Essay Guides

10 Different Types of Essays Every Student Should Know by Heart

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Many different types of essays exist: from a descriptive one, which simply describes an object, person, or event, to a research essay, which investigates the chosen problem in-depth with the help of individual study. Every student must realize the importance of writing essays. To improve GPA, every homework essay matters. The article observes various types of essays based on the academic level and purposes teachers set when assigning essays.

Explore different types of writing. No matter how good a writer is in a specific field of study, he/she may face issues with research, analysis, and writing. To avoid problems with academic writing, we recommend hiring certified writers and editors from the professional writing service.

4 Types of Essays: Main Categories

What are the different types of essays? To begin with, look at 4 types of essays that are the most common. The rest of the article will explore less popular essays. We have divided the entire list into separate categories based on the academic level to make it easier.

Definition/Descriptive Essay

“What type of essay describes something?” A descriptive essay is the simplest one. A writer has to select the topic and describe each of its aspects in details using many adjectives & adverbs. A definition essay is easy too. A writer should collect several definitions of the word or phrase from the official dictionaries and paraphrase them (explain in own words).

Narrative Essay

In literature, an essay is associated with a short piece of writing describing a life story using many different details. The main idea is to tell about the writer’s personal development. Teachers determine the level of student’s creativity with the help of such tool. It is possible to divide a narrative essay into several subtypes like experimental, anecdotal, dramatic, but it should be non-fictional.

Expository Essay

Another name of an expository essay is a research essay. The major difference is that expository writing essay shows up during the high school education while a research essay is a college essay with more complicated structure.

In such types of essays, a writer has to decide on the topic, research it thoroughly on the internet or in the library, and come up with the set of evidence to explore the problem in-depth. It is an opinion-based essay.

Argumentative & Persuasive Essays

These pieces of writing teach students how to take a specific position in the discussion, come up with the argument, and defend his/her opinion. What is the difference between argumentative and persuasive essays writing? In the 1st case, a writer has to choose a specific position and defend it with the help of supporting evidence collected from the credible sources. In the argumentative essay, it is enough to explain why a writer has chosen a particular position.

List of Different Types of Essays Based on Academic Level

We offer more kinds of academic writing to observe. Why is it important? Whether you are a school, college, or university student, you will face each of these essay kinds sooner or later. A structure of a typical essay involves the following sections:

  1. Introduction
  2. Body paragraphs (from one to three, but the 5 paragraph essay is recommended)
  3. Conclusion.

Types of Essays for Middle School

These essays for middle school are the simplest academic essays. They have a common 3-5 paragraph structure, and these essays require a little or no research. By the way, we have a great custom college essay writing service  for students. Care to give it a try? We promise, you won't regret it!

Informative Essay

An informative essay may present any information on any topic in the world (a writer should select a topic related to the studied subject). In most situations, students choose topics based on their hobbies and everyday activities. Those could be football, swimming, chess, music, etc. Another good idea is to prepare a bibliography of a famous person. To sum up, the best ideas include:

  • Hobbies
  • Activities
  • Personal experience
  • Impression
  • Biography

How-to/Process Essay

Those are not different kinds of the essay with examples. How-to is the special subcategory of the process essay writing, which describes some procedure using many technical details (like instructions attached to the products you buy). The main idea is to demonstrate the flow of some process. A teacher either provides students with the prompt or leaves the right to choose a topic independently. The examples may include:

  • Cooking favourite Japanese dish
  • Game walkthrough
  • Learning how to play the guitar
  • Creating origami
  • Dressing up in the morning
  • Going to school
  • Making up your bed

Types of Essays for High School

The types of essays for high school are a bit more complicated than middle school essays. They should have 5 paragraphs.

