and Evans, 2009 ; Van der Lely et al., 2011 ; Leonard, 2014 ). Different studies have analyzed vocabulary and semantics in children with DLD and have observed that they typically present smaller and less rich lexicons than their typical peers ( McGregor et al., 2023 ) and show slower latency times and more errors in picture naming ( Lahey and Edwards, 1996 ; Lahey and Edwards, 1999 ; McGregor et al., 2002 ). Moreover, in receptive single-word vocabulary tests, they tend to score within the average range but statistically lower than their matched TD peers ( Gray et al., 1999 ; McGregor et al., 2002 , 2013 ; Sheng and McGregor, 2010 ; Haebig et al., 2015 ). Furthermore, they show semantic impairments encompass problems with expressing or understanding meaning from word combinations ( Katsos et al., 2011 ). In pragmatics, children with DLD have difficulties understanding figurative language such as metaphors, double meanings or idiomatic expressions ( Norbury, 2005 ) and understanding communicative intentions ( Andrés-Roqueta and Katsos, 2020 ).

Having these problems in oral language, children with DLD are very likely to also experience difficulties in literacy. Different studies have reported that they are at greater risk for reading difficulties than children with typical language development (TD) ( Sanz-Torrent et al., 2010 ; Bishop et al., 2017 ; Adolf and Hogan, 2018 ). It has been estimated that around 50% of children with DLD present also dyslexia ( Bishop et al., 2009 ; Ramus et al., 2013 ) and they may exhibit reading comprehension difficulties ( Ramus et al., 2013 ; Gough Kenyon et al., 2018 ).

Regarding writing, according to Hayes and Flower (1980) model, the writing process can be divided into three stages: planning, translating, and revising. The planning stage involves generating ideas, organizing thoughts and ideas, and setting writing goals. The translation stage is where these ideas are transformed from oral language into written form, and the revising stage involves reading and editing the written material. Additionally, the Not-So-Simple View of Writing ( Berninger et al., 2002 ; Berninger and Amtmann, 2003 ) which is a modification of the Hayes and Flower model that incorporates various cognitive and executive function components, including working memory, into the writing process. Thus, children with DLD are expected to face difficulties in producing written content due to their challenges both in oral language and executive functioning, particularly in working memory ( Im-Bolter et al., 2006 ; Archibald and Joanisse, 2009 ; Montgomery et al., 2010 ; Ebert and Kohnert, 2011 ). Accordingly, different studies have found problems in written production in children with DLD (i.e., Broc et al., 2021 ; Tucci and Choi, 2023 ). Written productions can be evaluated accordingly through analyses of microstructure and macrostructure ( Liles et al., 1995 ). According to Hughes et al. (1997) , microstructure refers to the syntactic and lexical levels of the production, that is, the language form and content. It has been characterized in terms of productivity as well as complexity. Conversely, macrostructure denotes the hierarchical structure and coherence of the text beyond the level of a single sentence. The way the story’s episodes are arranged, how events are sequenced, and how the protagonists’ internal states drive or respond to the story’s events are all examples of macrostructure (e.g., McCabe and Peterson, 1984 ; McCabe and Rollins, 1994 ; Liles et al., 1995 ).

As far as we know, previous studies about writing in children with DLD have focused on analyzing the microstructure. Tucci and Choi (2023) performed a scoping review of literature focused on the effects of DLD on writing skills across the lifespan. Results showed that spelling may be the most vulnerable area for individuals with DLD. In this sense, previously studies show that children with DLD make a significantly higher percentage of spelling errors when producing written texts compared to TD children of the same age ( Mackie et al., 2013 ; Williams et al., 2013 ; Dockrell et al., 2014 ; Reilly et al., 2014 ; Joye et al., 2019 ). For the most part, these spelling errors are due to phonological and morphological errors, which involve substituting, inserting or eliminating letters within a word ( Mackie and Dockrell, 2004 ). Broc et al. (2021) conducted a scoping review about the nature of spelling errors in children with DLD across different orthographies. They divided the 18 reviewed studies into those based on dictation tasks and those containing written narratives because these two types of tasks involve different writing processes. In addition, they separately analyzed those two types of studies regarding the typology of the orthography of language in which they were carried out (opaque or transparent orthographic system). On dictation tasks, children with DLD produced more phonologically unacceptable spelling errors. These errors varied by age and by the nature of the words dictated. Moreover, children with DLD produced less phonologically unacceptable spelling errors when the spelling could be derived by applying one-to-one sound-letter correspondences (transparent orthographic system) than when the phoneme-grapheme correspondences were irregular (opaque orthographic system). On written narratives, they found that most of the studies to assess the spelling skills of children with DLD had been conducted in opaque orthographies and only identified one study conducted in a transparent orthography language, Spanish ( Soriano-Ferrer and Contreras-González, 2012 ). Overall, on written narrative tasks, results were contradictory about phonologically unacceptable spelling errors. Some studies found more difficulties than the control groups ( Mackie and Dockrell, 2004 ) but others did not replicate those results ( Broc et al., 2013 ; Dockrell and Connelly, 2015 ). In the only study conducted in a transparent orthography ( Soriano-Ferrer and Contreras-González, 2012 ) children with DLD produced more spelling errors that were phonologically unacceptable compared to their peers of the same age. However, both groups made four times as many errors when the phoneme correspondence was irregular, as opposed to when it was regular, resulting in observable errors. Finally, on written narratives, only studies conducted in opaque orthographies were reported to examine errors in inflectional morphological spelling. Children with DLD overall showed problems in their ability to accurately use inflections in their spelling. Error patterns in children with DLD were similar to younger language matched peers but more frequent than their age-matched peers.

