How to Write an Explaining Essay

What is Explaining Writing?

Explaining essays inform the reader about something they don’t know.These are essays that teach, so you will often find this sort of writing in textbooks, instruction manuals and any information source online.Your purpose in this essay is to inform your readers about an aspect of a concept they may not know about or have thought about before. These sorts of essays may explain and event, explain a cause, or explain what or who. See my other hubs for information on event and cause essays. In addtion, you may want to look at how to cite sources.

Why do I need to learn Explaining Writing?

Explaining writing is probably the most important type of writing you will ever learn.Most people will spend their careers doing more explaining writing than any other type.We also read more of this sort of writing than other types.Newspapers, magazines and online sources like Hubpages are full of explaining writing.So is any online information source like Wikipedia.Moreover, almost every profession requires that you use this sort of writing.In a business, a salesman might have to explain to the head of your company the results of a sales campaign.A health professional reports the symptoms and proposed treatment for a patient on reports.An engineer who has designed a part has to carefully explain how that part needs to be made to the factory workers.As I’ve explained my work to many of my husband’s scientist friends (many of whom are heads of businesses, scientific research groups or engineering divisions), they almost always tell me that they use the information they gained from this sort of essay more than anything else they learned in college because they are always having to write explanations for other people.In fact, the higher you move up in a company, the more you will often need to use this sort of writing.So if pays to learn how to do it well.

How do I Write an Excellent Explaining Essay?

1.Make sure that your essay appeals to the reader. Everyone has read plenty of boring explanations in textbooks.How do you make it interesting? Use humor, stories, analogies and vivid description to make the reader want to keep on reading.If you relate this concept to something the reader already knows about, you can help them remember and learn it.Of course you also need to draw the reader in with title and opening paragraph.

2. Tell the reader something he doesn’t already know about this concept. Go beyond “common knowledge.”It helps to ask several people what they know about your concept before you begin writing.Make sure that you go beyond that information.Do research if you don’t already know more than other people.

3. Give a clear definition.State your concept clearly in one sentence and then break the concept down into parts and explain each of these.Don’t forget to include the definition of any specialized vocabulary or words used in unfamiliar ways.

4. Focus on one aspect of the concept--you don't have to tell everything about it.Narrowing your topic to something very specific makes you automatically have a more interesting essay.It also helps you to give a clear definition and make sure you tell your reader something new.For example, don’t write about “football games.”Instead, choose a topic like “How to throw a pass” or “fans at our school’s football games.”To narrow this further, you may want to make it even more specific: “fans at Texas high school football games.”You can also do a comparison to help your definition come through: “fans at Texas high school football games as compared to fans at Texas college games.”

5.Describe your concept clearly and in a logical sequence.This is where the preparation for your essay is needed.Often explaining essays need to be very carefully organized.Have someone read through your explanation carefully to see if you have put things in a logical order and not left anything important out.If you know a lot about something, you may tend to leave out steps or parts of things that a reader who is unfamiliar with the concept may not know.That can be very confusing (ever been confused reading instructions to put something together?).One way to help your reader is to be careful to use transition words (see my hub on sentence starters) which will help your reader know how parts of your explanation are related.

6. Use reliable and accurate sources.If you know a lot about a concept, you can certainly use your own knowledge and experience.However, it also helps to look up the concept online and also use interviews and surveys to help pinpoint what your audience knows and what they need to know.If you know someone who knows more about this concept than you, you can interview them to get information.Moreover, if this person (or you) has special credentials which show they are an expert on this subject, be sure to include that in your essay so that your reader knows your explanation is authoritative.

What are some Organizing Strategies?

Here are some of the most effective organizing strategies for this sort of essay.You can use these to organize the whole essay or to organize different paragraphs within essay. Most subjects could be handled by any one of these strategies depending what sort of an explanation you want to give. Note: you can look up the sample essays—most of them are online)Here I use the example of the topic “Love”

• Classification:Sort information into groups and discuss groups one by one (i.e.: types of love: puppy love, dating love, friendship love, married love, parent love etc.).This is often an extended definition which shows what something is, what it is not, describes it vividly, gives examples and perhaps tells the history of it.

Sample Essay: “Cannibalism, It Still Exists”

Intro:story of refugees in boat—modern cannibalism in a developed people group (par. 1-3)Definition and Controversy (p. 5)

Body: Classification: two types: exocannibalism and endocannibalism;three functions: survival, dietary, religious & ritual (par. 6-13)

Conclusion: Our ancestors were probably cannibals (turn back to modern audience) (par. 14)

Sample Essay: “Schizophrenia:What it looks like, how it feels”

Intro: Definition, history of understanding it, history of treatment

Body: categorization of symptoms with examples (delusional thinking, hallucinations, imaginary sensations, rambling and unconnected speech, inappropriate emotions, disturbed psychomotor behavior, impaired interpersonal functioning

• Process Narration: "How to" sort of paper.Explain how something happens or how to do something. Divide it into parts or steps. Tell it in chronological order, use storytelling techniques and time transition words.You could use this topic to talk about “How to fall into love” but it might be even more interesting to do something like “How to fall out of love” or “How to make yourself fall in love with your spouse again.”
• Comparison and Contrast: In this strategy, you use something familiar to explain something unfamiliar . Even if you don’t use this strategy for the whole essay, you might use it for some part of it, perhaps the intro or conclusion.This technique uses extended similes, metaphors or analogies and vivid word pictures. Many love songs use this strategy!Examples are: love is like a river, a basketball game, a teeter-totter.

Sample Essay: “Internet addiction”

Intro: internet addiction is real and we need to recognize it (par. 1-3)

Body: Definition of internet addition:dependent vs. nondependent used described and compared (par. 4-6). Definition of who is at risk? How big of a problem is it? (par. 7-10). Comparison and contrast with other addictions already recognized (p. 11-16)

Conclusion:possible treatments (par. 17-22)

• Cause and Effect: In this organizing technique, you will show how one thing causes another to occur.Generally, you will want to tell about a cause/effect which would not be easily thought about by the reader.For example, you could write about how “Falling in love causes you to seem more attractive to others.”
• Historical Overview:Sometimes, you can best explain a concept by looking back at the history of the term.This is especially effective if your concept has changed in meaning.You can examine the history of this term and how did it come to have the meaning it has today,or contrast the current meaning with a meaning from the past. For example, you can talk about how love was different in the 18^th century (or some other historical time and place) or you could talk about the history of divorce.
• Reverse Expectations/ Definition: Probably, this is one of the easiest organizational strategies for this sort of essay. You begin your essay talking about the way most people define this term.Then you spend the body of the essay explaining how it really should be defined in a different way.This strategy is especially effective if you want to define a concept in a different way than most people think of it.An example would be “Love is not a feeling, it is a chemical process.”

Sample Essay: Love: “The Right Chemistry”

Intro: you think love is mystical and irrational. Thesis: it is really just a chemical process

Body:Uses classification strategy to present information: Evolution/Biology, Chemical processes psychology

Conclusion: (reverses again) Science doesn’t explain away our feelings about love.

Intro/Conclusion Ideas: Remember, like all other essays, you need to link the introduction and conclusion.You also need to make sure the conclusion really concludes and does not just end or repeat the paper ideas.Look back at Reading Response for a more complete explanation of these ideas.

• Reverse Expectations
• Definition/ Comparison and Contrast / Analogy
• Startling fact, statistic or quote
• Frame Story—open with story, conclude with changed story or evaluation of story or other half of story
• Conversation—opens with half of conversation, conclude with other half
• Vivid description—use all senses to show the scene or describe the person