popular informative essays

Informative Essay — Purpose, Structure, and Examples

What is informative writing?

Informative writing educates the reader about a certain topic. An informative essay may explain new information, describe a process, or clarify a concept. The provided information is objective, meaning the writing focuses on presentation of fact and should not contain personal opinion or bias.

Informative writing includes description, process, cause and effect, comparison, and problems and possible solutions:

Describes a person, place, thing, or event using descriptive language that appeals to readers’ senses

Explains the process to do something or how something was created

Discusses the relationship between two things, determining how one ( cause ) leads to the other ( effect ); the effect needs to be based on fact and not an assumption

Identifies the similarities and differences between two things; does not indicate that one is better than the other

Details a problem and presents various possible solutions ; the writer does not suggest one solution is more effective than the others

Purpose of informative writing

The purpose of an informative essay depends upon the writer’s motivation, but may be to share new information, describe a process, clarify a concept, explain why or how, or detail a topic’s intricacies.

Informative essays may introduce readers to new information .

Summarizing a scientific/technological study

Outlining the various aspects of a religion

Providing information on a historical period

Describe a process or give step-by-step details of a procedure.

How to write an informational essay

How to construct an argument

How to apply for a job

Clarify a concept and offer details about complex ideas.

Explain why or how something works the way that it does.

Describe how the stock market impacts the economy

Illustrate why there are high and low tides

Detail how the heart functions

Offer information on the smaller aspects or intricacies of a larger topic.

Identify the importance of the individual bones in the body

Outlining the Dust Bowl in the context of the Great Depression

Explaining how bees impact the environment

How to write an informative essay

Regardless of the type of information, the informative essay structure typically consists of an introduction, body, and conclusion.

Introduction

Background information

Explanation of evidence

Restated thesis

Review of main ideas

Closing statement

Informative essay introduction

When composing the introductory paragraph(s) of an informative paper, include a hook, introduce the topic, provide background information, and develop a good thesis statement.

If the hook or introduction creates interest in the first paragraph, it will draw the readers’ attention and make them more receptive to the essay writer's ideas. Some of the most common techniques to accomplish this include the following:

Emphasize the topic’s importance by explaining the current interest in the topic or by indicating that the subject is influential.

Use pertinent statistics to give the paper an air of authority.

A surprising statement can be shocking; sometimes it is disgusting; sometimes it is joyful; sometimes it is surprising because of who said it.

An interesting incident or anecdote can act as a teaser to lure the reader into the remainder of the essay. Be sure that the device is appropriate for the informative essay topic and focus on what is to follow.

Directly introduce the topic of the essay.

Provide the reader with the background information necessary to understand the topic. Don’t repeat this information in the body of the essay; it should help the reader understand what follows.

Identify the overall purpose of the essay with the thesis (purpose statement). Writers can also include their support directly in the thesis, which outlines the structure of the essay for the reader.

Informative essay body paragraphs

Each body paragraph should contain a topic sentence, evidence, explanation of evidence, and a transition sentence.

A good topic sentence should identify what information the reader should expect in the paragraph and how it connects to the main purpose identified in the thesis.

Provide evidence that details the main point of the paragraph. This includes paraphrasing, summarizing, and directly quoting facts, statistics, and statements.

Explain how the evidence connects to the main purpose of the essay.

Place transitions at the end of each body paragraph, except the last. There is no need to transition from the last support to the conclusion. A transition should accomplish three goals:

Tell the reader where you were (current support)

Tell the reader where you are going (next support)

Relate the paper’s purpose

Informative essay conclusion

Incorporate a rephrased thesis, summary, and closing statement into the conclusion of an informative essay.

Rephrase the purpose of the essay. Do not just repeat the purpose statement from the thesis.

Summarize the main idea found in each body paragraph by rephrasing each topic sentence.

End with a clincher or closing statement that helps readers answer the question “so what?” What should the reader take away from the information provided in the essay? Why should they care about the topic?

Informative essay example

The following example illustrates a good informative essay format:

How to Write an Informative Essay: Everything You Need to Know

Did you know that informative essays aren't just for school? They're also used in jobs like journalism, marketing, and PR to explain complex ideas and promote things. This shows how useful they are outside of the classroom.

So, if you're planning to write one, that's a great choice! It's interesting but can be tough. To do it well, you need to plan, research, and organize carefully. Keep your tone balanced, give clear info, and add your own thoughts to stand out.

In this guide, our essay writer will give you tips on starting and organizing your essay effectively. At the end, you'll also find interesting essay samples. So, let's jump right into it.

What is an Informative Essay

To give a good informative essay definition, imagine them as windows to new knowledge. Their main job is to teach others about a particular topic. Whether it's for a school project or something you stumble upon online, these essays are packed with interesting facts and insights.

Here's a simple breakdown from our admission essay writing service of what makes an informative essay tick:

• Keeping It Real: These essays are all about the facts. No opinions allowed. We want to keep things fair and honest.
• Topics Galore: You can write about anything you find interesting, from science and history to things about different cultures.
• Where You Find Them: Informative essays can pop up anywhere, from your classroom assignments to the pages of magazines or even online articles.
• Research: Like a good detective, informative essays rely on solid evidence. That means digging into trustworthy sources to gather reliable information.
• Stay Neutral: To keep things fair, informative essays don't take sides. They present the facts and let readers draw their own conclusions.
• Structure: These essays have a clear roadmap. They start with an introduction to set the stage, then present the main points with evidence, and wrap up with a summary to tie it all together.
• Write for Your Audience: Keep your writing simple and easy to understand. Think about who will be reading it.
• Give Just Enough Detail: Don't overload people with info. Find the right balance so it's interesting but not overwhelming.

Ready to Ignite Minds with Your Informative Essay?

Our qualified writers are here to craft a masterpiece tailored to your needs worthy of an A+

Reasons to Write an Informative Essay

Writing informative essays, whether following the IEEE format or another style, is a great way to teach and share ideas with others. Here's why it's worth giving it a try:

• Make Complex Ideas Easy : Informative essays simplify complicated topics so everyone can understand them. They break down big ideas into simple parts, helping more people learn and share knowledge.
• Encourage Thinking : When you read these essays, you're encouraged to think for yourself. They give you facts and evidence so you can form your own opinions about different topics. This helps you become better at understanding the world around you.
• Inspire Doing : They can motivate people to take action and make positive changes by raising awareness about important issues like the environment, fairness, or health. By reading these essays, people might be inspired to do something to help.
• Leave a Mark : When you write informative essays, you're leaving a legacy of knowledge for future generations. Your ideas can be read and learned from long after you're gone, helping others understand the world better.

How to Start an Informative Essay

If you're still doubting how to start with an informative essay outline, no worries! Here's a step-by-step guide to help you tackle this task like a pro. Alternatively, you can simply order essay and have it done by experts.

• Choose an Exciting Topic : Pick something that really grabs your attention. Writing about what you're genuinely interested in makes the whole process way more fun. Plus, it's easier to write confidently about things you know a bit about.
• Dig into Research : Spend some quality time digging up info from reliable sources. Take good notes, so you have all the facts you need to back up your essay. The better your research, the stronger your essay will be.
• Set Your Essay's Goal : Decide what you want your essay to do. Are you explaining something, analyzing a problem, or comparing ideas? Knowing your goal helps you focus your writing.
• Sketch Out Your Essay : Make a simple plan for your essay. Start with an intro that grabs attention and states your main idea. Then, map out your main points for the body paragraphs and plan a strong finish for your conclusion.
• Kick Off with an Awesome Introduction : Start with a killer opening line to hook your readers. Give a bit of background on your topic and clearly state your main idea.
• Flesh Out Your Body Paragraphs : In each paragraph, cover one key point backed up with evidence from your research. Keep it clear and simple, and don't forget to cite your sources.
• Wrap Up Strong : Sum up your main points in your conclusion and restate your main idea in a memorable way. Leave your readers with something to think about related to your topic.