Analytical Essay

High school students should learn to analyze things. An analytical essay examines topic and interprets the results. A teacher may assign a specific book to read, movie to watch, work of art to explore, or event to attend and describe later in the analytical essay. The examples include:

  • Personal response
  • Article/Book review
  • Movie report
  • Critical analysis

Cause-&-Effect Essay

It is obvious this category of writing explains the causes & effects of some events. It shows the relationship between the chosen topics. Research possible results and make sure you can logically support the thesis with information on how a specific thing led to certain consequences. The examples could be:

  • Results of some events
  • The impact of one thing on another
  • Correlation between several objects
  • Influence of historical events

To get a better understanding, browse problem and solution essay. They have some things in common.

Types of Essays for College

The types of essays for college have a different structure. They require more skills and richer experience. Here are few different types of essays and examples. Buy essay writing online if your college workload is too heavy at the moment.

Compare & Contrast Essay

Compare & contrast essay explains what the topics have in common and what makes them different. A writer may focus on similarities, differences, or both. When choosing both, a writer should start with listing similarities. The order of the topics is the same between the 2 sections. The examples are:

  • Comparing books
  • Contrasting characters
  • Drawing parallels between historical figures
  • Observing similarities & differences between countries

Research Essay

A research essay’s purpose is to explore the research problem in-depth and share the results of the study with the target audience. The problem could be anything related to the studied subject. The structure of this essay is different from the common essay:

  • Title page
  • Abstract
  • Introduction
  • Methodology
  • Results & Discussion
  • Conclusion
  • Bibliography
  • Appendix (optional)

Who Can Help With Various Essay Types?

We have discussed 4 kinds of an essay that are the main categories of academic assignments. There are also different types of introductions for essays and different types of hooks for essays. Students learned some details about the additional list of different types of essays. Does it sound complicated to you? We recommend downloading free samples of essays online or good templates to use while working on the homework assignment. One more option is to purchase custom essays from the professional writers. Each essay to order will be done from scratch according to your requirements.

Article posted on:Apr 27, 2022
Article updated on:Feb 15, 2024

Comments

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Tanya
6/20/2022 7:54 AM
Hi there! Can you please explain again what are the three types of essays? Could you give a short description of each type? Not only for me but for those who need a quick rundown about this topic. Thank you in advance! :)
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StudyCrumb
6/22/2022 7:04 PM
Hello Tanya,

There are three essay types: the narrative essay, the persuasive essay, and the expository essay. A narrative essay reports an event. It describes an experience or tells a story. A persuasive essay convinces readers to agree with the writer's opinion. Expository writing can be an instruction or an explanation of a natural or technological process.
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Karl
6/22/2022 7:12 PM
Hey StudyCrumb,
Thanks for the additional explanation about 3 essay types! I can only add that an expository essay can also be about a comparison of two similar subjects or a discussion of a historical event or future possibilities.
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Hope
7/4/2022 5:26 PM
Hello! What are the types of essay according to tone? A commentator before me asked about common types of essays, but what about their tone? Does every essay type have its tone? I would appreciate any help you can provide.
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Denis
7/4/2022 6:37 PM
Hello Hope,
There are 2 types of essays according to tone: formal and informal. A formal one is common in academic or professional contexts and an informal one is the opposite of a formal tone. Hope I helped)
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Jason
8/1/2022 11:24 AM
Hi! Are there only three types or can there be four types of essay? If yes, what are they? What type are we missing? All commentators above me asked good questions but I think there is one more essay type. So, I decided to expand a bit)
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StudyCrumb
8/1/2022 11:52 AM
Hi Jason,

Yes, there are 4 essay types. Aside from the types mentioned above, the only one we’re missing is an argumentative essay. It attempts to persuade readers from the writer's point of view with the help of collected, generated, and evaluated evidence.
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Beth
8/11/2022 10:10 AM
Hi! I’m confused now. So many commentators asked about different types of writing essays, and now I can’t tell what I can say if I am asked. Can you please clarify? How many types are there, in their max quantity?
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StudyCrumb
8/11/2022 10:18 AM
Hello Beth,

While 3 types of essay writing are considered “basic”, you can say that there are up to 10 different types. These are descriptive, definition, compare and contrast, cause and effect, narrative, process, argumentative, critical, expository, and persuasive essays.