Moreover, children and adolescents with DLD also may have difficulties with grammar, organization, cohesion, and length of written output ( Tucci and Choi, 2023 ). They make more errors and omissions when writing nominal inflectional morphemes and using derivational morphemes (prefixes and suffixes) than age-matched children ( Connelly et al., 2011 ; Mackie et al., 2013 ). For example, they produce more errors in the use of plural forms and past simple verb tenses ( Windsor et al., 2000 ; Mackie and Dockrell, 2004 ; Larkin et al., 2013 ). Additionally, they use fewer words that contain prefixes, such as im/patient or dis/agree and suffixes, such as teach/er or profession/al ( Mackie et al., 2013 ). Interestingly, these differences are still significant when children with DLD are matched with children possessing the same language skills. The percentage of omitted auxiliary verb be and content words—such as nouns as subjects—is also significantly higher than in TD children of the same age with a similar receptive vocabulary ( Windsor et al., 2000 ; Mackie and Dockrell, 2004 ). Moreover, they display poorer lexical diversity ( Scott and Windsor, 2000 ; Mackie et al., 2013 ; Williams et al., 2013 ; Levlin and Waldmann, 2020 ; Stuart et al., 2020 ). The differences are once again significant when children with DLD are compared to a younger cohort with the same language skills. Research has also shown differences in writing abilities to be significant when children with DLD are compared to younger children of a similar reading age ( Mackie et al., 2013 ). In addition, written texts produced by children with DLD are also shorter (i.e., contain fewer written words; Mackie et al., 2013 ; Dockrell et al., 2014 ; Stuart et al., 2020 ; Ralli et al., 2021 ) and contain a lower percentage of meaningful syntactic units (T-units) and coordinated sentences than texts produced by TD children of the same age. The sentences in their texts are also significantly shorter and contain fewer words per clause ( Scott and Windsor, 2000 ; Mackie et al., 2013 ).

Most of these studies about the characteristics of the written language in DLD have been conducted with English speakers, a language with an opaque orthographic system. However, English has a number of characteristics that make it very different from transparent orthographic system languages such as Spanish. First, Spanish has a simple phonological structure. It has approximately 23 phonemes and the majority of syllables follow a simple consonant–vowel (CV) structure and have limited clusters and blends ( Gorman and Gillam, 2003 ; Goikoetxea, 2005 ). Therefore, in Spanish, segmentation of syllables at the level of onset–rime is often equivalent to segmentation at the phonemic level. For example, a Spanish speaker who segments the syllables of the word “casa” [house] into onset and rime (onset:“c,” rime: “a”) will also identify the phonemes that make up the word (/c/ /a/ /s/ /a/; Goswami, 2008 ). This is not the case for the English, where many onsets and rimes contain clusters of phonemes, as in “sport” and “cost” which must be segmented further ( De Cara and Goswami, 2002 ). Spanish has a transparent orthography both in terms of reading and writing since practically every phoneme is represented by a single, unique letter. Thus, children need to learn fewer phoneme-to-letter conversions in Spanish than in English, where one phoneme can be represented by multiple spellings (as the phoneme /f/ in words like frog, tough, and photo). Moreover, Spanish is a morphologically rich language: it uses inflections to indicate the relationship between the elements; that is, the composition of the words changes (e.g., “casa” [house], “casas” [houses], “casita” [little house]). This implies important morphological changes in words that include a lexeme or radical morpheme, to which one or more grammatical morphemes can be added (e.g., cas-a, cas-as, cas-ita). Another feature of Spanish, as in other Romance languages, is that the order of the words within the sentence is flexible (e.g., “Juan ama a Maria” [“John loves Mary”]; “A Maria ama Juan” [“To Mary loves John”]; “Juan a Maria ama” [“John to Mary loves”]), although there is a basic order of words in the sentence (canonical order: subject > verb > object). In addition, Spanish is a pro-drop language that allows personal pronouns to be dropped in the sentence (“Juega al fútbol” [Plays football]).

Previous cross-linguistic research suggests that both the simple phonological structure of Spanish and its highly regular phoneme-to-letter correspondence facilitate the process of learning to read and write in Spanish children with TD ( Müller and Brady, 2001 ; Seymour et al., 2003 ; Ellis et al., 2004 ; Ziegler et al., 2010 ; Florit and Cain, 2011 ; Castejón et al., 2015 ). In theory, this should also help Spanish-speaking children with DLD as they learn to write. However, to our knowledge only two studies have been conducted concerning written language production among the DLD population in Spanish ( Soriano-Ferrer and Contreras-González, 2012 ; Buil-Legaz et al., 2023 ). Buil-Legaz et al. (2023) analyzed the difficulties of children with DLD in spelling. Participants were 18 children with DLD (aged 7;0–11;5, M = 8;4, SD = 1.25) and 18 children with DLD with TD (aged 7;0–11;6, M = 8;2, SD = 1.29) that completed a spelling-to-dictation task of words and pseudowords, where length was manipulated. They used digital tablets to collect data and obtain measures of accuracy, latencies and total writing durations. Results showed that children with DLD produced more errors, longer latencies and longer writing durations than age-matched children. Regarding accuracy, analysis of the errors showed that children in the control group produce few errors, most being substitutions, while children with DLD made more errors and of more varied types (substitutions, omissions and additions). Moreover, they were more affected by length on writing accuracy than the control group. Soriano-Ferrer and Contreras-González (2012) examined the written narrations and the influence of linguistic measures on narrative competence of children with DLD. Children did a written narrative task, where they had to recall, in writing, a story given to them previously orally twice. The story was composed of 19 propositions, with a simple grammatical structure. The children with DLD created short narratives, poorly organized and less cohesive. Also, their writings contained more syntax errors and had a higher proportion of phonologically inaccurate spelling errors in natural spelling but not in arbitrary spelling errors.