Informative Essay Outline

Many students don't realize how helpful outlining can be for writing an informative essay. Spending a bit of time on it can actually save you loads of time later on when you're writing. To give you a head start, here's a simple format from our term paper writing services :

I. Introduction

• Start with something catchy to grab attention
• Give a little background info on your topic
• State your main idea clearly in your thesis statement

II. Body Paragraphs

A. Talk about your first main idea

• Share evidence or facts that support this idea
• Explain what the evidence means
• Transition smoothly to the next point

B. Move on to your second main idea

• Provide evidence or facts for this point
• Explain why this evidence matters
• Transition to the next paragraph

C. Address your third main idea

• Offer supporting evidence or facts
• Explain the significance of this evidence
• Transition to the next part

III. Conclusion

• Restate your thesis statement to remind readers of your main point
• Summarize the key points you've covered in the body paragraphs
• Leave readers with some final thoughts or reflections to ponder

IV. Optional: Extra Sections

• Consider addressing counterarguments and explaining why they're not valid (if needed)
• Offer suggestions for further research or additional reading
• Share personal anecdotes or examples to make your essay more relatable (if it fits)

Informative Essay Structure

Now that you've got a plan and know how to start an essay let's talk about how to organize it in more detail.

Introduction :

In your informative essay introduction, your aim is to grab the reader's interest and provide a bit of background on your topic. Start with something attention-grabbing, like a surprising fact or a thought-provoking question. Then, give a quick overview of what you'll be talking about in your essay with a clear thesis statement that tells the reader what your main points will be.

Body Paragraphs:

The body paragraphs of an informative essay should dive into the main ideas of your topic. Aim for at least three main points and back them up with evidence from reliable sources. Remember the 'C-E-E' formula: Claim, Evidence, Explanation. Start each paragraph with a clear point, then provide evidence to support it, and finally, explain why it's important. Mastering how to write an informative essay also requires smooth transitions from one section to the next, so don't forget to use transition words.

Conclusion :

You may already guess how to write a conclusion for an informative essay, as it's quite similar to other writing types. Wrap up by summarizing the main points you've made. Restate your thesis to remind the reader what your essay was all about. Then, leave them with some final thoughts or reflections to think about. Maybe suggest why your topic is important or what people can learn from it.

Informative Essay Examples

Essay examples show how theoretical ideas can be applied effectively and engagingly. So, let's check them out for good structure, organization, and presentation techniques.

Additionally, you can also explore essay writing apps that offer convenience and flexibility, allowing you to work on assignments wherever you are.

7 Steps for Writing an Informative Essay

Before you leave, here are 7 simple yet crucial steps for writing an informative essay. Make sure to incorporate them into your writing process:

• Choose Your Topic: If you're given the freedom to choose your topic, opt for something you're passionate about and can explain effectively in about five paragraphs. Begin with a broad subject area and gradually narrow it down to a specific topic. Consider conducting preliminary research to ensure there's enough information available to support your essay.
• Do Your Research: Dive deep into your chosen topic and gather information from reliable sources. Ensure that the sources you use are credible and can be referenced in your essay. This step is crucial for building a solid foundation of knowledge on your topic.
• Create an Outline: Once you've collected your research, organize your thoughts by creating an outline. Think of it as a roadmap for your essay, briefly summarizing what each paragraph will cover. This step helps maintain coherence and ensures that you cover all essential points in your essay.
• Start Writing: With your outline in hand, begin drafting your essay. Don't strive for perfection on the first attempt; instead, focus on getting your ideas down on paper. Maintain an objective and informative tone, avoiding overly complex language or unnecessary embellishments.
• Revise Your Draft: After completing the initial draft, take a break before revisiting your work. Read through your essay carefully, assessing how well your arguments are supported by evidence and ensuring a smooth flow of ideas. Rewrite any sections that require improvement to strengthen your essay's overall coherence and clarity.
• Proofread: Once you've revised your essay, thoroughly proofread it to catch any spelling or grammar errors. Additionally, verify the accuracy of the facts and information presented in your essay. A polished and error-free essay reflects positively on your attention to detail and credibility as a writer.
• Cite Your Sources: Finally, include a citations page to acknowledge the sources you've referenced in your essay. Follow the formatting guidelines of the chosen citation style, whether it's MLA, APA, or Chicago, to ensure consistency and proper credit to the original authors. This step is essential for maintaining academic integrity and avoiding plagiarism accusations.

Final Remarks

Fantastic! Now that you know how to write an informative essay and absorbed the essentials, let's recap the key points:

• You've learned the basics of informative essay writing.
• Ready to choose an interesting topic that connects with your audience.
• You've understood how to organize your essay clearly, with each paragraph serving a purpose.
• You have step-by-step guidance for writing engagingly.
• You've gained valuable tips to improve your writing skills and make your essay stand out.

By applying these insights, you're set to write an engaging essay that informs and inspires your readers!

Want to Unleash the Brilliance of Your Ideas?

Claim your expertly crafted informative essay today and command attention with your brilliant insights!

is an expert in nursing and healthcare, with a strong background in history, law, and literature. Holding advanced degrees in nursing and public health, his analytical approach and comprehensive knowledge help students navigate complex topics. On EssayPro blog, Adam provides insightful articles on everything from historical analysis to the intricacies of healthcare policies. In his downtime, he enjoys historical documentaries and volunteering at local clinics.

Related Articles

Writing an Informative Essay

Informative essays engage readers with new, interesting, and often surprising facts and details about a subject. Informative essays are educational; readers expect to learn something new from them. In fact, much of the reading and writing done in college and the workplace is informative. From textbooks to reports to tutorials like this one, informative writing imparts important and useful information about a topic.

This tutorial refers to the sample informative outline and final essay written by fictional student Paige Turner.

Reasons to Write Informatively

Your purpose for writing and the audience for whom you are writing will impact the depth and breadth of information you provide, but all informative writing aims to present a subject without opinions or bias. Some common reasons to write informatively are to

• report findings that an audience would find interesting,
• present facts that an audience would find useful, and
• communicate information about a person, place, event, issue, or change that would improve an audience’s understanding.

Characteristics of Informative Essays

Informative essays present factual information and do not attempt to sway readers’ opinions about it. Other types of academic and workplace writing do try to influence readers’ opinions:

• Expository essays aim to expose a truth about an issue in order to influence how readers view the issue.
• Persuasive essays aim to influence readers’ opinions, so they will adopt a particular position or take a certain course of action.

Expository and persuasive essays make “arguments.” The only argument an informative essay makes is that something exists, did exist, is happening, or has happened, and the point of the essay is not to convince readers of this but to tell them about it.

• Informative essays seek to enlighten and educate readers, so they can make their own educated opinions and decisions about what to think and how to act.

Strategies for Writing Informatively

Informative essays provide useful information such as facts, examples, and evidence from research in order to help readers understand a topic or see it more clearly. While informative writing does not aim to appeal emotionally to readers in order to change their opinions or behaviors, informative writing should still be engaging to read. Factual information is not necessarily dry or boring. Sometimes facts can be more alarming than fiction!

Writers use various strategies to engage and educate readers. Some strategies include

• introducing the topic with an alarming fact or arresting image;
• asserting what is true or so about the subject in a clear thesis statement;
• organizing the paragraphs logically by grouping related information;
• unifying each paragraph with a topic sentence and controlling idea;
• developing cohesive paragraphs with transition sentences;
• using precise language and terminology appropriate for the topic, purpose, and audience; and
• concluding with a final idea or example that captures the essay’s purpose and leaves a lasting impression.

Five Steps for Getting Started

1. Brainstorm and choose a topic.

• Sample topic : The opioid epidemic in the United States.
• The opiod epidemic or even opiod addiction would would be considered too broad for a single essay, so the next steps aim to narrow this topic down.

2. Next, write a question about the topic that you would like to answer through research.

• Sample question : What major events caused the opioid crisis in the United States?
• This question aims to narrow the topic down to causes of the epidemic in the US.

3. Now go to the Purdue Global Library to find the answers to your research question.

As you begin reading and collecting sources, write down the themes that emerge as common answers. Later, in step four, use the most common answers (or the ones you are most interested in writing and discussing) to construct a thesis statement.

• Sample answers: aggressive marketing, loopholes in prescription drug provider programs, and economic downturn.

4. Next, provide purpose to your paper by creating a thesis statement.

The thesis attempts to frame your research question. The sample thesis below incorporates three of the more common answers for the research question from step two: What caused the opioid crisis in the United States?

• Thesis Statement : Aggressive marketing, loopholes in prescription drug provider programs, and economic downturn contributed to the current opioid crisis in the United States.
• Writing Tip : For additional help with thesis statements, please visit our Writing a Thesis Statement article. For help with writing in 3rd person, see our article on Formal Vs. Informal Writing .

5. Now follow each numbered step in the “Suggested Outline Format and Sample” below.

Sample answers have been provided for “I. Introduction” and “II. First Cause.” A complete sample outline can be seen here. A complete sample informative essay can be seen here.

