How to Write an Exploratory Essay

After you have written a Summary, Analysis and Evaluation paper, your next step in exploring this topic is an Exploratory paper. Some instructors may have you do the Summary, Analysis and Evaluation as just a pre-writing, with the Exploratory Paper as the final product. If you haven’t done a Summary, Analysis and Evaluation paper, you will need to look at my hub for those instructions.

An exploratory paper takes the information you gathered in your Summary-Analysis and pulls it together into a cohesive look at the different perspectives on an issue. You will conclude by telling which perspective you find the most persuasive.

When Would You Write this Sort of Essay?

Whether it is labeled an Exploratory Essay or not, you will find this sort of paper in many business and college research situations. The basic point of this paper is to let you examine all the different viewpoints on an issue. You could use this sort of paper for example to examine views on the cause of the Civil War, or what we should do about illegal immigration, or how we should handle embryos left from in-vitro fertilization. In a business, an employee might be asked to explore the ways people perceive a product in order to determine how to best advertise and market it. By looking at three or more viewpoints, you can get a better understanding of the different audiences for an issue and better understand how a solution or compromise might be developed.

How is it Different from an Argument Paper?

Rather than trying to solve the problem, this sort of paper explores the different perspectives of the problem and seeks to understand the cultural and social context of the issue. It is the sort of paper you would write before writing a solution paper. An Exploratory Paper is common in businesses when they are attempting to find a solution to a problem and need to get all of the possible perspectives and information available.

This paper also explores the different audiences or groups of people who are concerned about this issue, giving their different viewpoints on the cause, effects and solutions proposed. In order to do this paper, you may want to narrow the issue you are thinking about so that you can cover the idea more effectively. You will explore at least three sides of the issue, giving a fair treatment to each side. However, in the conclusion of the paper you will indicate your own position and why you are persuaded in that direction.

• Define and describe the issue (introduction)
• Identify and summarize the major positions both past and present (you should explain at least three different positions, tell who holds them and their reasons for doing so)
• Analyze the rhetorical situation of the issue, including: what caused the issue, what prompted past and present concern with the issue, who is interested in the issue, why they are interested in it and what constraints affect discussion of the issue.
• Indicate your personal interest in this issue and the position you favor (conclusion)
• Optional: You might want to gather one or more visuals to add to your paper.

Steps in Writing an Exploratory Paper

1. Prepare an outline format using the ideas below.
2. Re-read your articles and your Summary-Analysis-Response paper in order to fill in the information in your outline.
3. Optional: you may want to gather some visuals to include in your essay.
4. Write a draft. Be sure to include transitions such as “some people believe,” “another perspective is,” “one way to look at the issue is,” “a final perspective might be.” Don’t forget to use author tags if you are talking about a particular article (see my Hubs on how to Summarize)
5. Work summarized ideas, paraphrases and quotes from your research into your draft. In an exploratory paper, you mainly summarize or paraphrase in your own words the positions you describe. Only use quotations which are especially striking or make the point in a way you can’t by paraphrasing (see Hub on using Summary, Paraphrase and Quotation).
6. Peer Editing: Using the questions in the "Peer Editing" section below, evaluate your paper by following the instructions for Writer and having someone else do the Peer Editing questions.
7. Use what you've learned from the Peer Editing session to revise your paper

What are the Basic Features of an Exploratory Essay?

• Define and describe the issue (introduction)
• Identify and summarize the major positions both past and present (you should explain at least three different positions, tell who holds them and their reasons for doing so)
• Analyze the rhetorical situation of the issue, including: what caused the issue, what prompted past and present concern with the issue, who is interested in the issue, why they are interested in it and what constraints affect discussion of the issue.
• Indicate your personal interest in this issue and the position you favor (conclusion)
• Optional: You might want to gather one or more visuals to add to your paper.