However, in these two previous studies, written performance was measured by single-word dictation ( Buil-Legaz et al., 2023 ) and by a narrative based on a story given orally ( Soriano-Ferrer and Contreras-González, 2012 ). As stated Broc et al. (2021) , in dictated tasks the words to be written are predetermined while on written narratives participants can choose words they know, which may result in fewer spelling errors as they may opt for words they feel to spell. However, in the study of Soriano-Ferrer and Contreras-González (2012) children had to retell in writing a story given orally. Therefore, as far as we know, there are not any studies that analyze the production of expository texts in Spanish-speaking children with DLD. An expository text or informational text is a non-fiction text that gives facts and information about a topic. It aims to inform, explain, describe, or define a particular topic or subject. Its primary purpose is to present factual information, clarify ideas, and provide insights in a clear, concise, and organized manner. This kind of text is very common in subjects such as science, history and social sciences. There are several different types of expository structures. Meyer and Ray (2011) proposed six structures: compare-and-contrast, problem-and- solution, cause-and- effect, sequence, enumeration, and description. Each text structure type represents a distinct text organization and purpose. For example, description focuses on describing a topic, person, place or thing by listing a collection of its features or examples while. Expository texts serve as valuable tools for assessing writing abilities in children due to their inherent structure, which demands clear, organized, and coherent expression of ideas. Evaluating a child’s ability to comprehend, synthesize, and communicate information effectively can be achieved through their creation of expository texts ( Fisher and Frey, 2017 ). In this way, the aim of this study was to examine and compare text writing of children with DLD in the production of expository texts in Spanish. More specifically, by looking at how these children and their aged-matched TD counterparts plan and encode expository texts, we sought to find out what variables are most frequently impaired in children with DLD compared to the TD group. We hypothesize that, given the errors that children with DLD tend to make in oral language, we expect to find significantly more difficulties in this population compared to TD children in all areas of writing. Specifically, we expect to find more inflectional morpheme and verb conjugation errors, as well as a higher percentage of omitted functional words.

2 Materials and methods

This study was approved by the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya’s (UOC) Ethics Committee. Furthermore, it was conducted in accordance with the ethical standards laid out in the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki and subsequent updates ( WMA. World Medical Association, 2013 ).

2.1 Participants

This sample of children was a subsample of the study conducted by Ahufinger et al. (2021) , which included 70 children (35 children with DLD and 35 typically developing (TD) children). The subset of children in this study included 52 participants (12 girls and 40 boys): 26 children had DLD (mean age in months = 128.85 (10.73 years); SD = 25.02; range: 95 to 188 months) and 26 were age-and sex-matched TD children (mean age in months = 124.61 (10.38 years); SD = 24.25; range: 90 to 184 months). All participants met the following inclusion criteria: (a) nonverbal intellectual quotient (NVIQ) > 75; (b) typical hearing at 500, 1000, 2000 and 4,000 Hz at 20 dB, in accordance with the American National Standard Institute (1997) ; (c) typical or corrected vision; (d) typical oral and speech motor abilities, as confirmed by a certified speech language pathologist; and (e) native Spanish-Catalan bilingual speakers as reported by parents. Children were excluded if parents reported (a) other biomedical conditions commonly linked to genetic or neurological causes, such as autism, intellectual disability, Down syndrome or Williams syndrome ( Bishop et al., 2017 ); (b) frank neurological signs; or (c) seizure disorders or the use of medication to control seizures.

In 2017, children with DLD were identified with the help of the Catalan Center of Resources for Language-and Hearing-Impaired People (CREDA), members of the Catalan service for school counseling and guidance (EAP), and the Catalan Association of Specific Language Impairment (ATELCA), who work in conjunction with public and private schools throughout Catalonia to identify children with DLD or children with language difficulties. Children in the DLD group had a formal diagnosis of DLD or a suspected diagnosis and were in the process of being diagnosed, or were children whose families or teachers were concerned about language difficulties and/or were receiving speech–language services at the time of the original study per parental report. The TD children were recruited from public schools within the larger Barcelona metropolitan area. The TD children were at grade level in school, had no history, or diagnosis, of language learning disability, and had never received speech and language services.

To confirm each participant’s language status, standardized tests were administered by two trained researchers at the time of the study. These were the non-verbal IQ (NVIQ) Kaufman Brief Intelligence Test (K-BIT; Kaufman and Kaufman, 2004 ) and the Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals - Fourth Edition, Spanish (CELF-4 Spanish; Semel et al., 2006 ). In the latter case, the researchers evaluated and recorded the participants’ Core Language Score, Expressive Language Score and/or Receptive Language Score. For the children with DLD, the CELF Core, Expressive or Receptive composite scores were at least 1.5 standard deviation below age-level expectations. For the children in the TD group, the CELF composite scores were all at or above age-level expectations. Each child with DLD was matched with a TD child of the same sex and age (+/− 3 months), as shown in Table 1 .

Table 1 . Age and standardized cognition and language measurement scores for the group of children with developmental language disorder (DLD) and the group of typical developing (TD) children.

Table 1 shows no significant age or NVIQ differences between the participants with DLD and their matched TD peers when the sample was selected. However, the children with DLD obtained significantly lower scores than the TD group on the three CELF language test scales.

In 2019, these children were invited to participate in the current study to examine and compare text writing abilities in the production of expository texts. All families were asked to sign a new consent form following the IRB protocol from the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC).

