What Is an Illustrative Essay?
An illustrative essay is one of the types of informative writing that has the core aim of demonstrating how a specific thing functions or operates. Another name for the illustrative essay is an exemplification essay. The main writing strategy for it is to provide a summary of empirical data and provide a detailed and clear definition. This essay does not provide a research or discovery of some new concepts but it summarizes some other experiences or phenomena by giving bright examples and illustrations that help to clarify the issue. Actually, the examples are what makes this illustrative essay writing type successful.
An illustrative essay is a type of paper writing that is the best one when you want to vividly describe something to your reader. Bright illustrations help you to convey the message in a clearer way. When reading an illustrative essay, your reader will have a bright picture in his/ her mind concerning a specific phenomenon. If you want to learn about specific strategies how to succeed in illustration essay writing, read on the article and find out. Our company’s writers will share with you some of the tips and will provide you with illustration essay examples.
In comparison to persuasive, argumentative, cause-and-effect, narrative or compare & contrast essays, illustrative essays are not as popularly assigned by professors. Therefore, it is no wonder why students often require expert help when they work on illustrative essays. When writing an illustrative paper, it is essential to remember that a specific phenomenon/ object/ person/ situation, etc. should be interpreted with the help of specific details and examples.
How to Write a Successful Illustrative Paper
Come up with the object of illustration. After you have identified what you would like to write about, provide a thesis statement in relation to the illustrative topic. Make sure that the topic sentence draws attention of your target audience. Make sure that the thesis statement contains a specific idea or fact that will help readers understand what you are writing about.
After you have provided background information and identified the object of illustration in the introductory paragraph, move on to the body paragraphs. Follow the key points or ideas identified in the thesis statement and develop them in the body paragraphs. Make sure that each paragraph starts with a topic sentence that conveys a strong idea. The topic sentence should be attention grabbing and should preferably contain some interesting or controversial fact, a quote, jokes, metaphors, etc.
Provide vivid illustrations to each body paragraph and idea expressed in it. The essential aspect of an illustrative essay is to provide illustrations. To ease your task of writing an essay, prepare an outline well in advance. You will have a so-called backbone of the paper, i.e. you will have a list of ideas and you will merely have to elaborate them.
After you finish writing the paper, make sure you edit and proofread it for potential grammar, spelling, and punctuation mistakes.
If you do not know how to write an illustrative essay, make sure, you find some good illustrative essay example that you can download online from credible online writing sources.
Beneficial Tips for Succeeding in Illustration Essay Writing
Select a good topic
If you have no idea what to write about, take a pen and a piece of paper and start brainstorming for the potential topics that might be of interest to you. After you write down all the topics that might be good for an essay, you will see which one you are most passionate about. When choosing the topic, make sure it is not too controversial or debatable. It is not a persuasive or argumentative essay, so choose some simpler topics, which can be easily discussed. Choose ample evidence that will help you support the topic. For example, take some related images and try to describe them in detail.
Collect sufficient evidence
Determine how many illustrations and examples you will need. Their number actually depends on the number of body paragraphs you plan to have in your paper. You may compose a longer list at first and then choose those that are the most interesting ones for you.
Make the essay brief and concise
As a rule, you have strict requirements concerning the paper length. Still, if the essay is on free topic, you should determine the length on your own. In this case, do not exceed the paper for more than three pages.
Make sure your examples are concrete and specific
They should be the most effective ones in order to properly support each aspect from the thesis. Moreover, remember to include examples from your own experience. Apart from your own examples and examples taken from books and literature, you are free to use examples from the media, interviews, personal observations, etc. Make sure the examples are suitable for the target audience depending on their age, ethnic or religious background, skills, profession, education, etc.
Practice your illustrative skills well
You can find numerous resources online that may help you practice your skills of successful illustration. Apart from samples, you can also find specific exercised to learn how to illustrate. You may find one specific example of an essay, for example, an ethics essay example, and see how the topic is developed throughout the paper.
Hopefully, our article has helped you get the notion of an illustrative essay and how to write it. On the whole, remember to maintain balance between providing your personal viewpoint and describing the very phenomenon. Also, make sure that you properly understand the essence of illustrative writing. Make sure you do not confuse it with the other essay types. You do not have to provide any research, investigation, analysis or an exploration – you simply have to state facts. However, as you finish the paper with the conclusion, make sure you provide a strong personal opinion on the topic.
Need help writing an illustration essay?
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