Types of Academic Essays – A Study Guide to Understand them All

    Essay writing is in fact a common and most important aspect of students’ life. None of the students can get away from the task of writing essays during their academic years. Professors now and again used to ask the students to come up with academic essays as it is a part of their curriculum. Academic essays come as an effective method for the teachers to evaluate the skills, knowledge and proficiency of every student. In general terms, an essay is a piece of writing that systematically discusses and assesses a topic. Basically, an essay is intended to bring out your opinion, views, thought and ideas on a specific matter. The purpose of an academic essay is to persuade students to expand ideas and concepts in their writing. Hence, the student is required to sharpen many skills such as reading, analysis, researching, brevity, precision, and exposition.

    There are in fact different types of academic essays and students are somehow required to deal with every of them at some point in their life as a student. Being a student, you will be asked to write diverse types of assignments during your academic years. Obviously, the majority of the students may not have any ideas about all these sorts of academic essays. However, it is vital for the students to get to know about dissimilar academic essays since it will help them to handle those essays with no problem once their teachers ask them to write. So, students can keep away from the worry often related with essay writing by knowing some general genres within.

    Academic Essays Study Guide

    Here is a brief look at the different genres of essay writing:

    • Expository Essay

    The expository essay is a kind of informative piece of writing. In expository essays, the writer makes an effort to introduce a topic or subject to the reader. This sort of academic essay focuses on presenting an objective analysis of a topic. In such an essay, the writer gives details or describes a topic, using facts, statistics, and examples. Keep in mind that expository essays are centered on facts and there is place for personal feelings in it. So, the student should research on an idea, assess facts, develop on the idea, and present an argument relating to that idea in a comprehensible and brief way.

    • Descriptive Essay

    Descriptive essays are another and very imperative genre of academic essays. In a descriptive essay, student is required to illustrate an object, person, place, experience, emotion, situation, etc. It gives the students a chance to create an account on a particular experience. This sort of essay writing lets the writers to bring out their artistic freedom. Most of the times, writers make use of the essay to generate a view on a specific object. The function of a descriptive essay is to expose the meaning of an area or subject under discussion. It is vital for the writers to make their discussion through thorough examination.

    • Narrative Essay

    A narrative essay discloses meaning through a personal story. Obviously, this type of essay is an account written about a personal experience and therefore, this type of essays provides a chance for the writers to be introduced to and appreciate themselves better. Narrative essays are often subjective, empirical, and personal. Being a student, this genre of essay writing let students to communicate themselves in an artistic and touching ways. A lot of people think that narrative essay writing is easy, but it’s not. The main reason that you are essential to bring in a convincing personal account and the person who reads it should be persuaded as well.

    • Persuasive Or Argumentative Essay

    Persuasive essays also known as argumentative essays. The main purpose of a persuasive essay is to persuade a reader about a specific idea, generally one that you have faith in. In this kind of essays, the writer is must to make the most of logic and reason to prove that their idea is more justifiable than another notion. While writing persuasive essays, the main aim of the writer is to persuade a reader to accept a certain viewpoint or to obtain a particular action. Argumentative essays need superior research, wakefulness of the readers understanding, and a thorough knowledge of both sides of the subject you are discussing.

    • Compare And Contrast Essay

    In general terms, a compare and contrast essay give details about the differences and similarities between two people, stories, incidents, places or things.           The main objective of compare and contrast essay is that the writer should focus on the ways in which certain things or thoughts are similar to or different from one another. In the genre of essay writing, the student is vital to make connections between texts or ideas and carry out critical thinking. In this sort of academic essay, the writer is not expected to bring in mere description or summary but should produce appealing analysis on why the idea is different or similar.

    • Cause and Effect Essay

    Cause and effect essay is another genre of essay that the students are required to handle during their academic years. Writing this essay is all about shaping a picture in which one action or incident caused particular effects to take place. The writer has got to make clear about what took place and why it occurred. So, when you write a cause and effect essay, you should bring in ideas and views effectively why things occurred and what happened as a result of it. This kind of essay is a familiar way of arranging and conferring thoughts in an academic setting.