2.2 Instruments and procedure

Children completed two testing sessions of approximately 60 min each. These sessions were part of a larger study examining reading and writing skills. In the first session, children completed a reading assessment. In the second session, children completed two brief oral morphological tasks first, and the writing test for the present study after. The time allocated to carry out the writing task was approximately 15/20 min per child. The evaluation sessions were carried out individually in the research laboratories of the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya and the Universitat de Barcelona by two research assistants trained for this purpose. All participants were administered the narration writing task from the Spanish Batería de Evaluación de los Procesos de Escritura (Writing Process Evaluation Battery – PROESC; Cuetos et al., 2018 ). The children had to write an expository text about their favorite animal. If they were unable to think of an animal, they were given suggestions such as cats, dogs or lions. The children were given unlimited time to write a one-page text explaining whatever they wanted to about the animal. The instructions on how to complete the task were given in Spanish, but the examiner explained to the children that they could write the text in the language they preferred. All the participants wrote the text in Spanish.

The children’s texts were transcribed for analysis using the Codes for the Human Analysis of Transcripts (CHAT) program and were analyzed using the Child Language Data Exchange System (CHILDES) Project’s Computerized Language Analysis (CLAN) program ( MacWhinney, 2000 ). The following category system was created to study the transcribed data, drawing on Mackie et al. (2013) and Salas and Caravolas (2019) :

2.3.1 Word frequency and sentence structure

• Total number of words (TNW): Total number of words written in the text.

• Number of different words (NDW): This index was used to score the lexical diversity of the vocabulary in the text. To prevent an effect caused by the length of the text, we calculated Guiraud’s R index: types/√tokens ( Guiraud, 1954 ).

• Main clauses ($MC): Total number of simple sentences the child has written as a proportion of the total number of sentences. A simple sentence is defined as a meaning unit that has a noun phrase, functioning as subject, and a verb phrase, functioning as predicate. Thus, it is a sentence expressing a single action, e.g., ‘El gato come verdura’ (‘The cat eats vegetables’).

• Coordinate clauses ($CC): Total number of coordinate sentences the child has written as a proportion of the total number of sentences. A coordinate sentence consists of two simple clauses, with equal syntactic importance, linked by a conjunction, e.g., ‘El perro ladra y el gato maúlla’ (‘The dog barks and the cat meows’).

• Subordinate clauses ($SC): Total number of subordinate sentences the child has written as a proportion of the total number of sentences. A subordinate sentence consists of a simple independent clause and at least one simple dependent clause. In subordinate sentences, dependent clauses do not make sense on their own; they need to be embedded in the independent clause to convey their meaning, e.g., ‘El perro, que es mi animal favorito, come comida de perro’ (‘Dogs, which are my favorite animal, eat dog food’).

• Total number of clauses (TNC): Total number of main, coordinate and subordinate clauses.

• Words per clause (WpC): This index is calculated by dividing the total number of words the child produces by the total number of clauses in the text.

2.3.2 Grammatical complexity and lexical density

• Number of adjectives ($NAj): Number of adjectives the child uses in the text.

• Number of adverbs ($NAv): Number of adverbs the child uses in the text.

• Number of connectors ($CO): Number of connectors the child uses in the text. Connectors include conjunctions, e.g., ‘y’, ‘o’ and ‘también’ (‘and’, ‘or’ and ‘also’), and discourse markers, e.g., ‘Primero de todo’ and ‘finalmente’ (‘first of all’ and ‘finally’). The purpose of linguistic connectors is to provide contextual meaning and clarity to the text by combining sentences and paragraphs.

2.3.3 Errors

• Spelling errors ($SE): Spelling errors in the children’s texts are defined using the categories established by Matute et al. (2010) .

• Omission errors ($SEo): Omitting a letter, syllable or segment from the word, e.g., writing ‘hose’ instead of ‘horse’.

• Joining words ($SEw): Omitting the space between words, e.g., writing ‘elcaballo’ (‘thehorse’) instead of ‘el caballo’ (‘the horse’).

• Segmentation errors ($SEs): Dividing words incorrectly, e.g., writing ‘con migo’ (‘to gether’) instead of ‘conmigo’ (‘together’).

• Translocation errors ($SEt): Changing the letter or syllable order in a word, e.g., writing ‘fuetne’ (‘soucre’) instead of ‘fuente (‘source’).

• Addition errors ($SEa): Adding a letter or syllable to a word, e.g., writing ‘cominida’ (‘dininer’) instead of ‘comida’ (‘dinner’).

• Phoneme substitution errors ($SEp): Substituting an unvoiced sound for a voiced sound, e.g., ‘peso’ (‘weight’) instead of ‘beso’ (‘kiss’). An English example would be ‘pear’ instead of ‘bear’.

• Articulatory substitution errors ($SEas): Natural spelling errors caused by substituting a consonant for another that has a close production point, e.g., ‘cato’ instead of ‘gato’ (‘cat’), and/or a similar mode of articulation, e.g., ‘mida’ instead of ‘mira’ (‘look’). An English example would be ‘coal’ instead of ‘goal’ for the first case and ‘deal’ instead of ‘real’ for the second.

• Arbitrary spelling errors ($SEar): Spelling errors related to spelling rules. In Spanish, these manifest as substitution errors between the letters /v,b/, /c,s,z/, /g,j/, /y,ll/ and /h,∅/., e.g., ‘cantava’ instead of ‘cantaba’ (‘sang’). An English example would be ‘liv’ instead of ‘live’ or ‘werked’ instead of ‘worked’.

• Accent errors ($SEc): Errors such as ‘tenia’ instead of ‘tenía’ (had).

• Code-switching ($CSE): Words written in Catalan instead of Spanish, e.g., ‘gos’ (‘dog’ in Catalan) instead of ‘perro’ (‘dog’ in Spanish).

• Word omissions ($WOM): Omission of nouns, verbs, articles, prepositions or pronouns that are required to understand the context of the expository text (including argument omissions and subject elisions), e.g., writing “es alto” (‘is tall’) instead of ‘el caballo es alto’ (‘the horse is tall’).

