The Complete Guide to Expository Writing: Tips & Techniques

Overview

An expository essay is one of the most common types of essays you get to write as a student. It is also true that most students are often confused between expository essays and argumentative essays. This is where students tend to lose their grades as they approach expository essays ineffectively. Do you face similar challenges as well? Do you have any doubts with regard to how you should go about writing an expository essay?

Well, if that is the case, you would surely be left with no doubts on the other side of this guide. This is a meticulous guide on expository essays that explains everything with fine detailing. Through engaging examples, this guide puts forth the stepwise process of writing a high-scoring expository essay. So, let us get started by first understanding what an expository essay is.

What is an expository essay?

The literal dictionary meaning of ‘’expository’’ is the intention to effectively explain or describe something. Knowing that the purpose of an expository essay can be understood quite clearly. An expository essay on a particular topic is aimed at presenting an effective, clear, and engaging explanation of the topic and the key aspects linked to the topic.

Unlike an argumentative essay where you need to take a stance and validate your position with substantial evidence, in an expository essay, you simply give a description of the topic while presenting a balanced view on the topic. To add, the tone of an expository should be neutral. An expository essay reflects your understanding of the subject matter in a clear and concise way.

Going ahead, let us look at a few examples of expository essay topics for a more lucid understanding.

A few expository essay topics are listed below

1. Discuss the primary causes and effects of the decline of liberal democracy in Europe.
2. List the various environmental problems in the retail industry and suggest some effective remedial measures.
3. Discuss the various classifications of leadership styles and theories in the context of modern business leadership.
4. Define the concept of growth mindsets and how teachers can promote growth mindsets in children with special educational needs.
5. Compare the different types of motivational theories and highlight the underlying differences between Maslow's theory and Vroom’s Expectancy theory.
6. How to create an effective employee retention strategy for a virtual workforce with diverse experiences and backgrounds.

As you have seen above, expository essays can be of different types and subject to the type of essay, the approach and format will change while the basics of an expository essay remain the same. As mentioned above, the following are the most common types of expository essays that you will come across often in your academics.

Types of expository essays

Now that we have established a clear understanding of what an expository essay is and the types of expository essays, let us proceed further to explain how you can write an impressive expository essay. The subsequent sections explain the step-by-step process of writing a well-structured and highly effective expository essay.

How to write an expository essay?

The first step in writing any essay is to understand the topic with great efficiency so that you have complete clarity about your essay writing task. The topics can be slightly typical or confusing at times and before you even start writing, the best thing to do is to build an effective understanding of the topic.

After you have a clear understanding of the topic and the task, the very next step is to define the structure of your essay. In fact, creating a structured rough draft of the essay beforehand is always a great idea. It gives a clear sense of direction to your essay.

Now when it comes to expository essays specifically, the usual structure is bifurcated into three sections listed below

  • Essay introduction
  • Body paragraphs
  • Conclusion

If we are looking at an expository essay with a word count between 1000 and 1500 words, you can sum it up in three body paragraphs. However, in a more specific case, the structure of the essay may change given the guidelines of the essay as stated by your instructors or in accordance with the scope of the essay topic.

After you have structured your essay, you are good to go. To begin with, let us shed light on how you can write the introduction of an expository essay.

Introduction for an expository essay

An impactful and intellectual expository essay will always begin with a strong introduction that can appeal to the readers’ attention immediately. When an introduction triggers curiosity among the readers, they engage with the entire essay and are enticed to read it over and over again.

This is where you need to ensure that your essay begins on a high note with a powerful introduction. But what does it take to write a powerful introduction? Before we move to that, we first need to acknowledge the elements of an effective introduction. The elements that make an essay’s introduction wholesome are listed below.

  • Hook
  • Background brief of the topic
  • Purpose
  • Thesis statement
  • Essay outline

The introduction of an expository essay should start with an impactful hook followed by a concise background brief of the topic that introduces the subject matter and the key aspects correlated with the topic.

Further, the explanation of the purpose of the essay is followed by a clear thesis statement describing what your essay is about. Lastly, the essay introduction puts forth the outline of the essay. To know more about how to approach an essay introduction, you can go through our meticulous guide on how to write essay introductions.

