How to write an Expository and Analysis Essay
Expository Essay
An expository essay is a form of structured academic writing that uses factual evidence to explain or investigate a specific topic. Unlike an argumentative essay, which requires that the writer form an opinion on a topic, expository essays have a neutral point of view and focus only on providing a factual analysis.
How to write an Expository and Analysis Essay
Expository writing aims to present a balanced, objective description of a topic. An expository essay format allows for the clear and logical explanation of complex information instead of proving a point or providing the writer’s personal opinion on a subject. Expository writing is a valuable skill in many fields of work, including journalism, business, and science.
When tasked with writing an expository essay, you’ll most likely be given a writing prompt that makes it clear what type of essay you should write. The main types of expository essays are:
Cause and effect essay: This essay requires the writer to explain why something occurred and what happened as a result.
Compare and contrast essay: The writer takes two subjects or ideas and analyzes their similarities and differences for a comparison essay.
Descriptive essay: This essay type is simply a detailed description or explanation of a topic. The topic may be an event, place, person, object, or experience. The writer has considerable creative freedom in this essay type.
Problem and solution essay: In this expository essay, the writer must shed light on a specific problem and write a thorough breakdown of valid potential solutions.
Process essay: Also called a how-to essay, this essay type breaks down a step-by-step procedure to teach the reader how to do something.
Now you understand that an expository essay is a genre that requires the student to investigate an idea, evaluate evidence, expound on the idea, and set forth an argument concerning that idea clearly and concisely.
Analysis Essay
Analytical essays provide a way to share your insights about a work of literature, scientific study, or historical event.
An analytical essay is a piece of writing that provides a substantive analysis of a topic. Analysis papers can be written about art, music, literary works, current events, historical events, politics, scientific research, and philosophy, among other topics. Analytical essays are common in academic settings, and they also appear in magazines, newspapers, academic journals, trade journals. A good analytical essay can explain and contextualize basic information for the reader’s benefit.
An analytical essay is not a summary. Analytical essays usually concentrate on how the piece was written – for example, certain themes present themselves in a story. To analyze something is to ask what that something means. An analytical essay answers how something does what it does or why it is as it is. Therefore, a thesis statement in an analysis paper should be answering a HOW or WHY question.
A strong thesis claims the subject that needs proving. It provides the writer (and the reader) with a focused lens to view the subject. A weak thesis either makes no claim or asserts that it does not need proving. A fuzzy lens will not help the writer (or the reader) be guided to a better understanding of the subject. Most weak thesis statements suffer because they are overly broad (or not specific enough)
Analytical essays serve two purposes, one for the reader and one for the writer. High school teachers and college professors assign analytical papers to help their students grow as writers and thinkers. Analytical papers boost students’ writing skills and enhance their comprehension of a particular topic.
Analytical essays also benefit readers. Newspapers and magazines routinely publish critical analysis essays to help their readers make sense of the news of the day. These types of essays enable authors, who may be experts in their fields, to educate their fellow citizens on matters of politics, economics, art, architecture, culture, and many other subjects of importance.
However, descriptive essays summarize facts, while analytical essays delve into the interpretation. An analytical essay means you will need to present some argument, or claim, about what you are analyzing.