Understanding The Difference Between An Expository And An Informative Essay

Expository and informative essays are often being mistakenly confused, mostly due to the fact that they belong to the same genre. Still, there are numerous differences and specific features that should be kept in mind by both their authors and readers.

• An Expository Essay as It Is

What is an expository essay? It’s a piece of academic writing that is supposed to provide readers with some additional and interesting information on a subject they have already started to learn, knew before, etc. If you are writing an expository paper, you need to compose a certain point of view and support it with a range of proofs. The more you manage to find and the stronger they are, the better. However, you don’t need to argue over the opinion. You don’t need to turn the narration into an argumentative research. Simply represent your opinion and give enough reference information, which shows that you are right.

• The Essence of an Informative Essay

What is an informative essay? It’s a project that does not simply inform people on a certain problem. It educates your readers on the problem, providing them with additional knowledge, instructions, explanations, etc. For example, if you are composing an informative project on the importance of the Internet in people’s lives, you need to either teach them to use the Internet, or explain certain principles of its functioning to them, or compare opposite points of view on the importance of the Internet for today’s people, etc.

• The Differences in the Structure

There are slight differences in the structure of these papers. While an expository project normally contains a thesis statement at the very beginning, there can be no such detail in an informative one. Again, this difference is explained with the help of the goals each project pursues. That is, an expository paper is here to represent a point of view, and so the author makes his or her claim. An informative essay that is, for example, explaining the usefulness of regular exercising needs no such statements at all.

• How They Are Delivered

Finally, these projects are delivered in different ways. While an expository paper can contain some humor, interesting facts, or curious descriptions, an informative text usually has nothing of the mentioned. It’s aim is not to entertain readers, and it catches their attention with the help of a title rather than due to the attractive form of the delivery. It’s purpose is mostly utilitarian and educational.

The above-mentioned differences are very important though they may seem to be quite simple. They should be kept in mind in order to make no mistakes with another assignment.