Steps in Writing an Exploratory Paper

1. Prepare an outline format using the ideas below.
2. Re-read your articles and your Summary-Analysis-Response paper in order to fill in the information in your outline.
3. Optional: you may want to gather some visuals to include in your essay.
4. Write a draft. Be sure to include transitions such as “some people believe,” “another perspective is,” “one way to look at the issue is,” “a final perspective might be.” Don’t forget to use author tags if you are talking about a particular article (see my Hubs on how to Summarize)
5. Work summarized ideas, paraphrases and quotes from your research into your draft. In an exploratory paper, you mainly summarize or paraphrase in your own words the positions you describe. Only use quotations which are especially striking or make the point in a way you can’t by paraphrasing (see Hub on using Summary, Paraphrase and Quotation).
6. Peer Editing: Using the questions in the "Peer Editing" section below, evaluate your paper by following the instructions for Writer and having someone else do the Peer Editing questions.
7. Use what you've learned from the Peer Editing session to revise your paper.

Outline Format

This is actually a very easy paper to organize and write. If you've done a good job in gathering your sources and analyzing them in your Summary, Analysis and Evaluation paper, then you should not have difficulty putting those ideas together for this essay. However, you will need to be careful to smoothly integrate your sources into the paper and be sure that you have explained each side of the issue in a coherent and smooth way. Here is what each section of the paper should include:

Intro: Define and describe your issue and state your question. Explain the issue and include information that provides background and makes the issue interesting to your readers. Use the one or more of the following opening ideas: unusual fact or statistic, intriguing statement, anecdote, example, question, historical background, story, typical scenario, conversation, interesting quotation, vivid description, a list, explaining a process, an analogy, frame story (part of story in the intro and the rest of the story in the conclusion).

Body: There are several parts of the body of the paper:

I. Analyze the rhetorical situation of the issue (social, cultural and historic moment in time)

1. What is the context for this question?
2. Who is the audience? Who is interested in this issue and why?
3. What constraints (limits or historical situations) affect the discussion of the issue?

II. Identify and summarize the major positions both past and present

1. Explain at least three different positions
2. Tell who holds them.
3. Tell the reasons they hold those positions.
4. Give evidence from your sources which explains those reasons and cite these with parenthetical references, along with telling the author and title of the article in the sentences of your paper.

Format of these paragraphs should be:

• Position one: What is it? Who believes it? Why? What are the reasons (subclaims) of people holding this position? What is the best evidence for this position? Include evidence from your sources and cite these with parenthetical references.
• Position two (follow above questions)
• Position three (follow above questions)

Conclusion: indicate your personal interest in this issue and the position you favor. Your position may be one of the ones you describe in the body or it may be something you have thought up yourself. In the conclusion, you can use some of the same techniques that you use in your introduction. In the rest of the essay, you will not be including your opinion. Save your own ideas for the end.

Peer Editing Worksheet for Exploratory Essay

Use the following worksheet to help you to peer edit another person’s work and to have them give you ideas on your work. Doing this worksheet also helps you to revise your own paper.

Questions for Writer:

1. Underline: your question, the three positions, your position
2. Wavy underline: author tags and citations.

Write (at top of draft or on a separate sheet of paper):

1. What is best about your paper
2. Questions you have for the peer editor.
3. What you want them to help you with.

Questions for Peer Editor

I. Read the paper and make marks on the draft about:

• grammar and spelling errors
• what you think is good
• where they need more support
• where they need better transitions
• where they need references, citations or author tags (or any problems with ones they have)
• where they need more explanation or description

II. On a separate sheet of paper write:

Intro: was the issue both defined and described? Anything that needs to be added? Was the opening interesting? How could it be improved?

Body:

• How well does the paper examine the rhetorical situation? (exigence [reason for this debate],
• audience [who is interested in this issue]
• constraints [situations and attitudes which affect the debate])
• Is there any part missing? How can it be improved?
• Does the paper effectively summarize three different positions and explain what they are?
• Who believes them? Why they believe it?
• Does the paper give enough evidence for each position?

Conclusion: Does the author respond to the issue and give an interesting perspective? Does the author need to add anything?