How to Write an Informative Essay

As a student, having informative essay writing skills will come in handy in school and working environments. This writing process requires an author to provide readers with information on an occurrence, subject, idea, company, or thing. But using an approach to express an opinion or convince a reader in such an essay is not a good idea.

Although it is similar to narrative essay writing, composing an informative essay demands critical thinking and credible research. And we will show you briefly how to write an informative essay successfully in this article. But first, let's determine what an informative essay signifies.

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What is an Informative Essay?

When dealing with an informative essay, you should know its main features. The purpose of an essay is not to persuade an audience by adding interesting information. Instead, its focus is on educating a reader on a specific topic by offering a how-to, analyzing data, and comparing controversial viewpoints about a particular topic.

In addition, other types of essays can be very similar to informative ones. And it is crucial to differentiate them and point out their specific features.

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Variations of an Informative Essay

In academic practice, many essays can be defined as informative too. It occurs because they express the same purpose — to share information with audiences. Among them are the following:

  • Expository Essay
  • Narrative Essay
  • Cause-and-Effect Essay
  • Process Essay
  • Compare-and-Contrast Essay
  • Descriptive Essay
  • Problem-Solution Essay

1. Expository Essay

This essay type is almost identical to informative essays. Their similarity lies in their purpose — to provide readers with information. However, while writing an expository essay, you must add supporting evidence to explain specific points, which goes beyond providing readers with information.

2. Narrative Essay

A narrative essay aims to inform readers about a specific topic comprehensively. Typically, such an essay is used to uncover a single theme. A narrative essay is informative, as it is not focused on convincing the audience about a point.

3. Cause-and-Effect Essay

This essay focuses on describing how the cause of a thing occurs and what effect it might result on another thing. Therefore, it is considered informative if it discloses the main idea of the similarities connecting two things. However, this essay must determine a cause or effect. It is also considered an argumentative essay.

4. Process Essay

The name of a process essay tells itself. It is used to uncover a detailed description of an operational mechanism of something. That's why it is also considered informative. While writing this type of essay, you must clarify each step comprehensively.

5. Compare and Contrast Essay

Compare and contrast essay focuses on differentiating and highlighting the likenesses between multiple subjects. In other words, it could be either an argumentative or informative essay depending on the essay's motive. For instance, "The similarities and differences between football and basketball" is an informative essay. On the other hand, "Why is football better than basketball?" is an argumentative essay.

6. Descriptive Essay

In a descriptive essay, you need to provide an accurate description of a topic's object. It can be everything: a situation, a particular person, an occasion, and so on. While writing a descriptive essay, you must make it realistic enough to capture the reader's imagination. This essay could either be written to give information or with an eventual objective.

7. Problem-Solution Essay

Such an essay aims to examine a suggested problem and offer several solutions. This essay is informative when you provide several solutions to a raised issue. However, you will need to apply specific writing tools to convince a reader that one solution is superior to the rest.

Thus, all the types of essays mentioned above are informative because of their nature to provide some information. Of course, what format of the message is used in each kind is another topic for discussion. But if you prefer writing a persuasive essay, you can approach our service and receive an excellent piece of writing.

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Select your Topic

Writing an informative essay starts with defining a topic. It is challenging to select a topic, as this essay's type must be original, impressive, and meaningful. With this in mind, you should pick a topic that can explain new aspects of known phenomena or innovative approaches used in various life spheres. If you feel a lack of fresh ideas and need essay help, we gathered some topic examples for you:

  • How to substitute caffeine drinks with products that produce the same stimulating effect.
  • Positive aspects of plastic surgery or when having plastic surgery is the right thing to do.
  • How to determine that a person is addicted to drugs.
  • Is it possible to reduce obesity problems by placing a ban on fast food?
  • Causes and effects of domestic violence as a global issue.

Once you've chosen the essay's theme to work on, make sure you get all the necessary information to compose a concise and meaningful essay. After that, it's time to research and arrange your material in a particular order.