Suggested Outline Format and Sample

I. INTRODUCTION

A. First provide a topic sentence that introduces the main topic: Sample topic sentence : There is a current prescription pain medication addiction and abuse epidemic possibly caused by an excessive over prescription of these medications.

B. Now provide a couple sentences with evidence to support the main topic: Sample sentence one with evidence to support the main topic : According to Dr. Nora Volkow, Director of National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), in testimony before the 115th Congress, “In 2016, over 11 million Americans misused prescription opioids … and 2.1 million had an opioid use disorder due to prescription opioids” (Federal Efforts to Combat the Opioid Crisis, 2017, p. 2).

C. Sample sentence two with evidence to support the main topic : Volkow indicated “more than 300,000 Americans have died of an opioid overdose” since 2013 (Federal Efforts to Combat the Opioid Crisis, 2017, p.2).

D. Sample sentence three with evidence to support the main topic : According to Perez-Pena (2017), the Center for Disease Control and Prevention reported more than 25,000 people in the United States died in 2015 from overdosing on opioids Fentanyl, Oxycodone, and Hydrocodone.

E. Toward the end of the introduction, include your thesis statement written in the 3rd-person point-of-view: Sample thesis statement : Potential solutions to the growing opioid epidemic may be illuminated by examining how opioid addiction is triggered through aggressive pharmaceutical marketing, how opioid addiction manifests among prescribed patients, and how economic downturns play a role in the increase of opioid addiction.

F. Write down the library sources you can use in this introductory paragraph to help support the main topic.

• Federal Efforts to Combat the Opioid Crisis, 2017
• Perez-Pena, 2017
• Writing Tip : For more help writing an introduction, please refer to this article on introductions and conclusions .

II. FIRST CAUSE

A. First provide a topic sentence that introduces the first cause of the opioid epidemic: Sample topic sentence that introduces the first cause : One issue that helped contribute to the opioid epidemic is aggressive marketing by pharmaceutical manufacturers.

B. Now provide sentences with evidence to support the first cause: Sample sentence one with evidence that supports the first cause : Perez-Pena (2017) concluded that while the healthcare industry was attempting to effectively and efficiently treat patients with chronic pain, pharmaceutical companies were providing funding to prominent doctors, medical societies, and patient advocacy groups in order to win support for a particular drug’s adoption and usage.

C. Sample sentence two with evidence to support the first cause : In fact, pharmaceutical companies continue to spend millions on promotional activities and materials that deny or trivialize any risks of opioid use while at the same time overstating each drug’s benefit (Perez-Pina, 2017).

D. Next, add more information or provide concluding or transitional sentences that foreshadows the upcoming second cause: Sample concluding and transitional sentence that foreshadow the second cause : Although aggressive marketing by pharmaceutical companies played a large role in opioid addiction, patients are to blame too, as many take advantage of holes in the healthcare provider system in order to remedy their addiction.

E. Write down the library sources you can use in this body paragraph to help support the first cause:

• Writing Tip : For more assistance working with sources, please visit the Using Sources page here.

III. SECOND CAUSE

A. First provide a topic sentence that introduces the second cause.

B. Now provide sentences with evidence to support the second cause.

C. Next, add more information or provide concluding or transitional sentences that foreshadows the upcoming third cause.

D. Write down the library sources you can use in this body paragraph to help support the second cause:

• Writing Tip : Listen to Writing Powerful Sentences for information and features of effective writing.

IV. THIRD CAUSE

A. First provide a topic sentence that introduces the third cause.

B. Now provide sentences with evidence to support the third cause.

C. Next, add more information or provide a concluding sentence or two.

D. Write down the library sources you can use in this body paragraph to help support the third cause:

V. CONCLUSION: Summary of key points and evidence discussed.

• Writing Tip : For more help writing a conclusion, refer to this podcast on endings .
• Writing Tip : Have a question? Leave a comment below or Purdue Global students, click here to access the Purdue Global Writing Center tutoring platform and available staff.
• Writing Tip : Ready to have someone look at your paper? Purdue Global students, click here to submit your assignment for feedback through our video paper review service.

See a Sample Informative Essay Outline here .

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dang bro i got an A

Having faith with all this mentioned, that i will pass my english class at a college. Thank you for posting.

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Mar 20, 2023

How to Write an Informative Essay | Outlines and Examples

Discover the Art of Informative Essays: Engage, Learn, and Be Inspired by These Compelling Examples – Read on to Elevate Your Writing Skills!

An informative essay is written to disseminate knowledge about a specific subject. These writings will typically address one of the five W's (who, what, where, when, and why) in a given topic. Naturally, they can also respond with "how," suggesting a method.

Opinions and attempts to persuade readers to adopt your point of view have no place in informative writing. Only argumentative writing is allowed to play that part. If your instructive essay is particularly engaging, it may inspire your readers to pursue further research on the topic; however, they will have to make that decision independently.

To get you started, we've provided some informative essay samples as well as resources to help you select a subject and craft your paper.

What Is an Informative Essay?

An informative essay is a type of academic writing that explains about a particular topic or subject. The primary goal of an informative essay is to provide information on a topic, idea, or concept in a clear, concise, and organized manner. The purpose of the essay is to increase the reader's knowledge and understanding of the subject matter.

An informative essay is different from other types of essays, such as persuasive or argumentative essays. While persuasive essays aim to convince the audience to take a particular viewpoint or to take action, informative essays are written solely to provide information. This means that the essay should be unbiased, objective, and free from personal opinions or biases.

When writing an informative essay, it is essential to choose a topic that is interesting and relevant to the audience. It is also essential to conduct thorough research on the topic and to use credible sources, such as academic journals, books, and reputable websites. It is also essential to use a formal tone, clear language, and appropriate grammar and punctuation.

An informative essay is a type of academic writing that aims to provide information on a particular topic or subject in a clear, concise, and organized manner. The essay should be unbiased, objective, and free from personal opinions or biases.

The structure of an informative essay typically follows a basic format, including an introduction that provides background details and a distinct thesis statement, body paragraphs that outlines key arguments along with supporting proof, and a conclusion that offers a synopsis of the information presented. When writing an informative essay, it is essential to choose a topic that is interesting and relevant to the audience and to use credible sources and a formal tone.

How to Create an Informative Essay Outline?

Writing an informative essay outline is an essential step in the essay writing process. An outline provides a structure and a framework for the essay, allowing the writer to organize their thoughts and ideas before beginning to write. A good outline will help to ensure that the essay is clear, concise, and well-structured.

The outline for an informative essay typically includes the following sections: introduction, body paragraphs, and conclusion. Each section has a specific purpose and should be structured in a particular way.

I. Introduction

The introduction of an informative essay should provide background information on the topic and introduce the thesis statement, which is the main idea of the essay. The introduction should also capture the reader's attention and motivate them to continue reading.

A. Hook: The hook is the opening sentence or two of the essay. It should be attention-grabbing and relevant to the topic.

B. Background information: The background information provides context for the topic and helps the reader understand why the topic is important.

C. Thesis statement: The thesis statement is the main idea of the essay. It should be clear, concise, and specific.

II. Body Paragraphs

The body paragraphs of an informative essay provide detailed information on the topic. Each paragraph should focus on a particular aspect of the topic and be organized in a logical and coherent manner.

A. Topic sentence: The topic sentence is the first sentence of each body paragraph. It should clearly state the main point of the paragraph.

B. Supporting details: The supporting details provide evidence and examples to support the topic sentence.

C. Transitions: Transitions help to connect the paragraphs and make the essay flow smoothly.

III. Conclusion

The conclusion of an informative essay summarizes the main points of the essay and restates the thesis statement in a new way. The conclusion should also leave a lasting impression on the reader.

A. Restate thesis statement: The thesis statement should be restated in a new way to remind the reader of the main idea of the essay.

B. Summarize main points: The main points of the essay should be summarized in a concise and clear manner.

C. Final thoughts: The conclusion should end with final thoughts that leave a lasting impression on the reader.

Crafting an outline for an informative essay is a crucial stage in the process of essay writing. The purpose of creating an outline for an informative essay is to establish the topics you aim to address and to structure ideas accordingly.

The outline should include an introduction, body paragraphs, and a conclusion, each with a specific purpose and structure. By following these guidelines, writers can create an informative essay that is clear, concise, and well-structured.

A Step-by-Step Guide to Writing an Informative Essay Format

Despite the fact that all essays have a similar structure, each type has its own distinctive features and peculiarities. It is a must to be aware of them in order to create a well-structured informative research paper outline. Structuring an informative essay outline can help you organize your thoughts and ideas and ensure that you cover all the necessary information.