• Functional words errors ($WE): Errors in the use of articles, prepositions or pronouns.

• Errors in nominal inflectional morphemes ($EIM): Changing or omitting a word’s gender inflection (feminine and masculine), e.g., writing ‘el niña’ (‘girl’ with masculine article ‘el’) instead of ‘la niña’ (‘girl’ with feminine article ‘la’); or changing or omitting the nominal number inflection (singular and plural), e.g., ‘los perro’ (singular ‘dog’ with plural article ‘los’) instead of ‘los perros’ (plural ‘dogs’ with plural article ‘los’).

• Verb conjugation errors ($VCE): Verbal inflection errors made when conjugating regular and irregular verbs (errors of number, person or mode). This category also includes errors in gerund and participle use.

• Semantic errors ($SEE): These occur when the child writes one word instead of another, i.e., the child tries to activate a given concept but activates another in the same semantic category ( González et al., 2008 ), e.g., writing ‘gato’ (‘cat’) instead of ‘perro’ (‘dog’), or replacing a word with another semantically unrelated word, e.g., writing ‘yo he abierto la puerta con la bolsa’ (‘I unlocked the door with the bag’) instead of ‘con la llave’ (‘with the key’).

• Pragmatic errors ($PrE): This error is counted when the child uses literal expressions, writes oral expressions or uses a set phrase incorrectly, e.g., ‘El animal te muerde y estás acabado’ (‘The animal bites you and you are done’).

2.3.4 Other

• Language switch ($LS): An occasional use of Catalan to write the text. This category includes switching language for whole sentences, in which case the code is $LSS.

• Colloquialisms ($CW): Slang words, e.g., ‘guay’ (‘cool’) instead of “bueno” (‘good’), ‘mega’ instead of ‘muy’ (‘very’) or ‘chicha’ (colloquial way to refer to ‘meat’ in Spanish) instead of ‘carne’ (meat).

2.3.5 Reliability

Approximately 30% of the written texts ( n = 16) were randomly selected from the sample to test the reliability using Cohen’s Kappa. Errors were coded by two independent reviewers. The reliability estimates for each writing measure are as follows: MC, 1; CC, 0.93; SC, 0.95; NAj, 0.89; NAv, 0.91; CO, 0.88; SE, 0.97; WOM, 0.92; WE, 0.70; EIM, 1; VCE, 0.82; SEE, 1; PrE, 1; LS, 1; LSS, 1; and CW, 1. If the two evaluators disagreed, they discussed the discrepancy until they reached an agreement. In the exceptional cases that no agreement was reached, the scores of the first author was used in the main analyses.

3.1 Data analysis

Starting with the coding of the expository texts using the CHAT system and the subsequent analysis using CHILDES, we obtained the values of each category for each subject. To assess the differences between the groups, descriptive data for each variable were used, and a non-parametric analysis, specifically the Mann–Whitney U test, was conducted. This choice was made due to the sample size, as it does not follow a normal distribution (as determined by the Shapiro–Wilk test) and the heterogeneity of variances (as determined by Levene’s test). The data is available online in https://n9.cl/0er91 .

3.2 Word frequency and sentence structure

Table 2 shows the mean, standard deviation and differences between the two groups with respect to word frequency, lexical diversity and sentence structure. The difference between the DLD and TD groups was significant for four out of the seven variables (total number of words, number of different words, total number of clauses and subordinate clauses). Children with DLD wrote significantly fewer words and sentences than TD children. Also, children with DLD wrote texts with less lexical diversity and used a significantly lower proportion of subordinate clauses compared to TD children.

Table 2 . Mean and standard deviation (SD) of the word frequency and sentence structure variables for the Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) and Typically Developing (TD) groups.

3.3 Grammatical complexity and lexical density

Table 3 shows the mean, standard deviation and differences between the two groups with regard to grammatical complexity and lexical density. Using the nonparametric Mann–Whitney U test, significant differences between the DLD and TD groups were identified in all three variables. Children with DLD used significantly fewer adjectives, adverbs and connectors compared to TD children of the same age.

Table 3 . Mean and standard deviation (SD) of the grammatical complexity and lexical density variables for the Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) and Typically Developing (TD) groups.

Table 4 shows the mean, standard deviation and differences between the two groups with regard to omissions and errors in their expository texts. Significant differences between the two groups were found in 5 out of the 7 variables. The DLD group made significantly more functional words, verb conjugation, nominal inflectional morpheme and spelling errors than the TD group. Children with DLD also omitted more words needed to understand the context of the text. A more detailed analysis was carried out for spelling errors. When the different categories of spelling errors were observed more closely, significant differences appeared between the two groups with respect to arbitrary spelling errors and articulatory spelling errors (z[2.309], p < 0.05 and z[3.105], p < 0.01, respectively). The children with DLD made significantly more arbitrary spelling errors (mean = 1.02, SD = 0.88) compared to the TD group (mean = 0.5, SD = 0.7). They also made significantly more articulatory spelling errors (mean = 0.81, SD = 1.34) compared to their TD peers (mean = 0.11, SD = 0.21; see Figure 1 ).

Table 4 . Mean and standard deviation (SD) of the omissions and errors variables for the Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) and Typically Developing (TD) groups.

Figure 1 . Mean number of arbitrary spelling errors (arbitrary sp. err.), accent mark spelling errors (accent sp. err.) and articulatory spelling errors (natural sp. err) in children with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) and Typically Developing (TD) children.

With regard to switching languages, the results revealed significant differences between the two groups (z[2.194], p < 0.05). The ratio of language switch per word is significantly higher in children with DLD (mean = 0.013, SD = 0.026) compared to TD children (mean = 0.001, SD = 0.003). No significant differences were observed between children with DLD and TD children (z[1.42], p = 0.15) in terms of language switches applied to whole sentences. There were also no significant differences between the two groups in the use of colloquialisms (z[0.487], p = 0.648).