To explain things better, we are going to write a sample introduction for you. In fact, we are going to write the entire essay for you in parts to explain each section with an example. For that, we would need to take an example essay prompt. With this one essay topic, we will explain the entire process of expository essay writing to you.

Example essay prompt: Determine the positive impacts of digital marketing in the context of small businesses

Before we present the entire sample introduction to you, let us first explain how you should go about the hook and the thesis statement of your expository essay.

How to write the hook of an expository essay?

A hook gives a strong beginning to the essay by presenting an intriguing face, a strong claim, a relevant quotation, or a question. The hook is intended to grab the immediate attention of the reader.

So, let us create a hook for our example essay prompt

Topic: Determine the positive impacts of digital marketing in the context of small businesses

Example hook

Contemporary businesses are investing proactively in digital marketing, and the global market for digital marketing and advertising is anticipated to reach USD 646 billion by 2024 ("Digital ad spend worldwide 2026 | Statista", 2022).

How to write the thesis statement of an expository essay?

Unlike an argumentative essay, the thesis statement of an expository essay is pretty simple and straightforward. In the thesis statement of an expository essay, you simply lay emphasis on the mainstream idea of your essay. To the reader, your thesis statement should clearly state the focus of your essay. Keep in mind that the thesis statement of an expository essay needs to be coherent and concise. However, when you are writing an argumentative essay, the thesis statement must also be debatable.

Let us explain the thesis statement of an expository essay to you through an example.

Topic: Determine the positive impacts of digital marketing in the context of small businesses

Example thesis statement

Digital marketing forms inclusive of content marketing, video marketing, and podcasting have helped small businesses immensely to enhance brand awareness and brand authority hence leading to greater business success.

Having explained how to write the hook of an expository essay and the thesis statement, let us compile the example hook and thesis statement to see what an ideal introduction paragraph should look like.

Topic: Determine the positive impacts of digital marketing in the context of small businesses

Example introduction

Contemporary businesses are investing proactively in digital marketing, and the global market for digital marketing and advertising is anticipated to reach USD 646 billion by 2024 ("Digital ad spend worldwide 2026 | Statista", 2022). Over the years as enterprises have gone increasingly online, marketing has become synonymous with digital marketing hence, replacing traditional marketing methods. It is identified that the majority of small businesses across the globe are now spending on digital marketing to enhance brand authority on search engines and social media. Digital marketing forms inclusive of content marketing, video marketing, email marketing, and podcasting have helped small businesses immensely to enhance brand awareness and brand authority hence leading to greater business success. This essay sheds light on the merits of digital marketing for small businesses. Firstly, the essay explains the different forms of digital marketing that have proven to be the most beneficial for small businesses and their ROI. Secondly, the essay discusses how digital marketing enables small businesses to build competitive advantages. Lastly, the essay focuses on how small businesses can maximize the benefits of digital marketing.

Moving forward, after framing an impressive introduction for our example expository essay, let us now move to the next section which explains how you should go about writing the body paragraphs of an expository essay.

Body paragraphs of an expository essay

The body paragraphs elaborate on the outline and the thesis statement of the essay presented in the introduction paragraph. In the body paragraphs, you need to elucidate the central idea, the linked process, and other details that relate to the topic of your essay.

What is important to note is that an expository essay’s body paragraph has four main components that are listed below.

  • Topic sentence
  • Explanation of the topic
  • Conclusion of the body paragraph
  • Transition sentence

To begin with, each body paragraph should begin with a topic sentence that clearly states what the body paragraph will be talking about. After the topic sentence, comes the explanation part of the central idea that you are discussing in the body paragraph. The explanation should be lucid, offer great clarity, and backed by empirical research if needed.

Going ahead, after the explanation comes the conclusion of the aspect/phenomenon that you are elucidating in the body paragraph followed by the transition sentence. Now, you must be wondering what a transition sentence is!

Well, a transition sentence comes at the end of the body paragraph and draws a correlation with the next body paragraph to build effective coherence. Simply put, in an expository essay, you need to build a connection between successive body paragraphs using a transition sentence. How you need to construct the body paragraph of an expository essay will be much clearer in the example below.