Here are 7 steps to help you create a well-structured informative essay outline:

Choose a Topic

Select a topic that you are familiar with and that you find interesting. Ensure that the topic is suitable for an informative essay and that there is enough information available for you to research.

Conduct Research

Research your topic thoroughly using reputable sources such as academic journals, books, and websites. Gather information that will help you to support your arguments and make your essay more persuasive.

Create a Thesis Statement

Write a clear thesis statement that summarizes the main argument or purpose of your essay. Your thesis statement should be concise and focused, and it should provide a clear direction for your essay.

Create an Introduction

Begin your essay with an introduction that provides background information on your topic and introduces your thesis statement. Your introduction should be engaging and informative, and it should capture the reader's attention.

Create Body Paragraphs

The body of your essay should consist of several paragraphs, each of which should focus on a specific point or argument. Use clear and concise language to convey your ideas, and support your arguments with evidence such as examples, statistics, and other forms of evidence.

Create a Conclusion

Conclude your essay with a summary of your main points and a restatement of your thesis statement. Your conclusion should provide closure to your essay and leave a lasting impression on your reader.

Proofread and Edit

Edit and proofread your essay for grammar, spelling, and punctuation errors. Ensure that your essay is well-structured, easy to read, and well-supported with evidence.

Overall, following these seven steps will help you create a well-structured informative essay outline that will guide you in writing an effective and persuasive essay.

Comprehensive Analysis of All of the Outline's Subsections

Outlines for informative papers typically consist of the same five or six parts as those for other kinds of essays. This type of writing task usually requires a specific structure. Begin with a one-paragraph opening, then move on to the body—which should be at least three paragraphs long—and end with a closing. It's likely that this will appear recognizable to you.

Let's read more carefully through the parts of the research report. See to it that you have painted a distinct image of the content that each paragraph will address.

Introduction:

In the introduction of your informative essay structure, you should define your subject in simple terms. Rather than relying on your own assumptions, check that you are using the actual definitions provided by reputable sources. The so-called "prehistory" of the subject can be included, as it often contains fascinating tidbits that aren't common knowledge.

To back up the thesis assertion made at the outset of the paper, you should provide arguments in the body of your work. It is suggested to devote each paragraph to a single subject idea, so the number of body paragraphs will be determined by the number of arguments.

Controversial Arguments: 

Before responding to an opponent's claims, make sure you've done your homework and collected all the information you'll need to present a well-reasoned response. There will be more than one way to look at the heart of any given subject. It is for this reason that you must exercise caution when gathering evidence and showing your opponent's arguments.

Each line needs to not only make a case but also provide proof to back up that case. Include the identities of the scientists and scholars who created the relevant references in your citation. Paint a vivid image of the subject at hand. That's why it's up to you to clarify everything that's crucial.

The Conclusion: 

Many students make the mistake of thinking that the conclusion section of a summary must be a direct reiteration of the thesis statement. In the final section, you should restate the processed data and direct the reader's attention to the most important parts of the study.

The most important guideline to follow is to explain in the conclusion how the reader can profit from the study findings.

2 Informative Essay Examples

The Key Causes Resulting in Water Pollution

Water pollution is a serious environmental issue that poses a significant threat to human health and the ecosystem. It occurs when harmful substances are introduced into water bodies such as rivers, lakes, oceans, and groundwater, making them unsuitable for human consumption and other uses.

The causes of water pollution are diverse, ranging from industrial and agricultural practices to household activities. This essay examines the key causes of water pollution and their impacts on the environment and human health.

Industrial activities:

Industrial activities are a significant cause of water pollution, especially in developed countries. Industries such as mining, manufacturing, and oil drilling often release harmful chemicals and waste into water bodies, contaminating them with toxic substances.

For instance, the discharge of untreated wastewater from factories and refineries leads to high levels of pollutants in water bodies. These pollutants can cause waterborne diseases, kill aquatic plants and animals, and render water unsafe for human consumption.

Agricultural practices:

Agricultural activities are another significant cause of water pollution. The use of fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides in farming has led to the contamination of water bodies. When these chemicals are washed away by rain or irrigation, they end up in rivers and lakes, causing water pollution. Excessive use of fertilizers, in particular, has been linked to the eutrophication of water bodies.

Eutrophication is a process in which excessive nutrients in water promote the growth of algae, which reduces the amount of oxygen available for other aquatic organisms, leading to the death of fish and other aquatic life.

Household activities:

Household activities are also responsible for water pollution. These activities include the disposal of household waste, cooking oils, and detergents into water bodies. Septic systems and faulty sewer lines also contribute to water pollution. When households dispose of their waste improperly, it ends up in water bodies, contaminating them with harmful substances.

Detergents contain phosphates, which can cause eutrophication when they enter water bodies. Moreover, septic systems and faulty sewer lines can cause water contamination when they leak or overflow.

Mining activities:

Mining activities, particularly those involving open-pit mines, can cause significant water pollution. Open-pit mines generate large amounts of waste, which is often dumped into nearby water bodies. This waste contains toxic substances such as heavy metals, which can contaminate water and cause severe health problems.

The use of chemicals such as cyanide and mercury in mining operations also contributes to water pollution. These chemicals are used to extract gold and other minerals from ores, but they can contaminate water bodies if not handled properly.

Oil spills:

Oil spills are one of the most devastating causes of water pollution. When oil spills occur, they can have catastrophic effects on the environment and the economy. Oil spills can result from accidents involving oil tankers, pipeline leaks, and offshore drilling.

The spilt oil can spread over large areas, contaminating water bodies and killing aquatic plants and animals. The toxic substances in the oil can also pose a significant health risk to humans who come into contact with them.

Impacts of water pollution:

Water pollution has severe impacts on the environment and human health. For instance, water pollution can lead to the death of fish and other aquatic organisms, reducing biodiversity. Water pollution can also make water unsafe for human consumption, leading to waterborne diseases such as cholera and typhoid fever.

Furthermore, water pollution can lead to the destruction of ecosystems, reducing the ability of natural systems to provide essential services such as water purification, flood control, and erosion prevention.

In conclusion, water pollution is a significant environmental problem that can have severe consequences for aquatic life and humans. The causes of water pollution are diverse and can come from industrial and agricultural practices, household activities, mining activities, and oil spills.

To prevent water pollution, it is crucial to implement measures that reduce the release of pollutants into water bodies, such as improved industrial processes, sustainable agriculture practices, proper disposal of household hazardous waste, responsible mining practices, and oil spill prevention measures.

By working together to address water pollution, we can protect our water resources and ensure a healthier future for ourselves and the environment.

The Importance of Education in the 21st Century

Education is a fundamental pillar of society, and it plays a crucial role in the development of individuals and nations. In the 21st century, education has become more critical than ever before, given the rapid pace of technological advancements and globalization. This essay discusses the importance of education in the 21st century and how it impacts individuals and society as a whole.

Globalisation and Technological Advancements:

The 21st century is marked by a new era of globalization, characterized by the integration of economies, cultures, and societies across the world. Technological advancements, such as the internet and social media, have made it easier for people to communicate and access information, breaking down traditional barriers and boundaries.

In this context, education is essential for individuals to acquire the knowledge and skills necessary to navigate this new world successfully. Education enables individuals to communicate, think critically, and adapt to changes in the environment, including technological advancements.

Employability:

In the 21st century, the job market is highly competitive, and employers demand a skilled and knowledgeable workforce. Education plays a crucial role in ensuring that individuals are equipped with the necessary skills and knowledge to meet the demands of the job market.

Education enables individuals to acquire specialized knowledge and skills in their fields of interest, making them more competitive in the job market. Additionally, education fosters the development of soft skills, such as communication, teamwork, and problem-solving, which are highly valued by employers.

Personal Development:

Education is not just about acquiring knowledge and skills; it is also about personal development. Education enables individuals to develop a sense of identity, values, and beliefs, shaping their character and worldview. Education also promotes personal growth by exposing individuals to new ideas, perspectives, and cultures, broadening their horizons and promoting tolerance and diversity.

Social Development:

Education is critical for social development, promoting social mobility and reducing inequalities. Education enables individuals from different backgrounds and social classes to access the same opportunities and pursue their dreams, irrespective of their socioeconomic status.

Education also promotes social cohesion and community building by fostering a sense of civic responsibility and promoting active participation in society.