    • Admission Essay

    Admission Essay is another very important essay that students are indispensable to deal with. In general terms, it’s a personal statement or a statement of purpose. It is an essay or a written statement by a student applying to some college, university, or graduate school. These days, the admission essay is a regular part of the university and college admissions procedure. Hence, most of the students will have to be familiar with this sort of writing. In admission essays, the applicant should talk about his or her life, experiences, academic accomplishments, reason to apply to a particular college or university and goals.

    • Scholarship Essay

    The main purpose of Scholarship Essays is that it presents the scholarship committee an understanding of who you are and your commitment to your objectives. It is certain that writing an excellent essay can assist you to get more money for college. Keep in mind that scholarship essay gives the scholarship provider a good idea about or to learn about the person behind the application, and offers them a much more thorough view on your school and home life. Scholarship Essays is a sort of personal essay and the main idea of your essay is to convince the scholarship provider that you are the person fit for it.

    • Case Study Essay

    It is generally said that a case study is a complete study of a person, group or an occasion. A case study essay is used in academic discipline as a great deal and it is vital for the students to deal with case studies efficiently at some point in their student life. The function of a case study essay is to make available a more comprehensive assessment of a situation. While writing such an essay, the writer is required to divulge remarkable information of things. A case study is a logical piece of writing which clearly contains deep research and use of theories, concepts, and knowledge.

    • Analytical or Analysis Essay

    Analytical or analysis essay is a common essay that students used to get during their academic years. In general terms, an analytical essay denotes that the writer should present some sort of argument, or claim, in relation to what they are actually analyzing. In this type of essay, the writer will be focusing on examining intensely about another piece of writing or a film. Some of the writers used to examine an issue, or an idea. Hence, it gives them ample chance to bring together their thoughts and research to examine an issue. So, you need a topic and research on it to get ample evidence that supports your claim.

    • Term Paper Essay

    Term paper essay used to have a lot of importance in a student’s academic life and they will be required to handle term papers as per the requirements of their teachers. Term paper is considered as a lengthy essay on a subject drawn from the work carried out during a school or college term. It’s a kind of research paper that is prepared by students over an academic term. The main purpose of term paper essays is to illustrate an incident, an idea, or talk about a point and hence it’s all about discussing a topic in depth.

    • Five Paragraph Essay

    A five paragraph essay is an arrangement of essay having five paragraphs. Five paragraph essays should have an introduction, three body paragraphs and a conclusion. Due to the structure of the essay, it is also identified as a hamburger essay, one three one, or a three-tier essay. In the introduction part, you have to bring in the main theme of the whole essay and thesis statement can make the initial paragraph excellent. Body paragraphs should support the thesis, and you should come up with evidence to support you arguments in body paragraphs of the essay. The conclusion should reaffirm the thesis and sum up the whole essay.

    • Critical Essay

    Critical essay is another most important assignment that the students get during their academic years at college and university. In general terms, this paper is an examination of a text such as a book, film, article, story, poem, work of art, or painting. The students will have broad topics to discus when they handle critical essay. The main purpose of critical essays is to present a text or an analysis of some characteristic of a text or to put the text in a wide framework. Hence, this essay tries to examine the strong points, weak points and techniques of someone else’s work.

    • Definition Essay

    Definition essays are another sort of essays that students have got to deal with during their academic days. Definition essay is considered as a short piece of writing on a specific subject. In order to write an essay, the writer will require describing a statement that has a compound meaning and is debatable. Students can make definition essay easier if they choose a less concrete or theoretical topic that can be effortlessly enlightened by means of your knowledge or experience. It requires getting a personal yet academic definition of one definite word. It is vital that you opt for a word that will present you ample materials to write about.

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