Types of writing Essay Example for Free

Types of writing Essay Compare and Contrast This type of writing allows the writer to point out similarities and differences about topics, subjects or objects. Compare means to identify how your topics are alike or similar. You state what they have in common. On the other hand, contrast means to identify what is different about your your topic. When contrasting, you state what makes the topic, subject or object unique or one of a kind. In writing to compare and contrast, you include both the similarities and the differences into the one piece of writing so the reader can grasp the big picture. In this type of writing, you might be asked to compare and contrast two animals you find in Africa. Comparison and Contrast A comparison and contrast writing is going to have two topics usually. A comparison is going to show the similarities among ideas, situations, people, and things, whereas contrast is going to show the differences. There has to be a reason for the comparison or contrast. There should be several points which are being compared between the two subjects. This type of writing can be organized by using either the point-by-point method or the whole-to-whole. Four Types of Writing: There are four types of writing or four writing styles that are generally used. Knowing all these four different types of writing and their usages are important for any writer. A writer’s style is a reflection of his personality, his unique style, his voice and his way to approach his audience and readers. Generally there are four different types or styles of writing. Following are their names and details: 1. Expository Writing: Expository writing is a subject-oriented writing style, in which the main focus of the author is to tell you about a given topic or subject, and leave out his personal opinions. He furnishes you with relevant facts and figures and does not include his opinions. This is one of the most common type of writing styles, which you always see in text books and usually â€Å"How – to† articles, in which the author tells you about a given subject, as how to do something. Expository This is a fancy way of saying explain or inform. So, this is writing that explains something. You may be writing how to make  a peanut butter and jelly sandwich if you are asked to write an Expository essay. In Social Studies, you may be asked to inform readers of how a war began or about how pyramids ever came to be. You are informing readers. Like Descriptive writing, you see Expository writing in books, magazines, and newspaper articles. Key Points: * Expository writing usually explains something in a process * Expository writing is often equipped with facts and figures * Expository writing is usually in a logical order and sequence 2. Descriptive writing: Descriptive writing is a style of writing which focuses on describing a character, an event or a place in great details. It is sometimes poetic in nature in which the author is specifying the details of the event rather than just the information of that event happened. Descriptive Like the word says, you describe. Use your senses to describe the people and places you are writing about. What do you see, hear, smell taste and feel. The more detail you can add the better your descriptive writing becomes. Create a picture for readers through description so they can step into your story and be a part of it. This type of writing is frequently used and may be found in books as well as magazines and newspaper articles. Description A description is going to describe a topic while giving a general impression of the topic. Examples are going to be used which help shape the readers view of the topic. Sensory details should be used to support the examples. This will make the reader feel like they are actually at the place, or seeing the person or object. Example: In descriptive writing, the author will not just say: â€Å"The vampire killed his lover† He will change the sentence, focusing on more details and descriptions, like: â€Å"The red-eyed, bloody vampire, flushed his rusty teeth into the soft skin of his lover, and ended her life.† Key Points: * It is often poetic in nature * It describes places, people, events, situations or locations in a highly-detailed manner. * The author visualizes you what he sees, hears, tastes, smells and feels. 3. Persuasive Writing: Persuasive writing, unlike ‘Expository Writing’, contains the opinions, biasness and justification of the author. Persuasive writing is a type of writing which contains justifications and reasons to make someone believe on the point the writer is talking about. Persuasive writing is for persuading and convincing on your point of view. It is often used in complain letters, when you provide reasons and justifications for your complaint; other copywriting texts, T.V commercials, affiliate marketing pitches etc. are all different types of persuasive writing, where author is persuading and convincing you on something he wants you to do and/or believe. Persuasive Has a friend ever tried to get you to change your mind about something? Then, that person was trying to persuade you. If you wrote out your conversation, that would have been Persuasive writing! With Persuasive writing, a writer tries to change your mind or your point of view. Using facts and opinions, the writer tries to get you to see things his/her way. Politics overflows with writing and speeches by people trying to persuade others to their way of thinking. Sometimes, in newspapers and magazines, you see Persuasive writing in articles called editorials. Key Points: * Persuasive writing is equipped with reasons, arguments and justifications * In persuasive writing, the author takes a stand and asks you to believe his point of view. * If often asks for a call or an action from the readers. 4. Narrative Writing: Narrative writing is a type of writing in which the author places himself as the character and narrates you to the story. Novels, short stories, novellas, poetry, biographies can all fall in the narrative writing style. Simply, narrative writing is an art to describe a story. It answers the question: â€Å"What happened then?