Environmental Sustainability:

In the 21st century, environmental sustainability is a crucial global issue that requires urgent action. Education plays a crucial role in promoting environmental awareness and sustainability. Education enables individuals to understand the impact of human activities on the environment and develop strategies to mitigate these impacts.

Education also promotes a culture of environmental stewardship, encouraging individuals to take responsibility for their actions and work towards a sustainable future.

Innovation and Creativity:

Innovation and creativity are critical drivers of economic growth and social progress in the 21st century. Education plays a crucial role in promoting innovation and creativity by fostering a culture of experimentation and risk-taking. Education enables individuals to develop critical thinking skills, think outside the box, and come up with creative solutions to complex problems.

Conclusion:

In conclusion, education is critical for the development of individuals and society in the 21st century. It enables individuals to acquire the knowledge and skills necessary to navigate a rapidly changing world, compete in the job market, and pursue personal and social goals. Education also promotes environmental sustainability, innovation, and creativity, promoting economic growth and social progress.

As such, investing in education is essential for building a better future for individuals and society as a whole.

In conclusion, writing an informative essay can be a rewarding experience, as it allows you to share your knowledge on a particular topic with others. By following the steps outlined in this article and utilizing the examples provided, you can create a well-structured and informative essay that will captivate your audience. Remember to thoroughly research your topic, organize your ideas, and use clear and concise language to convey your message. If you're looking for additional support in creating high-quality essays, sign up for jenni.ai ! Our AI-powered writing assistant can help you generate ideas, structure your essay, and even provide autocompletion suggestions to help you write faster. With jenni.ai, you can create engaging and informative essays with ease. Don't hesitate, click the button below to sign up for jenni.ai today and start writing your best essays yet!

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ENG 101: The Informative Essay

About the informative essay.

• Developing Questions
• The Thesis Statement
• Reading Scholarly Sources
• Collecting Scholarly Information
• Research Databases
• MLA Resources

Writing Resources

Press the green button if you

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Write an informative essay that does the following:

• Clearly informs the reader about a topic without presenting your opinion.
• Correctly uses required style (e.g. MLA or APA ) to organize and format the essay, and to create in-text citations and a bibliography.
• Cites research from academically reliable sources from library databases.
• Includes a properly developed introduction and conclusion.
• Is grammatically correct with few errors in spelling or mechanics.

NOTE: For specific requirements (i.e. - formatting style, number of pages, etc.) follow your instructor's guidelines.

Image from page 3 of Myles, R., & Tuang, H. (2014). Grade 2: Informative writing lessons . The Los Angeles Unified School District's Academic English Mastery Program. https://achieve.lausd.net/cms/lib/CA01000043/Centricity/Domain/217/MELD_Informative_CCSS_Lesson_2.pdf

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Links in the menu on the left of the page will give you access to videos, books, articles, websites, and even test prep resources for your project or program of study!  These have been curated by the library staff in collaboration with Gateway Faculty.  The intention is to create something interesting and useful for your studies.

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Meet your gateway librarians:, urban metro campus.

Greetings!  My name is Elizabeth Hartlaub.  I have been the Director of Library and Information Services at Gateway since the Summer of 2020.

I have been a librarian for over 15 years with both public and academic library experience.  Some professional positions I held prior to coming to Gateway are as follows: 

~ Library Operations Manager - UC Blue Ash

~ Branch Manager - Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County

I am originally from Cincinnati and attended Xavier University for my undergraduate degree in International Affairs. My career in libraries started when I worked as a Student Assistant at the XU Library! 

I was a first generation college student and found that the library provided the academic support and empowerment I needed to succeed in my studies. This doesn't go without saying that I also had an amazing group of family, friends, and other academic support at the university to help me along the way.  My advice to any student is that you are not alone as you work through your courses!  Engage with your school and personal support system early and often!

A few years after I graduated from XU, I earned a Master's Degree in Library Science at Indiana University - Bloomington. 

My favorite part of being a librarian is connecting with students and guiding them through the research and information literacy process.  Research is one of my favorite parts of being a librarian and I feel very lucky to be able to do what I love and share that knowledge with others!

In my free time, I love hiking and playing outside with my two children, going to baseball games at Great American Ball Park, and gardening in my small-but-mighty backyard garden.

One fun fact about me is that I started learning French when I was in Kindergarten.  I kept with it all the way through to earning a minor at XU.  I have visited France three times, including living there for 6 months as a part of a study abroad opportunity.  I am really rusty, but I think I can still carry on a conversation if needed.

Contact Elizabeth by...

Email: [email protected]

Phone: 859-442-4162

Office Location: UB208 (in the TIE building)

EDGEWOOD CAMPUS

Before I became a librarian, I was an architect and an historical archaeologist.  I renovate homes, and research history and genealogy for fun; I am interested in everything, so bring bring me your research questions and let's learn together!  Email, call, or chat if I can help with your information needs.

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     ** I'm the librarian closest to the Transportation Technology Center!

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Phone: 859-442-1163

Office Location: Boone Campus (CAM Building) Ground Floor B05

Hello, my name is Priscilla Kapungu I am your Library Specialist based at the Boone Campus.

I have 20 plus years of experience working in a special-public library at the Department of State's Harare Embassy as the Deputy director, for the Information Resource Center.

Before joining Gateway College I worked as a Customer Support Associate at Cengage Learning Group for four plus years.

One thing I enjoy in my line of work - Information Management, Program Evaluation, Interlibrary Linkages, Information Resources Literacy, is patrons and colleagues alike who are incredibly friendly and willing and ready to ask questions.

Fun fact about me is, I strongly believe in the the spirit of Ubuntu - namely “I am because we are…”

URBAN METRO CAMPUS - IC DESK

I have worked at Gateway since 2015, receiving my MLIS from Wayne State University in Michigan, after leaving an internship at Xavier University's library. My primary areas of interest were and are how to best catalog, curate, and organize information to make it easy to learn from and use.

As you might expect, I enjoy reading and researching history for fun.

Please note that the best way to contact me is by email. If you need to meet in person, I will schedule an appointment by email. I try to reply to all emails made during the work week within 24 hours.

Given my role extends beyond traditional library services, I would encourage those who are embedded in my classes to contact me for more general questions, as well as research related ones: If I cannot find an answer for you, I can find someone who can!

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Phone: 859-442-1122

Office Location: UC - TIE Information Commons desk

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State your topic

Your topic is the essential idea of your paper. It is usually a few words or a phrase that summarizes the subject of your paper. For your thesis statement, try to make your topic as specific as possible.

State your main idea about this topic

What are you trying to state or prove about your topic? What are you trying to persuade the reader to believe? When stating your opinion, be sure to:

• express one major ideal
• name the topic and assert something specific about it
• take a stance on an issue that you can support with facts and reasons.
• state your position on or opinion about the issue.

Give a reason that supports your main idea

Write your reason as a clear statement. Be sure that you can support this reason with logical facts and evidence.

Give another reason that supports your main idea

Give one more reason that supports your main idea.

Tell us one reason that supports your opinion. Write your reason as a clear statement. Be sure that you can support this reason with logical facts and evidence.

Include an opposing viewpoint to your main idea, if applicable

A good thesis statement acknowledges that there is always another side to the argument. So, include an opposing viewpoint (a counterargument) to your opinion. Basically, write down what a person who disagrees with your position might say about your topic.

Click the button to generate your thesis statement!

Use this assignment calculator  to determine when you should complete each part of a writing project, such as research papers and speeches (1).

1. University of Minnesota Libraries. (n.d.). Assignment calculator . University of Minnesota. Retrieved May 24, 2022, from https://www.lib.umn.edu/services/ac

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How to Write an Informative Essay

Last Updated: February 14, 2023 Fact Checked

This article was co-authored by Megan Morgan, PhD . Megan Morgan is a Graduate Program Academic Advisor in the School of Public & International Affairs at the University of Georgia. She earned her PhD in English from the University of Georgia in 2015. There are 12 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 243,369 times.

An informative essay educates the reader about a topic. You'll need to know a good deal about your subject and convey information in a clear, organized fashion. If it seems overwhelming at first, remember to take it step by step. Working methodically can help you write a successful paper, and you may even enjoy the process!

Selecting and Researching Your Topic

• Be sure you know how your teacher wants you to cite your sources so you can keep track of what you research. Some schools provide reference software like EndNote or RefWorks, which can make collecting and keeping track of research sources easier.
• Be aware of any formatting requirements. The essay prompt will often tell you things such as whether the essay needs to be handwritten or typed, and what font type and size to use. If it doesn't stipulate, the safe choice is a standard, readable 12-pt font such as Times New Roman or Arial. Avoid using "cute" or "quirky" fonts in an academic paper unless given specific permission to do so.
• Know the due date! Get started early so that you have plenty of time to complete the essay.

