Informative Essay: Where to begin, how to begin, when to begin, and more importantly why to begin. These are some of the basic questions that pop out in a student’s mind when he/she is sitting inside his or her classroom on their bench when their teacher gives them homework or an assignment to write an informative essay on an alien topic that the student has never had in his or her life. Everyone at one point of time in their student life would have faced such a situation where they are completely blank about where to start and more importantly how to start.
This particular article on how to write an informative essay is mainly for such students who feel lost when their teachers give them homework or project work. Writing an informative essay is definitely not rocket science but if you have no idea about the topic or the format to write an informative essay, it will definitely feel like a rocket science and this article will help you sail through easily and we are sure at the end of this article, students will feel at ease and could complete their project work, assignments and homework on informative essay easily. First of all, let’s start with some of the basic questions that one might have about informative essay.
You can also find more Essay Writing articles on events, persons, sports, technology and many more.
What is an Informative Essay?
An informative essay is an essay solely written with the objective of educating your reader. This essay is always written in a style that is more reader friendly without regards to the background of the reader. Such essays should be written, irrespective of the difficulty level of the topic, in a way where even the person who is alien to the topic would find it interesting and easy to understand. But it is easier said than done. For example, how would you write an essay on quantum mechanics so that a 6th standard kid would understand? Sounds like a herculean task, isn’t it?
Not necessarily. One should be well aware of the target audience while writing an informative essay. Usage of simple words and avoiding the usage of scientific and management jingoes is an important tip that should be followed religiously here. In this particular example above, where we mentioned an essay on quantum mechanics that an average student might find it difficult to understand, what one needs to remember here is the objective of the essay.
In this case, the objective of the essay on quantum mechanics should be as rudimentary as possible so that a small kid would get just the right amount of fundamental image of the topic. But at the same time, if your target audience is someone who has done a masters degree in quantum mechanics then painting a basic picture of the topic here might not at all be helpful to your target audience. In such cases you need to do a good amount of research and list down topics, facts and argumentative logical statements from the particular topic so that your informative essay is actually more informative to a Master’s student then what he or she would have learnt in the college.
We need to remember that informative essays hold a lot of important for students who are trying to clear entrance examinations or complete assignments and project works. It is not that the information on the topic is not available on internet or textbooks but the vast amount of information that is available on the web or in the library is tsunami of information and it will be dofficuly to process that amunf of information for a student who wants to complete one particular topic. Hence your informative essay should be a tool for such people where the topic is read in a crisp manner according to his or her desire.
Good research, knowing your target audience and organising or structurizing your essay are the three most important things for a good informative essay.
How to Write an Informative Essay?
Informative essay is the bedrock of the essays in the academic institutions which means that if a student learns how to write a good informative essay then he or she can crack other essays with ease such a poetry analysis essay, academic papers, thesis, critical analysis essay or process analysis essay. Colleges and schools tend to focus more on informative essays because in writing informative essay not only does the student gain first hand experience of writing professional essays but also learn how to do proper research on a topic and understand his or her target audience.
There is no one particular hard and fast rule on how to write an informative essay but it is always safe to follow the general pattern of writing informative essay which is followed by almost all top universities around the world such as Harvard University, Stanford University, Wharton University or in the Indian academia such as Bangalore university, Delhi University ot Jawaharlal Nehru University.
The general pattern includes introduction, body and conclusion but it is totally left to the writer to play as he or she deems fit with this pattern according to what the target audience’s needs according to the chosen topic.
Introduction
As we have meantioned before, an informative essay’s sole objective is to inform your target audience about the outline of a topic, an event or a phenomenon. Hence, in this case make sure that the introduction part catches the attention of your target audience because if the introduction part is weak your target audience might not even read the entire article. Introduction forms the very first impression of your article and hence these first two paragraphs should add enough value to your reader than the rest of the essay.
But how to write introduction?
Divide your introduction part into three sub-parts which are topic, background and thesis statement.
Basically, the introduction part of your essay should give a highlight to your reader on what to expect in the body and conclusion parts of the essay.
The introduction should contain a brief history of the topic or event that you are describing. Then again, most of the content in the introduction, body and conclusion depends on the type of topic that is under analysis. Take for example, if the topic you have chosen is the “impact of British rule on Indian education today”. A good essay should contain the history of the British rule, how it has impacted the education right from 1947 to 2020 and what holds for the Indian education system in the next 50 years with respect to the impact of the British rule in the country in the past. Past, present and future should be the colour of the entire body of the essay for such topics.
As we have mentioned before, the pattern of essay depends on topic to topic and the introduction, body and conclusion format will not hold any water for niche topics such as science or technology. Nevertheless, irrespective of the topic at hand, the writer should be well aware of what the target audience thinks about the chosen topic. It is always good to do rudimentary research not just on the topic but on your target audience because the contents in your essay will depend on the level of knowledge that your target audience possesses.
Body
The most important part of your informative essay forms the body and it is in this part that you need to articulate your arguments, opinions, facts, figures and support statements that you’d want to convey to your reader. Usually, it is recommended to keep the body of your essay within 600 word limit but then again it varies from topic to topic. Not every essay should contain a 600-word limit body because the entire tone of the essay is completely left to the discretion of the writer. Let us take an example of the topic of “how to quit smoking”. The body of the essay should contain scientific logic and various solutions to quit smoking and the timeline in which the smoking can be cut out for an average Joe smoker. Various naunaces involved in the process, challenges in quitting smoking and examples for people who have done it before should also be a part of your essay.
The process should be defined and articulated well in such topics because the reader does not need words that are in the air but real life scenarios and challenges so that the reader gets a real life picture of practical realities involved in quitting smoking.
Conclusion of the Informative Essay
The last impression that you leave on your reader is the imprint that will be stuck with them for the forecable future. Hence, it becomes extremely important to write a good conclusion for your informative essay.
Please note the following points for writing a good conclusion for an informative essay
- Your conclusion should simply be a round up of what is already written in the introduction and body part of your informative essay.
- Never include new information in the conclusion part apart from what is written in body and introduction
- Keep the conclusion with 150 words so that you don’t stress the reader out in the end
- Conclusion should be so well articulated in a brief manner that without even reading the body and introduction, your target audience should get the just of the topic or event under description.
- Go through the body of the essay thrpughly so that you don’t repeat the same sentences exactly while your brifing your audience in the conclusion part. Repetetive statements will create fatigue on the part of the reader.
General Topics to Write for Informative essay
- How to quit smoking?
- Ill effects of ill junk food
- Lergalisation of marajiuana
- Brief history of contemporary India
- How to improve Indian schooling system?
- Benefits of globalization
- How E-commerce has changed Indian business dynamics?
- Is an MBA real necessary to succeed in business?
- Was lockdown necessary to prevent covid-19 pandemic in India?
- Should death penalty be abolished