Improve Your Writing Talents By Practicing Expository Writing
Writing is definitely part of the college experience. Nearly every week, students are assigned some form of writing exercise - a composition, an essay, a research paper, or a short story. If you are not a prolific writer upon entering college, you may want to learn strategies to help strengthen your writing skills.
One way to enhance writing is to learn how to write expository paragraphs; they are fun and easy. Once mastered, you can be better prepared for such foundational courses like English Composition and all of the other required courses over the next four years.
Expository writing is fun because you get to write about subjects you are thoroughly knowledgeable about and want to share with a reader. The expository paragraph includes fact-based information as conveyed in written form by you, the expert. Upon learning expository paragraph writing elements, students can learn to write well-defined papers for nearly any type of composition.
As with all writing formats, the first objective is to establish a topic and main idea. The topic refers to the subject for the particular paragraph; the main idea refers to what you have to say about the topic. Merge them to create the topic sentence. The topic sentence has to be strong and appealing. Maintain focus and direction when creating a topic sentence. The reader should know exactly what to look forward to when reading the paragraph.
Generally, in expository writing, the topic sentence is the first sentence. Some writers are skilled at switching topic sentences around, placing them somewhere in the middle of the paragraph or even at the end, which changes it from a topic sentence to a concluding sentence. You may want to experiment with placement. Just remember that the main idea should be catchy and in clear language.
Once the topic sentence is in place, supporting sentences are added to lend credence to the writer's status as a subject matter expert. Supporting sentences convey facts and examples, providing details that help the reader to better understand the main idea. Each paragraph requires only a few supporting sentences. They can be inclusive of percentages, statistics, illustrations, and descriptive sensory words that exemplify how something tastes, smells, looks, and feels.
Organization is key when writing supporting sentences. Readers tend to make sense of supportive information if it is organized. Different sequences are compatible with select topics. For example, events are better read when told sequential order. A physical object is described more effectively when written in spatial order (viewing it as if the object was right in front of the reader). Line items are easily digested when written in order of importance or just the opposite.
The concluding sentence is the last element for expository paragraph writing. Like the topic sentence, it should leave the reader wanting to move to the next paragraph (if there is one), or want to explore the topic even further. A concluding sentence can be written in a few variations. It can be used as the topic sentence, it can be written differently, though interestingly, to restate the main idea, or it can be written to make an additional comment about the main idea or to draw a conclusion about the topic statement.
Expository writing is a fun and easy way to help enhance writing skills, which you have learned during your English Composition classes. Applying the three expository paragraph elements, topic sentence, supporting sentences, and concluding sentence can help the writer maintain structure and focus. Choose a few subjects that you know a lot about and then commence drafting expository paragraphs. Once you have a few in hand, consider taking them to your student writing resource center for review. There are free college classes which you can take at online college if you wish.
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