† Narrative This is the kind of writing where you get to tell a story. Everyone loves to hear story, especially about themselves, which would be a Personal Narrative. A story will use literary elements like characters, a setting, a plot and a theme. From  novels to screenplays to plays, they are all narratives because they tell a story. Narration A narration is basically the telling of a story, but it should have some moral or some other reason why it is important. The narration needs to have a main idea which will be supported by the events of the story. A good narration is also going to have plenty of details about all of the events that occurred within the story thats being told. Another rule for narration is that events should be in the order that they actually happened. The writing shouldnt skip around in time. Key Points: * In narrative writing, a person, being a narrative, tells a story or event. * Narrative writing has characters and dialogues in it. * Narrative writing has definite and logical beginnings, intervals and endings. * - Narrative writing often has situations like disputes, conflicts, actions, motivational events, problems and their solutions.Top of Form Bottom of Form Analytical Writing, or, What Makes Something What It Is. This type of writing makes a detailed examination of something in order to understand its nature and its essential features. In an English Literature essay about Thomas Hardy’s poetry, it isn’t good enough to say ‘The Darkling Thrush’ is a powerful poem. You need to say how and why the poem is powerful by looking at its component parts – e.g. adjectives, images, rhymes – and saying how they work individually and how they work together to achieve particular effects. In a management essay asking you to analyse the relevance of a particular theory to modern organizations, you would need to outline the essential features of the theory and relate them to organizational examples. Chronological Writing, or, What Happened And When. This type of writing relates a sequence of events. An obvious place this is used is in history essays but you would also use it in an English Literature essay if you need to say briefly what happens inOliver Twist or King Lear. To cite to an example discussed elsewhere in this resource, you would also use it in a psychology essay that asked you to describe the development of scientific paradigms. Compare And Contrast Writing, or, How Two Things Are Similar And  Dissimilar. This type of writing examines two things and the similarities and differences between them. It is a very common type of writing e.g. ‘Compare the treatment of love and power in two of the Shakespeare plays studied this semester’. Or to use an example closer to home: ‘Compare how essay writing skills are taught to new students arriving at universities in the UK and the USA’. This type of writing can involve several of the other types of writing discussed in this section: chronological, descriptive, analytical etc. Descriptive Writing, or, What Something Is Like. This type of writing gives a picture of the main characteristics of something. For example, ‘How are essay writing skills taught to new students arriving at universities?’ This seems like a very straightforward type of writing. However, you should remember that there may be more than one view or description of a subject; and that saying what something is leads inevitably to saying how and why it is i.e. to analytical writing. Evaluative Writing, or, How And Why Something Is Important. This type of writing makes a judgement about something. For example: ‘Evaluate the effectiveness of how essay writing skills are taught to new students arriving at universities.’ However, in contrast to other sorts of judgement – ‘That meal was fantastic’ or ‘Terminator 3 was rubbish’ – you have to say why and back up your judgement with evidence. Evaluative writing can involve several of the other types of writing in this section. For example, you would probably want to compare different ways of teaching essay writing skills and say which worked best. Summary Writing, or, The Key Features Of Something. This type of writing gives a brief account of the important features of something. For example, ‘Describe the important features of how essay writing skills are taught to new students arriving at universities.’ You will probably do this sort of writing at least once in every essay you write because university essays are usually designed to assess and test your understanding of a particular topic, writer or concept. Some subjects, such as psychology, will ask students to produce short seminar reports about a particular area of study. Introductions and conclusions to essays are types of summary. To Sum Up: There are distinct varieties of essay that require different types of writing. You can often spot which type of writing you are being asked to do from the way the essay title is phrased. However, remember that a well-written, effective essay will probably use several of these different  types of writing. For example, you have to say what something is like – descriptive writing – before you can say whether or not it’s important or valuable – evaluative writing. Conclusion: These are the four different types of writing that are generally used. There are many sub-types of writing which may fall in any of those categories. A writer must know all these styles, so as to identify his very own writing style, in which he feels comfortable, or which his audience likes to read. In developing writing and argument skills, it is necessary to be able to approach a topic in different ways. A student may find that some methods are more effective than others depending upon the circumstance. The nine patterns of writing are cause and effect, argument, illustration, narration, process analysis, classification, definition, description, and comparison and contrast. Cause and Effect A cause and effect paper is going to center around a particular event. From there, the writing is going to tell what happened before the event as well as what happened after. The writer also needs a purpose for writing this assignment. Details of the examples are going to be useful for shaping the argument as well. Argument An argument needs to have punch to it in order to be effective. It is an argument and the job of the writer is to persuade the reader to share the same point of view. This writing starts with a strong position on a topic. Evidence should be used and reasons should be given for the position. Another important thing to address in the writing is opposing views. Illustration An illustration is a writing pattern which uses examples to show, explain, or prove a point. For this type of writing, there is going to be a main point which the writing is trying to illustrate. The writer does this by giving examples and giving lots of details to support the examples. There should also be enough examples to really reinforce the main point. Process Analysis A process analysis tells others how to do something or how something works. It is going to give all the major steps in the proess and explain each of the steps using lots of details. Its also important to list the steps in chronological order. Classification Classification seeks to understand people or things in some way by putting them into different categories. There has to be a purpose for the sorting. The writer should explain how the categories were organized and give details about the things that are in each one of the categories. Definition A definition is going to explain the meaning of a term or concept. The first step in a definition is to let the audience know what is going to be defined. This should be followed by the definition. Examples will allow the definition to be explained more thoroughly. More details will be necessary to make sure that readers understand the examples.