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How to Start Conducting Research

Like any other essay, you must gather the required information for your work through research. Creating a concept map with words and phrases connected with your central topic is a good idea. This will help you stay focused on the main aspects of your paper. Ensure you only use reliable websites, books, and articles to impart accurate information. Also, it is useful to note valuable citations and research details, not to overlook important facts. As soon as you have all material wrapped up, it is time to structurize it and bring it into the presentable form.

Steps to Writing a Successful Informative Essay

This section discloses the key stages of writing a successful, informative essay. The precondition to this step is the topic title defined and extensive research done. Now, you have a package of information you need to order and provide a smooth transition between sections in your paper.

An informative essay must have an introductory part that leads a reader to the key point of a composition. And you should know how to write an informative essay introduction to entice the reader's interest from the very beginning. If you don't have enough time for writing, you can always reach out to our support team and say, "write my essay please," and we will get it done. Our writers are always ready to help.

Informative Article Structure Example

There are many benefits to creating an informative essay outline:

  • It helps to organize your thoughts and ideas before you begin writing.
  • It gives others insight into what your research is about by including background information, sources, and conclusions.
  • It provides an opportunity to share your work with others in a way that they can understand.

1. Thesis statement

Many students question how to write a thesis statement for an informative essay. And we will help you understand it in a brief explanation. A thesis plays an important role. It helps focus a reader's attention on the essay's purpose. It should comprise the key facts. Make sure to provide not a too-long thesis statement but a short and accurate one.

If you can create a proper thesis statement, it would serve as a guideline for your analysis. Aside from that, an informative essay thesis must not have a persuasive manner but highlight what will come to the reader.

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2. Introduction

An introduction represents a summary of what you will reveal in your essay. The question of how to write an introduction for an informative essay is among those challenges bothering students. To solve it, you should consider how to make it engaging and captivating. Also, include your informative essay thesis statement in an introduction. Thus, your reader will be curious and eager to continue reading your essay.

3. Body paragraphs

In this part of your essay, you must reveal the main message. To make it more organized, divide the general information into a few paragraphs, for example, three. Each paragraph must be easy-to-read and contain details you aim to share on the topic. In academic writing, using only reliable sources to make your essay unique is crucial. So it would be best if you took proper time while researching.

4. Conclusion

The summarizing part of an essay is a conclusion, and you should know how to write a conclusion for an informative essay. It might be the content of the 5th paragraph of a paper. It leads an essay to summarize the hot points mentioned in the body. In this section, you should revise the essay's purpose again but from another angle.

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Tips for Writing an Informative Essay

Provide your plan well, select an appropriate topic, and know the informative essay structure - all these steps will make your essay writing process more manageable. If you know how to write a 500 word essay, composing a proper informative essay will be easy. However, we listed some tips that might help you in writing a proper informative essay:

  • Dive into the instructions for your assignment
  • Think of the unique essay title 
  • Make sure you do an extensive research
  • Create an impressive thesis statement
  • Create an outline 
  • Make your introduction catchy
  • Write each body paragraph with contents from trusted sources 
  • Do not include any information in the conclusion previously not stated in the body

An informative essay can be a great way to educate readers on a particular topic. The key to writing a successful essay is to provide clear and concise information without overwhelming the reader. PapersOwl can provide you with the necessary guidance to ensure that your informative essay is of the highest standard and contains only accurate and up-to-date information.

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What I Need to Avoid While Writing an Informative Essay

Writing a standard informative essay also involves a range of points better to avoid. Among them are:

  • Avoid including supporting evidence. This makes your work poorly informative and less argumentative.
  • Be cautious about using persuasive words and phrases.
  • Don't allow repetition of your thoughts and information at large to happen. Unless it is necessary to connect the dots, there is no need to mention any point more than once.

Knowing how to write an informative essay will be useful to you academically and professionally. Even though it appears difficult, learning the appropriate tips for writing it and utilizing the skills of experts will help you get through it.

Knowing how to write an informative essay will be helpful to you academically and professionally. Even though it is difficult, learning the appropriate tips for writing it and benefiting from experts' skills will enable you to get through it.

Writing this type of essay requires you to pass information through the reader without persuasion. However, it would help if you learned how to catch readers' interest using appropriate thesis statements. By following simple insights, you will get a successful, informative essay.

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