Essay: The Expository Essay
You get to choose your own topic for this essay. Make sure you choose a topic that lends itself to academic research, one in which you are invested. Your Essay 1 will become your Essay 2, so do a good job with all aspects of it. When you research possible topics for Expository Essays online, you will see that many of them are very personal, and definitely do not lend themselves to academic, formal voice and research. You must write in third person only, regardless of what the textbooks show for examples, or what you see elsewhere.
This essay will be 4-6 double spaced pages, with a total of at least 4 cited sources. This is a formal, researched, cited, MLA format essay.
The Expository Essay Format
The Expository Essay follows the standard essay format of Introduction, Body, and Conclusion. Although it is distinctly different from other types of essay, it may use the techniques of compare and contrast, cause and effect, and divide and categorize, while using examples, statistics and/or definitions to meet its goal.
The Expository Essay introduction is a statement of the essay's thesis and the sub-topics that will be developed within the essay body. The expository essay is generally a short composition (4-8 pages) that attempts to completely cover a narrow topic. To achieve this objective, the essay thesis needs to be well defined and narrow.
Each paragraph of the body of the expository essay must have a dominant point that directly relates to the essay thesis. All supporting sentences within each body paragraph must have a direct and factual relationship to the dominant point.
Appropriate use of transitions is also crucial to a good expository essay. Transitions confirm the organization and the logic of your composition as they allow the reader to move smoothly from point to point of your essay.
Keep sentence structures simple and clear in anticipation of potential misunderstandings. Stay away from slang and colloquialisms. Be sure to use technical terms in context and accurately. Explain acronyms and those terms that may be unfamiliar to your reader.
Conclude your expository essay by restating your thesis (although not a direct restatement, since that lacks sophistication) and summarizing the points that lead to your conclusion.