What is an Informative Essay?
A broad definition of an informative essay can be an essay that educate the readers about a topic. Going a bit further, you can say that an informative essay may define a term, compare or differentiate something, study or examine data, or simply provide a how-to. You can select any form that you wish.
However, please keep in mind that if you are thinking of providing your own opinion in an informative essay or trying to deter the readers from their beliefs or to take a certain action; then it is not an informative essay you are writing.
Now since you are clear as to what is an informative essay, let us move forward to the next part of this post that will tell you how to write an informative essay.
Six Steps to Write an Effective Informative Essay
Step 1 >Select the Topic
If you don’t already have a topic, then the first part of writing an informative essay is selecting the topic. As mentioned above, the aim of an informative essay is to educate the readers on the chosen topic. You cannot levy your own view on the readers. Hence, make sure you choose a topic in accordance with this.
Step 2 > Creating an Outline
It is quite obvious that you will have some facts immediately pop-up in your mind after becoming aware of the topic. Hence, before you actually start writing the informative essay, it is ideal that you organize the facts in a coherent manner and pen down all the questions that might be coming in your mind regarding the topic. This will help you kick-start your research on the topic.
Step 3 > Conduct Research
Now, it is time to conduct research on the topic. The thumb rule of writing an informative essay is that you must gather essential information from minimum four sources. You can do the research online and even visit the library. Please make sure that the sources you are listing for writing the informative essay are credible and plausible. Hence, once you have listed down the sources, make sure you analyze them properly before beginning to writing down the informative essay.
Step 4 >Writing and Formatting your essay
Since you have all the required information from credible sources, you can begin on writing down the essay based on the outline that you created in Step 2. Please note that the outline can be altered or modified based on the gathered information.
An informative essay can be broken down into three components viz introduction, body, and the conclusion.
In the introduction, you will introduce the topic by giving a general idea andtry to grab the attention of the readers. You can provide some background information or even start by providing some information on any controversial data related to the topic.
In the body, you have to give all the essential information that you have collected in the above steps. As mentioned in Step 3, all the information that you are providing in the essay must be accurate.
Last, in the conclusion part, you will summarize the information that you have provided in the body. Make sure you are not presenting some new information to the readers in the conclusion. The purpose of the conclusion is simply summing up your essay.
Step 5 > Proofread your essay
This step is very important and must not be missed. Once you are finished writing the final draft of your essay, you must proofread it and, wherever needed, edit it. Grammatical errors and the usage of awkward language can be caught in this step and edited. This helps to further refine your essay.
Step 6 > Have someone else go through your essay
If possible, ask someone else to go through the essay that you have written. This way you can get more ideas on bettering your essay. Moreover, the person reading your essay can point out additional grammar, spelling, or punctuation errors.
Overall, the aim Step 5 and Step 6 is to bring in the necessary refinement in your essay and make it presentable to a highest degree.
Final Words
That was all regarding how to write an informative essay from our side. If you would like to add more information to the topic, please shoot it down in the comments section provided below so that our readers can benefit from your expertise.
