What is Academic essay and 4 Types of academic essays

What is Academic essay and 4 Types of academic essays

Do you know, that typically, essays are categorized by the ideas or notions behind them?  The basis for writing an essay encompasses three fundamental steps, which consist of the opening explanation, this is the part where the writer hooks the readers and gives them a general insight into what the essay entails.

The next part is the body of the essay, which discusses the topic of the essay, here, the writer focuses on the topic of interest and broadly expresses his contents. Lastly, is the conclusion, which is a summary.

The summary can be brief or lengthy, it usually comprises 50 to 250 words, and ranges from five to eight sentences. The summary concludes what was discussed in the previous parts.

Essays are an integral part of learning, writing, and creative thinking, they are common, especially in the educational field, and writing one successfully requires an amount of thinking and guidelines.

You have probably come across and had to write essays in your writing course, but to grasp better, we will shed light on what an essay is, before delving into what an academic essay is.

An essay can simply be defined as a short piece of writing. It is often written to express an idea or an emotion, to establish a debate, or put up an argument. Essays can also be viewed as literary frameworks which examine their subject or matter of interest from a personal point of view (i.e., from the writer’s view).

They are often between 1000-3000 words and can also be as high as 5000 or low as 500 words. Essays entirely consist of the writer’s ideas, observations, or reflections, it could cover a wide range of topics as there are no restrictions on what an essay should be about, they are normally classified into argumentative, expository, narrative, or descriptive essays.

Crafting a good essay is not a walk in the park and crafting an academic essay requires just as much creativity, there are a lot of guidelines to follow when writing academic essays or essays in general, these guidelines range from brainstorming to research, to outline and choosing what writing style to adopt.

Academic essays are structured forms of writing that students write as part of their curricula in school, college, and university. The typical goals of this type of writing are to either give new information or to use current facts and knowledge to convey specific thoughts.

This type of writing allows students to demonstrate their knowledge and creativity while also encouraging them to explore ideas for communicating a message. Unlike other kinds of academic writing like research projects or a thesis, academic essays are shorter and emphasize more on the writer’s opinion.

The use of academic writing spans beyond book reviews, author reflection, personal observations, or project research, academic essays are part of the list and are used to propose or express an idea. The length of an academic essay can range from 500 to 50000 words. Our word counter/converter will help you check the number of words you can in your document.

However, most academic essays are 500 to 4000 words long or longer. The word count gives the writer enough room to establish an argument and back it up with pertinent information sources. Academic essays can take many forms, and they might include a personal experience or an academic investigation of a certain subject.

To write a good academic essay, students must be able to think widely, compose good sentences, use good grammar, and know how to maximize their words. In an academic essay, students get the opportunity to demonstrate their ability to carry out research, gather knowledge, and then organize their ideas in a relevant way.

One of the things to put into consideration when writing an academic essay is clarity, your essay must be clear and easily understood, and every academic essay must be aimed at a particularly clear, and convincing point, avoid jargon or irrelevant information.

To make a good essay you must also take note of your text structure and never forget to keep it concise and informative.

Academic writing can be divided into four sorts of essays, each with its purpose—though some have similar forms. Having stated that, there are four categories of academic essays: narrative, descriptive, expository, and argumentative. Now, let’s dissect each category and examine each academic essay in detail.

Narrative Essay

A narrative essay is written based on the writer’s personal experiences. This form of writing needs the author to tell a fascinating story about almost anything. When writing a narrative essay, students must display their creative ability. Essays in this category describe how you feel, how you reacted to an event, or what you thought about a particular topic.

While the primary goal of these essays is to tell an interesting story, there is more to them than meets the eye; the text should convey a clear message, and adjectives should be used liberally to keep it interesting as well as informative.

Descriptive Essay

In summary, the author chooses a specific thing, event, feeling, or idea to describe for the reader in this sort of essay. This style, like narrative writing, needs the author to be subjective and original. And, as with a narrative essay, the author is expected to paint a picture in the minds of the audience.

Another important aspect of writing a descriptive essay is carefully choosing words. A paper of this type should elicit specific emotions in the reader and tie them to the topic under consideration.

Expository Essay

An expository essay is another style of academic essay that is meant to help readers grasp the subject matter by offering grounded information and facts. This sort of writing needs the author to provide valid proof to back up all of the information in the article.

In expository research, the writer does not provide personal ideas or opinions on a particular subject. A good paper should use analysis that is based on real facts about its subject. The author’s primary purpose is to inform and educate the reader by using clear logic and facts.

Argumentative Essay

An argumentative essay is another kind of academic essay, and to create an argumentative essay, the author must first research and investigate a topic, gather relevant material, and then formulate a logical and coherent perspective on the topic. It is very common for students to conflate argumentative with expository essays.

But the difference is argumentative essays involve additional study and may even call for the author to conduct empirical research, which entails conducting experiments, observations, surveys, and interviews to gather data.