4 Discussion

In this study we explored the Spanish writing abilities of a group of children with DLD in comparison to a group of sex-and age-matched TD children using a written expository text. We were particularly interested in analyzing the writing abilities of this oral-language-impaired population in Spanish. This language is characterized by simple phonological structure, transparent orthography, rich morphology and flexible word order like Spanish.

Building on previous research on English-speaking children with DLD, in this study we analyzed word omissions, inflectional morpheme errors and verb conjugation errors. The analysis showed that the ratio of word omissions, errors in inflectional morphemes marking gender or number, and verb conjugation errors were significantly higher in the texts written by children with DLD compared to TD children of the same chronological age. These results are similar to other studies, such as Mackie et al. (2013) , Connelly et al. (2011) and Mackie and Dockrell (2004) , who also found that children with DLD had trouble using gender inflectional morphemes, as well as plural (−s), past (−ed) and gerund (−ing) markers, in their writing. Another morphological measurement not reported in previous writing research but key among Spanish-speaking children with DLD are errors using functional words such as articles, prepositions and pronouns that are very frequent in oral language ( Bedore and Leonard, 2001 ; Restrepo and Gutierrez-Clellen, 2001 ; Sanz-Torrent et al., 2008 ; Morgan et al., 2013 ; Coloma et al., 2016 ). In our study, the children with DLD produced texts with significantly more functional words errors compared to the TD group. All these errors are similar to those made by children with DLD when they express themselves orally, for example difficulties with verb morphology (i.e., No me gusta [:gustan] las avejas [:abejas] / I do not like [number error in Spanish] sheep [: bees]) and in the use of functional words, such as articles (i.e., …la [:las] leonas… / …the [sing.]: the [pl.] lioness…), prepositions (i.e., …pueden oir [:oír] [:a] distansias [:distancias]…/..They can hear [:from] distance) and pronouns (i.e., Mi [:la] raza de mi perro…/ my [:the] breed of my dog.). This clearly shows that such difficulties in oral language production also affect children with DLD’s writing.

Spelling is one of the most impaired aspects of writing among English-speaking children with DLD when compared to TD children ( Williams et al., 2013 ; Dockrell et al., 2014 ; Reilly et al., 2014 ). Our results showed that in Spanish, children with DLD also made significantly more spelling errors than their age-matched peers. A more specific analysis showed that they make significantly more articulatory and arbitrary spelling errors. These results are in line with previous research by Mackie and Dockrell (2004) , who concluded that most spelling errors are due to letter substitution, insertion or elimination and letter combinations that do not comply with spelling rules. Although the research sample in Mackie and Dockrell (2004) were English-speaking children, their results are similar to ours. This means that children with DLD exhibit difficulties with phonological awareness whether they speak a language with shallow orthography or one with deep orthography.

Children with DLD performed worse in most of the other writing variables compared to their peers in the TD group. These results suggest that children with DLD had more difficulty writing longer texts, i.e., they wrote significantly fewer words and significantly fewer sentences than TD children. Texts by children with DLD were also structurally simpler, contained a significantly lower percentage of subordinate clauses and were not as lexically rich as those written by the TD group. These results track with previous studies done on English-speaking samples ( Scott and Windsor, 2000 ; Puranik et al., 2006 ; Dockrell et al., 2014 ; Reilly et al., 2014 ), where children with DLD produced texts with significantly fewer words and a lower percentage of syntactic units. Our research found no significant differences between the two groups regarding mean sentence length. These results are consistent with Puranik et al. (2006) , who found that, despite significant differences between children with DLD and children with TD in sentence production, mean sentence length does not vary significantly between the groups. However, these results contradict research by Mackie et al. (2013) and Scott and Windsor (2000) , who found significant differences between the groups, with children with DLD producing fewer words per clause than their TD peers. Regarding clause types, no significant differences were found between the groups in terms of the percentage of simple and coordinate clauses used. There was, however, a difference when comparing the two groups for percentage of subordinate clauses. Proportionally, children with DLD used significantly fewer subordinate clauses than TD children, which indicates that their texts were simpler and less structurally complex. These results were also reported by Mackie and Dockrell (2004) .

Along with structural characteristics, this study also evaluated the grammatical richness of the texts. The texts written by the children with DLD contained significantly fewer adjectives, adverbs and connectors (i.e., they were characterized by poor lexical density compared to the same-aged TD children). Another characteristic not analyzed in earlier research related to children with DLD’s writing abilities is the role of pragmatic errors and semantic errors in written texts. We explored these characteristics and did not find significant differences between the DLD and TD groups in these areas.

Finally, we looked for code-switching in the written texts. This measurement was included because the children in our sample were bilingual, speaking both Catalan and Spanish. The results show that the ratio of language switch per word is significantly higher in children with DLD than in TD children, indicating a lack of consistency in language used while writing and supporting the idea that bilingual children with DLD code-switch more than TD children ( Pert et al., 2004 ). This could also be explained as a difficulty in thinking of a word and using the same word in another language as a compensation mechanism. However, as regards oral language, both Gutiérrez-Clellen et al. (2009) and Sanz-Torrent et al. (2007) found that Spanish-English and Spanish-Catalan bilingual children with DLD, respectively, did not differ from age-matched control children in terms of code-switching. Future research might look more closely at code-switching in written texts by bilingual children to analyze the differences between oral and written language.

In summary, writing abilities of children with DLD in Spanish showed more morphology-related, spelling and other writing errors compared to their age-matched TD peers. These results highlight the limitations that children with DLD may face in school when instruction is based on written language, and how these can affect their academic performance.

