Types of Essay In English Language

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Types Of Essay

There are several types of essay in English language which are as follow:

Narrative essay
Argumentative essay
Descriptive essay
Expository writing

1. Narrative essay.

A narrative essay is one in which the writer tells a story give a report of an incident or events. It relates mainly a sequence of events. It tells what happened and how it happened.

A narrative essay is often distinguished from a short story. In the course of a telling a story, the writer may find it necessary to describe some scenes or events, or even to explain such ideas or points to make the story clearer and interesting.

How ever, a good narrative essay should have the following as its qualities.

It has to be interesting and captivating
It should have a fast moving phase from one incident to the other
It should be simple and un complicated
It should avoid direct translation from the first language

As the name implies” narrative” derived from narration, it involves giving account of something. There fore, as there are different reasons for narration, there are also different forms of narration.

Types Of Narrative Essay

There are mainly three(3) types of narrative essays

I. Minutes of necting and report

II. Stones and histones

III. Biography and auto liograghy

I. Minutes writing is giving an account of what transpired ina meeting where as report writing is giving account of a

II. Story is giving account of what happened for the purpose of entertainment. Ina story description is giving of how something happened, that is intended to teach a lesson or entertain the audience and it may be true or imaginary, where as, history on the other hand means giving account of the fast events that happened in the past, especially the political, and economic development of a nation.

III. Biography is an account of a of a person’s life written by some one else, where as, auto biography is an act of giving a story of your self by your self in writing.

A narrative essay is also associated with certain characteristics as follows:

Method Of Narrative Writing

In every good narrative, events to be discussed are arranged in choonological order. The following task enable for better arrangement, clearity, and simplicity as noted:

One has to be clear about the story one is going to narrate.
He has to present the event in the order they occurred ,(i.e one after the other).
If he has to introduce a descriptive material he should decide the points at which to introduce them in his narration.
If there are characters involved in the narration, the narrative should be clear at to what sort of people they are and why they act the way they did.
[example of narrative essay should be treated in the class a s practical approach, to enable student to understand and know how to unite a narrative essay].

2. Argumentative Essay

Argumentative essay: By way of definition, “argumentative” mean a situation in two or more people disagree, but does not mean quarret.

Implies that , there are opposing positions. Arguments involved ordered reasoning. It requires a process of reasoning of drawing condition from audience, or facts of logic.

There fore an argumentative essay differs from the other types of essays as viable issues naturally lines up arguments for and against. Before and argument is arise, doubt and complict must exist about the inter pretation of the issue presented for arguments.

We normally argue to support or refute and idea. But we do not argue about what we can easily verify (e.g time of the day) we can not also argue about what is subjective (e.g taste) because what is good or tasted to you maybe not be so to some one .

Since the purpose of argument is to convince someone or an audience to accept and act upon our ideas, and argument essay is that piece of writing made to influence or parsuad the reader to agree with the writers opinion on a particular idea and also to affect a change in rhe behaviour of the reader.

Having been different from other forms of essays.

The argumentative essay has some as follows:

Qualities Of An Argumentative Essay

Persuation through reasons
Enough points, logically arranged and well explained
Objectivity- representing other people views.
Clarity of express
Avoidance of repitition
Justication of opinions

Having accepted that the fact we argue in order to persuade others to accept our idea or opinion, in this case we need to justify the ideas or opinion through the application of appropriate method.

The method are as follows:

Method Of Writing An Argumentative Essay

In the presenting of. Formal arguments we need to apply the the following methods:

Leaving the strongest point till last
The arguments for and against should be kept separate and in contrest.
When arguing one is adviced to begin with the opont’s argument and to show whether its strong.
Do not over state or over generalize a case e.g of an argumentative essay. “Civil rule is preparrable to military rule”
disadvantage of military rule
Denial of the citizen’s fundamental human rights
Absence of check and blances.

3. Descriptive Essay.

A descriptive essay is the type of essay where the predominant elements in its description. The description would be of a person, place, event or things. In the cause of description the writer may feel the need to explain some points to clirify the description or to narrate some stones related to people and event being described. In the case narration and exposition have come in.