• The topic should not be too broad or too narrow. See Write an Essay for more information. There should be enough information about the topic to write about, but not so much that you can't present clear, concise information. For example, writing on "the history of animal shelters" is probably much too broad, while "the history of Sunny Days Animal Shelter in X County" is probably too narrow. A happy medium might be "the history of breed-specific animal shelters in America."
• The topic should be appropriate and interesting to your audience. Think in advance about who might be reading your essay. Obviously, if this is for school, your teacher is your primary audience, but you should always have a target audience in mind. What will they want to know? What do they probably not know already that your essay will provide?
• Ideally, the topic should be one that interests you. This will make the writing process that much easier, and you can pass your enthusiasm on to your reader.

• For best results, try to find online sources from reputable organizations, government agencies, and universities. Google Scholar can be a good place to start.

• For your informative essay, you will need an introduction, at least three main points, and a conclusion. You may want to make these sections and write notes down under the section where you expect it to go.

• Make an ideas map. Put your topic in a circle at the center of a piece of paper, then write down the most important pieces of information or ideas related to it in circles surrounding the topic. Make lines connecting each idea to the topic. Next, add details around each idea, circling them and making lines to show connections. There may be lines connecting ideas to each other, as well, or between supporting details.
• Make a list. If you prefer the linear format of a list, write down your topic at the top and then below it any ideas you have. Under the ideas, add extra details that support them. Don't worry about putting them in specific order - that comes next.
• Free write. Free writing can help you generate ideas, even if it usually doesn't provide polished prose you'll use in your final draft. Set a short time limit, such as 15 minutes, and then write whatever comes to mind about your topic. Don't stop to edit or change spelling, and keep writing even if you aren't sure you have anything to say. The important thing is to write for all 15 minutes.

Making an Outline

• Don't worry about getting your thesis just right at this point - that comes later. If you don't feel ready to write the thesis out, jot down some notes in the introductory part of your outline. At the very least, you need some idea of what you want to say in your essay.
• While it may seem odd to summarize your essay before you've begun, writing your thesis at the beginning of your outline will help you organize your ideas and select the most important details that you want to present.

• The number of details you use depends on the paper length: if you're writing a five-paragraph essay, then you have three paragraphs for the body, so you'll need three main ideas.
• Make sure you choose the most important details, and that they are all distinct from one another.
• Details used to support your thesis are also called "evidence."

• Make sure you have enough supporting details for each paragraph. If you don't have enough to say about the paragraph's main topic, consider changing the topic or combining it with another paragraph. Alternatively, you can research a bit more to find additional supporting details for the paragraph.

Writing Your Essay

• Do not worry about spelling errors or mistakes. Remember that this is just a rough draft, not your final copy. Just focus on writing it down, and later you can fix mistakes.
• Write your rough draft by hand or type it - whichever is easier for you.

• For example, a topic/transition sentence might look like this: "While some factories allow union labor, others, such as those in X, argue that unionizing harms the workplace." This sentence gives a clear direction for the paragraph (some factories argue against unionizing) and links it to the paragraph before it (which was probably about pro-union factories).
• Remember: each paragraph needs unity (a single central idea), clear relation to the thesis , coherence (logical relationship of ideas within the paragraph), and development (ideas are clearly explained and supported). [11] X Trustworthy Source University of North Carolina Writing Center UNC's on-campus and online instructional service that provides assistance to students, faculty, and others during the writing process Go to source

• Make sure you're clear about what the idea of each paragraph is. To keep yourself on track, refer to your outline as you write.

• Have you told the reader everything you need to about your topic?
• Do you have a clear thesis statement, expressed in two to three sentences?
• Do all your paragraphs relate to the thesis?
• Does each paragraph have one main idea, supported by accurate, objective details?
• Does your conclusion summarize your thoughts on the topic without adding new information or opinions?
• How does the paper flow? Are there clear, logical transitions between paragraphs?
• Have you used clear, concise prose and avoided flowery language?
• Did the reader learn something new from the essay? Is it presented in an interesting way?
• Have you cited sources as instructed by your teacher?

• As you write your final draft, keep track of coherence in particular. Rough drafts often have all of their ideas jumbled up without a clear, logical progression. A key difference between a rough draft and a final draft is that the final draft should offer its information in a smooth, clear, easy-to-read fashion that builds on previous points as it goes along. Keeping an eye out to make sure you've followed the C-E-E- formula will help you.

• Also keep an eye out for word echoes, or words that show up many times within the space of a few sentences or paragraphs. If you use the word discusses multiple times in the same paragraph, it will make your writing seem clunky and unpolished.

• Sometimes our eyes "fix" mistakes for us as we read, so it's hard to catch mistakes reading silently. Reading aloud helps you find mistakes your eye might not.

Community Q&A

You Might Also Like

• ↑ http://writingcenter.unc.edu/handouts/understanding-assignments/
• ↑ https://library.carleton.ca/guides/help/choosing-essay-topic
• ↑ https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/subject_specific_writing/writing_in_literature/writing_in_literature_detailed_discussion/conducting_research.html
• ↑ https://advice.writing.utoronto.ca/researching/notes-from-research/
• ↑ https://libguides.rio.edu/c.php?g=620382&p=4320145
• ↑ http://writingcenter.unc.edu/handouts/brainstorming/
• ↑ https://examples.yourdictionary.com/20-compelling-hook-examples-for-essays.html
• ↑ https://examples.yourdictionary.com/examples-of-informative-essays.html
• ↑ https://wts.indiana.edu/writing-guides/paragraphs-and-topic-sentences.html
• ↑ http://writingcenter.unc.edu/handouts/paragraphs/
• ↑ https://writingcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/revising-drafts/
• ↑ https://writingcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/editing-and-proofreading/

About This Article

To write an informative essay, start with an introduction that presents a thesis statement articulating your argument in 2-3 concise sentences. For the body of the essay, focus on one main idea per paragraph and start each paragraph with a topic sentence that establishes that main idea. Then, follow the topic sentence with cited evidence and explanatory detail. Finish up with a conclusion that summarizes your main points and restates your thesis. Don't forget to proofread carefully before turning in your essay! For helpful tips on researching and using good sources, read on! Did this summary help you? Yes No

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40 Best Essays of All Time (Including Links & Writing Tips)

I wanted to improve my writing skills. I thought that reading the forty best essays of all time would bring me closer to my goal.

I had little money (buying forty collections of essays was out of the question) so I’ve found them online instead. I’ve hacked through piles of them, and finally, I’ve found the great ones. Now I want to share the whole list with you (with the addition of my notes about writing). Each item on the list has a direct link to the essay, so please click away and indulge yourself. Also, next to each essay, there’s an image of the book that contains the original work.

About this essay list:

Reading essays is like indulging in candy; once you start, it’s hard to stop. I sought out essays that were not only well-crafted but also impactful. These pieces genuinely shifted my perspective. Whether you’re diving in for enjoyment or to hone your writing, these essays promise to leave an imprint. It’s fascinating how an essay can resonate with you, and even if details fade, its essence remains. I haven’t ranked them in any way; they’re all stellar. Skim through, explore the summaries, and pick up some writing tips along the way. For more essay gems, consider “Best American Essays” by Joyce Carol Oates or “101 Essays That Will Change The Way You Think” curated by Brianna Wiest.

40 Best Essays of All Time (With Links And Writing Tips)

1. david sedaris – laugh, kookaburra.

A great family drama takes place against the backdrop of the Australian wilderness. And the Kookaburra laughs… This is one of the top essays of the lot. It’s a great mixture of family reminiscences, travel writing, and advice on what’s most important in life. You’ll also learn an awful lot about the curious culture of the Aussies.

Writing tips from the essay:

• Use analogies (you can make it funny or dramatic to achieve a better effect): “Don’t be afraid,” the waiter said, and he talked to the kookaburra in a soothing, respectful voice, the way you might to a child with a switchblade in his hand”.
• You can touch a few cognate stories in one piece of writing . Reveal the layers gradually. Intertwine them and arrange for a grand finale where everything is finally clear.
• Be on the side of the reader. Become their friend and tell the story naturally, like around the dinner table.
• Use short, punchy sentences. Tell only as much as is required to make your point vivid.
• Conjure sentences that create actual feelings: “I had on a sweater and a jacket, but they weren’t quite enough, and I shivered as we walked toward the body, and saw that it was a . . . what, exactly?”
• You may ask a few tough questions in a row to provoke interest and let the reader think.