5 Limitations and future directions

This is the first study to explore the characteristics of expository text production in Spanish by children with DLD. However, there are a few areas for future improvement. Although we aimed to recruit as many participants as possible, the final sample consisted of 52 children (26 with DLD and 26 TD children). This sample size aligns with prior studies on English (e.g., Mackie et al., 2013 ; Dockrell et al., 2014 ; Andreou and Aslanoglou, 2022 ; Brimo et al., 2023 ) and Spanish ( Soriano-Ferrer and Contreras-González, 2012 ; Buil-Legaz et al., 2023 ) writing abilities in children with DLD. However, our study included participants ranging in age from 7;11 to 15;8 years, representing a diverse range of ages. In order to further enhance the generalizability and reliability of our findings, it is recommended for future studies to expand the sample size and include a more specific age range. By increasing the number of participants and narrowing down the age range, researchers can obtain a more comprehensive understanding of the topic at hand.

Our study centered on the production of expository texts, a common school activity that requires children to plan, translate, and revise. Although we primarily focused on microstructure, the task also allows for macrostructure analysis (global structure and coherence), a crucial factor in gaging the quality of children’s written texts. This aspect could be examined in future studies. The expository text task is less controlled than other tasks like dictation, where evaluators can choose words with different spelling characteristics. When writing expository texts, children can use words they are familiar with, potentially resulting in fewer spelling errors as they may prefer words they can spell correctly. Additionally, even though we allowed unlimited time for children to write a one-page text, the length of their texts significantly varied. Future research should examine the microstructure abilities in children with DLD, and attempt to control the text length to yield a similar amount of information.

In conclusion, the findings from our study should be considered when planning and conducting activities with these children. We emphasize the value of using expository text writing in assessing children with DLD. It is a simple, quick method that yields substantial information about their language and writing skills. Additionally, it would be insightful to examine the effectiveness of interventions targeting oral language issues on improving writing impairments, and vice versa.

Data availability statement

The datasets presented in this study can be found in online repositories. The names of the repository/repositories and accession number(s) can be found at: https://n9.cl/0er91 .

Ethics statement

The studies involving humans were approved by the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya’s (UOC) Ethics Committee. Furthermore, it was conducted in accordance with the ethical standards laid out in the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki and subsequent updates ( WMA. World Medical Association, 2013 ). The studies were conducted in accordance with the local legislation and institutional requirements. Written informed consent for participation in this study was provided by the participants’ legal guardians/next of kin.

Author contributions

RB-C: Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Validation, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing. NA: Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Validation, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing. MS-T: Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Supervision, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing. LA: Conceptualization, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Supervision, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing.

The author(s) declare financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. This work was supported by the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación del Gobierno de España [2016EDU2016-75368-P and PID2020-114690RB-I00] and the Agència de Gestió d’Ajuts Universitaris i de Recerca (AGAUR) de la Generalitat de Catalunya [2021SGR01102].

Acknowledgments

We thank the Associació del Trastorn Específic del Llenguatge de Catalunya (ATELCA) and all the schools that participated in the study. Especially, we thank the participation of the Escola Santa Anna (Premià de Dalt), the Centres de Recursos per a Deficients Auditius de Catalunya (CREDA) and the Equips d’Assessorament Psicopedagògic de Catalunya (EAP). We would like to extend our gratitude to the professors, speech and language pathologists, and other experts who participated in the study. Finally, we thank Coral Mayo and Joan Tarrida for their assistance with the data collection.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher’s note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

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Keywords: developmental language disorder (DLD), specific language impairment (SLI), writing abilities, shallow language, expository text

Citation: Balboa-Castells R, Ahufinger N, Sanz-Torrent M and Andreu L (2024) Exploring Spanish writing abilities of children with developmental language disorder in expository texts. Front. Psychol . 15:1360245. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1360245

Received: 22 December 2023; Accepted: 20 March 2024; Published: 11 April 2024.

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Copyright © 2024 Balboa-Castells, Ahufinger, Sanz-Torrent and Andreu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Raquel Balboa-Castells, [email protected]