Topic: Determine the positive impacts of digital marketing in the context of small businesses

Example body paragraphs

There are different verticals of digital marketing that can offer significant benefits to small businesses. The most popular domains of digital marketing in contemporary times include content marketing, social media marketing, video marketing, search engine optimization, influencer marketing, email marketing, and podcast marketing. Small businesses in particular are allocating large funds to digital marketing strategies given the massive scope of outreach, lead generation, and conversion. Among the different domains of digital marketing, email marketing is a highly effective digital marketing strategy with a conversion rate of 2.8 percent (Bailyn, 2022). It is further analyzed that small businesses are also gaining big from influencer marketing and the ROI of influencer marketing is 11 times the investment (Lou & Yuan, 2019). The high return on investment and the impact of digital marketing strategies encourage small businesses to make digital marketing a priority. It can be correctly stated that for small businesses, digital marketing offers great return on investment and an opportunity to go big. Besides, with more and more consumers discovering new businesses through search engines and social media, digital marketing strategies have become indispensable for small businesses.

With the effective implementation of digital marketing strategies, small businesses have been able to establish exemplary competitive advantages. With content marketing, small businesses can promote social proof in the digital space and win the trust of new customers through online reviews and user-generated content. It is identified that customers are happy and satisfied to purchase from businesses and brands that are trusted by others and for that they are even willing to pay a premium price (Leninkumar, 2017). Also, it is analyzed that small businesses attract online customers through informative content that is aimed at directly solving customer queries and problems. In this way, by offering informative content as a part of a careful content marketing strategy, small businesses are able to generate an impressive number of leads and enhance the scope of conversions. Startups that have been able to penetrate the digital space with their engaging and informative content have been successful in establishing firm competitive advantages as a direct consequence of effective digital marketing. It is assessed that digital marketing has become essential for small business success from the purview of brand authority, customer acquisition, and conversion. The higher the engagement rate of content by small businesses the better they can compete with large corporations in the online arena. It is important for small businesses to track the performance of their digital marketing efforts in a consistent manner.

Further, it is analyzed that small businesses can further enhance the outcomes of their digital marketing campaigns by keeping up with the latest digital marketing trends. It is identified that digital marketing trends are dynamic and businesses look to exploit every new trend for greater marketing success. Small businesses can also enhance the ROI of digital marketing by collaborating with digital ad agencies holding unique expertise in digital marketing. To sustain the competitive advantage reaped from digital marketing, enterprises need dedicated human capital and finances to work in the designing and execution of targeted, effective, and optimized digital marketing campaigns.

Lastly, we come to how you can write an effective conclusion for your expository essay. The subsequent section explains the same.

Conclusion of an expository essay

The conclusion of the essay should simply restate or reinforce the central idea presented in the essay without including any new information. The conclusion needs to be consistent with the thesis statement and the ideas or processes that you discuss in the body paragraphs.

For greater clarity, let us look at the conclusion of our example essay prompt.

Topic: Determine the positive impacts of digital marketing in the context of small businesses

Example conclusion

To encapsulate, digital marketing offers incredible scope to small businesses to enhance their brand awareness and expand the outreach of their business among a large volume of digital consumers. Also, it is identified that digital marketing verticals offer impressive returns to businesses which is an enormous encouragement for small businesses to invest in digital marketing strategies. Lastly, it is analyzed that for greater digital marketing success, businesses need to create strategic marketing plans taking consumer preferences and digital behavior are the epicenter of the marketing strategies.

So, we are sure this guide on expository essays will help you a great deal to score well in your expository essay tasks. You no longer need to stress about your essays as you now know all that you ever wanted to know. Having said that, the time for you to excel is finally here!

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FAQs

Does an expository essay need evidence?

Yes, an expository essay needs evidence. As we know expository essay includes newspaper articles, manuals, instruction pages, and more. To prepare such essays pieces of evidence are a must-have.

What are some effective strategies for conducting research for an expository essay?

To gather reliable information, use a combination of primary and secondary sources such as books, academic journals, reputable websites, and interviews. Ensure that your sources are up-to-date and credible.