Expository Essay

The word expository is driven from the word exposition which means to exhibit, show up or explain. Thus expository essay combines all these meanings to mean a single thing and that is an expository essay. The sole purpose of an expository essay is to present or exhibit, fully and fairly, other people’s views or to provide a comprehensive report about an event or a situation.

Expository Essay

An exposition or here expository writing presents a subject in detail, apart from criticism or argument i.e. the writer of an expository essay clarify and explains a subject by analyzing it revealing its true essence in his/ her own words. Such writing is addressed and designed to convey information or explain what is difficult to comprehend.

Expository essays usually advance by the orderly analysis of the subject under discussion and furthermore the use of familiar illustrations, comparisons, or analogies. The following are the steps required from an expository writer:

1. Reading

Read to understand and comprehend the ideas developed in an article by clearly stating another’s idea or opinion, to figure out the facts used by the author to support that idea or opinion, and the “values and principles” underlying those ideas.

2. Organizing / Arranging

Place the reading material into a larger context by relating it to another’s article or book to other work in the field i.e. to develop an authenticity of the idea by forming its implications to another field.

3. Communicating

This step involves clearly and effectively communicating this latent information to a defined audience. In other words, a writer must write clearly and fully enough for his/her readers to know how he/she has arrived or reached these analyses and conclusions i.e. they should never have to guess what the writer means; and he/she must give the readers everything they need to know to follow the reasoning.