2. Charles D’Ambrosio – Documents

Do you think your life punches you in the face all too often? After reading this essay, you will change your mind. Reading about loss and hardships often makes us sad at first, but then enables us to feel grateful for our lives . D’Ambrosio shares his documents (poems, letters) that had a major impact on his life, and brilliantly shows how not to let go of the past.

• The most powerful stories are about your family and the childhood moments that shaped your life.
• You don’t need to build up tension and pussyfoot around the crux of the matter. Instead, surprise the reader by telling it like it is: “The poem was an allegory about his desire to leave our family.” Or: “My father had three sons. I’m the eldest; Danny, the youngest, killed himself sixteen years ago”.
• You can use real documents and quotes from your family and friends. It makes it so much more personal and relatable.
• Don’t cringe before the long sentence if you know it’s a strong one.
• At the end of the essay, you may come back to the first theme to close the circuit.
• Using slightly poetic language is acceptable, as long as it improves the story.

3. E. B. White – Once more to the lake

What does it mean to be a father? Can you see your younger self, reflected in your child? This beautiful essay tells the story of the author, his son, and their traditional stay at a placid lake hidden within the forests of Maine. This place of nature is filled with sunshine and childhood memories. It also provides for one of the greatest meditations on nature and the passing of time.

• Use sophisticated language, but not at the expense of readability.
• Use vivid language to trigger the mirror neurons in the reader’s brain: “I took along my son, who had never had any fresh water up his nose and who had seen lily pads only from train windows”.
• It’s important to mention universal feelings that are rarely talked about (it helps to create a bond between two minds): “You remember one thing, and that suddenly reminds you of another thing. I guess I remembered clearest of all the early mornings when the lake was cool and motionless”.
• Animate the inanimate: “this constant and trustworthy body of water”.
• Mentioning tales of yore is a good way to add some mystery and timelessness to your piece.
• Using double, or even triple “and” in one sentence is fine. It can make the sentence sing.

4. Zadie Smith – Fail Better

Aspiring writers feel tremendous pressure to perform. The daily quota of words often turns out to be nothing more than gibberish. What then? Also, should the writer please the reader or should she be fully independent? What does it mean to be a writer, anyway? This essay is an attempt to answer these questions, but its contents are not only meant for scribblers. Within it, you’ll find some great notes about literary criticism, how we treat art , and the responsibility of the reader.

• A perfect novel ? There’s no such thing.
• The novel always reflects the inner world of the writer. That’s why we’re fascinated with writers.
• Writing is not simply about craftsmanship, but about taking your reader to the unknown lands. In the words of Christopher Hitchens: “Your ideal authors ought to pull you from the foundering of your previous existence, not smilingly guide you into a friendly and peaceable harbor.”
• Style comes from your unique personality and the perception of the world. It takes time to develop it.
• Never try to tell it all. “All” can never be put into language. Take a part of it and tell it the best you can.
• Avoid being cliché. Try to infuse new life into your writing .
• Writing is about your way of being. It’s your game. Paradoxically, if you try to please everyone, your writing will become less appealing. You’ll lose the interest of the readers. This rule doesn’t apply in the business world where you have to write for a specific person (a target audience).
• As a reader, you have responsibilities too. According to the critics, every thirty years, there’s just a handful of great novels. Maybe it’s true. But there’s also an element of personal connection between the reader and the writer. That’s why for one person a novel is a marvel, while for the other, nothing special at all. That’s why you have to search and find the author who will touch you.

5. Virginia Woolf – Death of the Moth

Amid an ordinary day, sitting in a room of her own, Virginia Woolf tells about the epic struggle for survival and the evanescence of life. This short essay is truly powerful. In the beginning, the atmosphere is happy. Life is in full force. And then, suddenly, it fades away. This sense of melancholy would mark the last years of Woolf’s life.

• The melody of language… A good sentence is like music: “Moths that fly by day are not properly to be called moths; they do not excite that pleasant sense of dark autumn nights and ivy-blossom which the commonest yellow- underwing asleep in the shadow of the curtain never fails to rouse in us”.
• You can show the grandest in the mundane (for example, the moth at your window and the drama of life and death).
• Using simple comparisons makes the style more lucid: “Being intent on other matters I watched these futile attempts for a time without thinking, unconsciously waiting for him to resume his flight, as one waits for a machine, that has stopped momentarily, to start again without considering the reason of its failure”.

6. Meghan Daum – My Misspent Youth

Many of us, at some point or another, dream about living in New York. Meghan Daum’s take on the subject differs slightly from what you might expect. There’s no glamour, no Broadway shows, and no fancy restaurants. Instead, there’s the sullen reality of living in one of the most expensive cities in the world. You’ll get all the juicy details about credit cards, overdue payments, and scrambling for survival. It’s a word of warning. But it’s also a great story about shattered fantasies of living in a big city. Word on the street is: “You ain’t promised mañana in the rotten manzana.”

• You can paint a picture of your former self. What did that person believe in? What kind of world did he or she live in?
• “The day that turned your life around” is a good theme you may use in a story. Memories of a special day are filled with emotions. Strong emotions often breed strong writing.
• Use cultural references and relevant slang to create a context for your story.
• You can tell all the details of the story, even if in some people’s eyes you’ll look like the dumbest motherfucker that ever lived. It adds to the originality.
• Say it in a new way: “In this mindset, the dollars spent, like the mechanics of a machine no one bothers to understand, become an abstraction, an intangible avenue toward self-expression, a mere vehicle of style”.
• You can mix your personal story with the zeitgeist or the ethos of the time.

7. Roger Ebert – Go Gentle Into That Good Night

Probably the greatest film critic of all time, Roger Ebert, tells us not to rage against the dying of the light. This essay is full of courage, erudition, and humanism. From it, we learn about what it means to be dying (Hitchens’ “Mortality” is another great work on that theme). But there’s so much more. It’s a great celebration of life too. It’s about not giving up, and sticking to your principles until the very end. It brings to mind the famous scene from Dead Poets Society where John Keating (Robin Williams) tells his students: “Carpe, carpe diem, seize the day boys, make your lives extraordinary”.

• Start with a powerful sentence: “I know it is coming, and I do not fear it, because I believe there is nothing on the other side of death to fear.”
• Use quotes to prove your point -”‘Ask someone how they feel about death’, he said, ‘and they’ll tell you everyone’s gonna die’. Ask them, ‘In the next 30 seconds?’ No, no, no, that’s not gonna happen”.
• Admit the basic truths about reality in a childlike way (especially after pondering quantum physics) – “I believe my wristwatch exists, and even when I am unconscious, it is ticking all the same. You have to start somewhere”.
• Let other thinkers prove your point. Use quotes and ideas from your favorite authors and friends.

8. George Orwell – Shooting an Elephant

Even after one reading, you’ll remember this one for years. The story, set in British Burma, is about shooting an elephant (it’s not for the squeamish). It’s also the most powerful denunciation of colonialism ever put into writing. Orwell, apparently a free representative of British rule, feels to be nothing more than a puppet succumbing to the whim of the mob.

• The first sentence is the most important one: “In Moulmein, in Lower Burma, I was hated by large numbers of people — the only time in my life that I have been important enough for this to happen to me”.
• You can use just the first paragraph to set the stage for the whole piece of prose.
• Use beautiful language that stirs the imagination: “I remember that it was a cloudy, stuffy morning at the beginning of the rains.” Or: “I watched him beating his bunch of grass against his knees, with that preoccupied grandmotherly air that elephants have.”
• If you’ve ever been to war, you will have a story to tell: “(Never tell me, by the way, that the dead look peaceful. Most of the corpses I have seen looked devilish.)”
• Use simple words, and admit the sad truth only you can perceive: “They did not like me, but with the magical rifle in my hands I was momentarily worth watching”.
• Share words of wisdom to add texture to the writing: “I perceived at this moment that when the white man turns tyrant it is his freedom that he destroys.”
• I highly recommend reading everything written by Orwell, especially if you’re looking for the best essay collections on Amazon or Goodreads.

9. George Orwell – A Hanging

It’s just another day in Burma – time to hang a man. Without much ado, Orwell recounts the grim reality of taking another person’s life. A man is taken from his cage and in a few minutes, he’s going to be hanged. The most horrible thing is the normality of it. It’s a powerful story about human nature. Also, there’s an extraordinary incident with the dog, but I won’t get ahead of myself.