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Expository Essay
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Types of Expository Writing
Expository Writing Definition. Expository writing is a genre of writing that is used to explain, describe, inform, or clarify a particular expository essay topic to the reader.. Unlike other forms of writing that may involve personal opinions or persuasion, the characteristics of expository writing include a focus on providing factual information in a clear and organized manner.
Expository Essay Guide With Definition & Examples
An expository essay is an essay that communicates factual information. Broadly, this type of writing is known as expository writing. Expository essays rely on different structures to communicate their positions, like compare and contrast, process essays, and analyzing cause and effect. Expository writing is one of the four main types of writing ...
How to Write an Expository Essay
The structure of your expository essay will vary according to the scope of your assignment and the demands of your topic. It's worthwhile to plan out your structure before you start, using an essay outline. A common structure for a short expository essay consists of five paragraphs: An introduction, three body paragraphs, and a conclusion.
The Four Main Types of Essay
An essay is a focused piece of writing designed to inform or persuade. There are many different types of essay, but they are often defined in four categories: argumentative, expository, narrative, and descriptive essays. Argumentative and expository essays are focused on conveying information and making clear points, while narrative and ...
Expository Writing: Definition and Examples
Types of expository writing. There are numerous ways to present topics in a piece of expository writing: Compare and contrast. In a compare-and-contrast essay, you present two or more subjects and write about their similarities and differences. Definition. This type of expository writing defines a subject.
Expository Writing: Definition and Examples
The term expository writing refers to any writing that's designed to explain something. We use the word expository to describe any passage of writing that's supposed to present information and help you understand it in an objective way. Some common examples of expository writing include academic essays, textbooks, instructional guides, and ...
Expository Writing
Expository writing is a type of writing that is used to explain, describe, and give information and uses evidence, details, and facts to support the topic. An example of expository writing is ...
How to Write an Expository Essay: Types, Tips, and Topics
An expository essay is a type of essay wherein the writer investigates and expounds on an idea, evaluates evidence, and presents an argument about that idea in a clear and concise manner. The word expository comes from exposition , the noun form of "expose," which means to uncover something to let others know what it is.
Expository Essay: 3 Building Blocks to Propose an Idea and Defend It
What is an Expository Essay? Students are typically assigned one of at least four types of essays: the persuasive/argumentative essay, the descriptive essay, the technical essay, or the expository essay. Writing an expository essay is one of the most important and valuable skills for you to master. According to the Purdue Online Writing Lab:
Expository Essays
The expository essay is a genre of essay that requires the student to investigate an idea, evaluate evidence, expound on the idea, and set forth an argument concerning that idea in a clear and concise manner. This can be accomplished through comparison and contrast, definition, example, the analysis of cause and effect, etc.
How to Write an Expository Essay
Every student has to write an expository essay at least once in their educational career. These are actually fairly simple essays to write, but they do require some serious research skills. Like most academic essays, the expository essay requires formal writing with an introduction, body, and conclusion. Guide Overview
Expository Writing: The Craft of Sharing Information
Expository writing is a form of writing that aims to present information in a factual and objective manner in order to describe a topic. It's commonly used in academic papers, business reports, encyclopedia articles, and some nonfiction books. In this article we'll take a closer look at the characteristics of expository writing and provide ...
What Is an Expository Essay? Examples and Guide
An expository essay is a type of essay that involves explaining an idea or theme within a given subject or topic. We guide you through writing one with examples.
How to write Excellent Expository Essays
STRUCTURE & FEATURES OF EXPOSITORY WRITING. While there are many types of expository essays, the basic underlying structure is the same. The Hamburger or 5-Paragraph Essay structure is an excellent scaffold for students to build their articles. Let's explore the expository essay outline.
6 Types of Expository Writing with Examples
Expository writing is a type of essay where the writer explains or investigates a specific subject. This type of expository writing includes essays, newspaper articles, textbooks, manuals, and other writing forms. Moreover, it is also different from other forms of writing, like fiction and poetry. Keep in mind; you have to explain everything in ...
How to Write an Expository Essay: Types, Tips, & Examples
Consider writing down different concepts aligned with the types of expository essays and gauge which type best suits your chosen theme. Reflect on class discussions, teacher expectations, and personal interests to generate a list of potential questions. Conduct preliminary research on each topic to evaluate the availability of reputable sources ...
Expository Essays
Expository Essay Definition. Expository essays are fact-based essays focused on proving their writers' point. A variety of different structures can be used to argue for, and support, that point ...
What Is an Expository Essay? Types, Structure, Examples
An expository essay is an academic paper that exposes facts, explaining a topic to a reader. A writer shares the info to educate the audience, not entertain or persuade them. Examples of such explanatory texts are: It's an expository text definition for us to understand the nature of this paper type.
Expository Essays
However, the expository essay definition remains incomplete without understanding the different types of expository essays. An "expository essay" is an umbrella term used to describe different types of essays. These essays include classification essays, definition essays, process essays, compare and contrast essays, and cause-and-effect essays.
The Brilliant and Easy Guide to the 6 Types of Expository Writing
Types of Expository Writing - Definitions and Examples. 6 Types of Expository Writing. We are going to talk about 6 types of expository writing. Depending on the article that you read about expository writing you will hear that there are two, four, or even seven types of expository writing. We are going to focus on six in this article.
Expository Essay ~ Definition, Types & Structure
An expository essay is a type of writing where the author presents facts and evaluates a concept about a place, an object, a person, or an experience. The writer is expected to present information regarding the concept unbiased and accurately while ensuring it is written in the third person and delivered in chronological sequence. Writing an ...
What is Expository Writing: Types & How to Write
In the realm of written communication, expository writing stands as a beacon of clarity and understanding. This style of writing serves as a guiding light for readers, illuminating complex ideas, concepts, and information in a straightforward and organised manner. Read: A Complete Guide on How to Write & Publish an Anthologies of Poems in 2023.
Frontiers
There are several different types of expository structures. Meyer and Ray (2011) proposed six structures: compare-and-contrast, problem-and- solution, cause-and- effect, sequence, enumeration, and description. Each text structure type represents a distinct text organization and purpose.

Types of Expository Writing - Definition and Examples

Expository Writing Definition

What are the Types of Expository Writing?

Cause and Effect Essay

Process Essay

Compare and Contrast Essay

Problem and Solution Essay

Classification Essay

Descriptive Writing

Exploratory Writing

Anecdotal Evidence

Sequential Writing

Types of Expository Writing Examples

Tips for Expository Writing

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the five elements of expository writing?

How many types of expository writing are there?

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Expository Writing: Definition and Examples

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Expository Writing Definition

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Problem and Solution Essay

Compare and Contrast Essay

Classification Essay

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Expository Essay: 3 Building Blocks to Propose an Idea and Defend It

Lay a Strong Foundation

What is an Expository Essay?

3 Building Blocks of a Great Expository Essay

1. Write an introduction

2. Write your body paragraphs

The TEEES Body Paragraph Structure

T: Topic sentence

E: Explanation

E: Evidence

E: Examples

S: Significant/Summarizing sentence

3. Write the conclusion

Plan Your Essay Based on an Expository Essay Outline

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Expository Essays

Welcome to the Purdue OWL

What is an expository essay?

A complete argument

The five-paragraph Essay

How to Write an Expository Essay

Guide Overview

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Focus on the Thesis

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Expository Writing: The Craft of Sharing Information

It's a type of writing that informs and educates

You’ll find it in textbooks, reports, and manuals