Must of the descriptive essays have a mixture of description, narration and exposition but with the descriptive element predominating. To describe well, a writer. must make use of his powers of observation that is the looks of the things critically to make a vivid description. Vivid description means giving all the required detail so that the reader not only sees, but smells, feels, hears and tastes through imagination and various experiences, through the writer’s words.

The main purpose of descriptive essay is to produce in the mind of the reader a picture as clear abd and as accurate as that in the mind of the writer. The essays transfers from the mind of the writer to that of the reader the object being described.

The must important factor in the construction of this type of essay is the order of the material. The rule is to start with general aspect and then proceed to the particular ones .

Arrangements Of Material In Description.

An descriptive essays, material are arranged in accordance with who to be described. The arrangement below may serve as guide:

i. Description of a person: This, in other word is known as character sketch. In this the writer is espected to begin with the general features like the size either tall or short, fat or shine.

He then described peculiar features, e.g face. This is also means describing the person from head to toe.

It is not only the physical appearance that matters but also the mannerism notice about him like, emotioned, stammering, reserve, lynical etc.

If possible the writer describes the kind of clothes the person used to wear.

ii. Describing place: In describing a place, it is always important to begin with the exterior and describe the different part as vividly as the reader thing there can see rhem.

After this , the inferior part would be described in trouble.

If you are asked to described a town, its always better to begin with the important institutions or building one may likely see at the entrance.

The writer can not everything one can see in the town, he should therefore, pay attention in to the most important landmarks in describing a place, one is espected to sound more objective.

iii. Describing an object: it is an object, the writer begins with basic part and then mores to the other parts attached to it.

In describing a particular tree, for example, the trunk is first described followed by the branches, leaves and fruits.

In describing a bag of a box , to outside appearance is started with before listing its contents. These features would also be seen and summarize as follows:

Shape
Size
Weight
Colours
Composition
Age and condition
Location of subordinate items

Method Of Writing Descriptive Essay.

Since the goal of descriptive writer is to give an accurate and informative description of the object he wants to write on, he should adopt the following methods in his description.

Make a list of all its general aspects, putting the most general ones first.
He has visualize very clearly that object he wants to describe.
He should make the list of essentials facts to mention.
If the object to be described has history, the writer should decide the points at which to mention it.

4. Expository Writing

An expository writing is the type of essay in which the writer attempt an explanationof an idea, or how to do or make something, it gives complete explanation of all the main aspect of its subject, it is some what like a descriptive essay in that is contain a great deal of description but it also explains how things work or operate and shows their relations with other things.

This type of essay is mainly for giving specific information.

Exposition offer basically answers to the question how?. (Exposition) present, analyses and explains a process. It is a kind of probe writing concerned with gathering and presenting information to make a report about events, it explains how some thing works; it describes how to do task.

Expository writing it make to gives certain information or things like

Sallah or chrismas celebration .
Explanation on certain aspects of a culture (e.g marriage in hausa land)
Explanation on festivals ( e.g argungu fishing festival, yam festival).
Definition of concepts.
Explanation on how mechanisms work.

Expository is a process of explaining, describing, narrating, defining, analyzing, expression and arguing. It is therefore categorized in to the following types:

Types Of Expository Writing

There are six common types of expository writing, they are:

Definition (writing to define concept or ideas).
Expository description (writing to describe feeling or ideas).
Expository analysis (writing to analyze).
Expository narration (writing to tell or explains or narrate).
Expository argumentative (writing to express opinion or view).
Expository expressive(writing to express one’s self).

Qualities Of Good Exposition

There are certain features that are obviously necessary for every good expository writing to posses these features are:

Clarity; if an explanation is not clear, the reader will be confused and the writer will have failed to achieve the purpose of his writing. In this case simple language has to be used, the sentences must not be completed.
Variety in vocabulary and structure: the writer is expected to give a vivid explanation of the subject by presenting the types (if there are) the nature, the purpose, the aims and objectives, the prospect and examples of his subjects. Exame: ” examination irregularities in Nigerian educational system cause and cure”.

Also Read: What Is Public Service, And Public Complain Commission