• Create brilliant, yet short descriptions of characters: “He was a Hindu, a puny wisp of a man, with a shaven head and vague liquid eyes. He had a thick, sprouting mustache, absurdly too big for his body, rather like the mustache of a comic man on the films”.
• Understand and share the felt presence of a unique experience: “It is curious, but till that moment I had never realized what it means to destroy a healthy, conscious man”.
• Make your readers hear the sound that will stay with them forever: “And then when the noose was fixed, the prisoner began crying out on his god. It was a high, reiterated cry of “Ram! Ram! Ram! Ram!”
• Make the ending original by refusing the tendency to seek closure or summing it up.

10. Christopher Hitchens – Assassins of The Mind

In one of the greatest essays written in defense of free speech, Christopher Hitchens shares many examples of how modern media kneel to the explicit threats of violence posed by Islamic extremists. He recounts the story of his friend, Salman Rushdie, author of Satanic Verses who, for many years, had to watch over his shoulder because of the fatwa of Ayatollah Khomeini. With his usual wit, Hitchens shares various examples of people who died because of their opinions and of editors who refuse to publish anything related to Islam because of fear (and it was written long before the Charlie Hebdo massacre). After reading the essay, you realize that freedom of expression is one of the most precious things we have and that we have to fight for it. I highly recommend all essay collections penned by Hitchens, especially the ones written for Vanity Fair.

• Assume that the readers will know the cultural references. When they do, their self-esteem goes up – they are a part of an insider group.
• When proving your point, give a variety of real-life examples from eclectic sources. Leave no room for ambiguity or vagueness. Research and overall knowledge are essential here.
• Use italics to emphasize a specific word or phrase (here I use the underlining): “We live now in a climate where every publisher and editor and politician has to weigh in advance the possibility of violent Muslim reprisal. In consequence, several things have not happened.”
• Think about how to make it sound more original: “So there is now a hidden partner in our cultural and academic and publishing and the broadcasting world: a shadowy figure that has, uninvited, drawn up a chair to the table.”

11. Christopher Hitchens – The New Commandments

It’s high time to shatter the tablets and amend the biblical rules of conduct. Watch, as Christopher Hitchens slays one commandment after the other on moral, as well as historical grounds. For example, did you know that there are many versions of the divine law dictated by God to Moses which you can find in the Bible? Aren’t we thus empowered to write our version of a proper moral code? If you approach it with an open mind, this essay may change the way you think about the Bible and religion.

• Take the iconoclastic approach. Have a party on the hallowed soil.
• Use humor to undermine orthodox ideas (it seems to be the best way to deal with an established authority).
• Use sarcasm and irony when appropriate (or not): “Nobody is opposed to a day of rest. The international Communist movement got its start by proclaiming a strike for an eight-hour day on May 1, 1886, against Christian employers who used child labor seven days a week”.
• Defeat God on legal grounds: “Wise lawmakers know that it is a mistake to promulgate legislation that is impossible to obey”.
• Be ruthless in the logic of your argument. Provide evidence.

12. Phillip Lopate – Against Joie de Vivre

While reading this fantastic essay, this quote from Slavoj Žižek kept coming back to me: “I think that the only life of deep satisfaction is a life of eternal struggle, especially struggle with oneself. If you want to remain happy, just remain stupid. Authentic masters are never happy; happiness is a category of slaves”. I can bear the onus of happiness or joie de vivre for some time. But this force enables me to get free and wallow in the sweet feelings of melancholy and nostalgia. By reading this work of Lopate, you’ll enter into the world of an intelligent man who finds most social rituals a drag. It’s worth exploring.

• Go against the grain. Be flamboyant and controversial (if you can handle it).
• Treat the paragraph like a group of thoughts on one theme. Next paragraph, next theme.
• Use references to other artists to set the context and enrich the prose: “These sunny little canvases with their talented innocence, the third-generation spirit of Montmartre, bore testimony to a love of life so unbending as to leave an impression of rigid narrow-mindedness as extreme as any Savonarola. Their rejection of sorrow was total”.
• Capture the emotions in life that are universal, yet remain unspoken.
• Don’t be afraid to share your intimate experiences.

13. Philip Larkin – The Pleasure Principle

This piece comes from the Required Writing collection of personal essays. Larkin argues that reading in verse should be a source of intimate pleasure – not a medley of unintelligible thoughts that only the author can (or can’t?) decipher. It’s a sobering take on modern poetry and a great call to action for all those involved in it. Well worth a read.

• Write about complicated ideas (such as poetry) simply. You can change how people look at things if you express yourself enough.
• Go boldly. The reader wants a bold writer: “We seem to be producing a new kind of bad poetry, not the old kind that tries to move the reader and fails, but one that does not even try”.
• Play with words and sentence length. Create music: “It is time some of you playboys realized, says the judge, that reading a poem is hard work. Fourteen days in stir. Next case”.
• Persuade the reader to take action. Here, direct language is the most effective.

14. Sigmund Freud – Thoughts for the Times on War and Death

This essay reveals Freud’s disillusionment with the whole project of Western civilization. How the peaceful European countries could engage in a war that would eventually cost over 17 million lives? What stirs people to kill each other? Is it their nature, or are they puppets of imperial forces with agendas of their own? From the perspective of time, this work by Freud doesn’t seem to be fully accurate. Even so, it’s well worth your time.

• Commence with long words derived from Latin. Get grandiloquent, make your argument incontrovertible, and leave your audience discombobulated.
• Use unending sentences, so that the reader feels confused, yet impressed.
• Say it well: “In this way, he enjoyed the blue sea and the grey; the beauty of snow-covered mountains and green meadowlands; the magic of northern forests and the splendor of southern vegetation; the mood evoked by landscapes that recall great historical events, and the silence of untouched nature”.
• Human nature is a subject that never gets dry.

15. Zadie Smith – Some Notes on Attunement

“You are privy to a great becoming, but you recognize nothing” – Francis Dolarhyde. This one is about the elusiveness of change occurring within you. For Zadie, it was hard to attune to the vibes of Joni Mitchell – especially her Blue album. But eventually, she grew up to appreciate her genius, and all the other things changed as well. This top essay is all about the relationship between humans, and art. We shouldn’t like art because we’re supposed to. We should like it because it has an instantaneous, emotional effect on us. Although, according to Stansfield (Gary Oldman) in Léon, liking Beethoven is rather mandatory.

• Build an expectation of what’s coming: “The first time I heard her I didn’t hear her at all”.
• Don’t be afraid of repetition if it feels good.
• Psychedelic drugs let you appreciate things you never appreciated.
• Intertwine a personal journey with philosophical musings.
• Show rather than tell: “My friends pitied their eyes. The same look the faithful give you as you hand them back their “literature” and close the door in their faces”.
• Let the poets speak for you: “That time is past, / And all its aching joys are now no
• more, / And all its dizzy raptures”.
• By voicing your anxieties, you can heal the anxieties of the reader. In that way, you say: “I’m just like you. I’m your friend in this struggle”.
• Admit your flaws to make your persona more relatable.

16. Annie Dillard – Total Eclipse

My imagination was always stirred by the scene of the solar eclipse in Pharaoh, by Boleslaw Prus. I wondered about the shock of the disoriented crowd when they saw how their ruler could switch off the light. Getting immersed in this essay by Annie Dillard has a similar effect. It produces amazement and some kind of primeval fear. It’s not only the environment that changes; it’s your mind and the perception of the world. After the eclipse, nothing is going to be the same again.

• Yet again, the power of the first sentence draws you in: “It had been like dying, that sliding down the mountain pass”.
• Don’t miss the extraordinary scene. Then describe it: “Up in the sky, like a crater from some distant cataclysm, was a hollow ring”.
• Use colloquial language. Write as you talk. Short sentences often win.
• Contrast the numinous with the mundane to enthrall the reader.

17. Édouard Levé – When I Look at a Strawberry, I Think of a Tongue

This suicidally beautiful essay will teach you a lot about the appreciation of life and the struggle with mental illness. It’s a collection of personal, apparently unrelated thoughts that show us the rich interior of the author. You look at the real-time thoughts of another person, and then recognize the same patterns within yourself… It sounds like a confession of a person who’s about to take their life, and it’s striking in its originality.

• Use the stream-of-consciousness technique and put random thoughts on paper. Then, polish them: “I have attempted suicide once, I’ve been tempted four times to attempt it”.
• Place the treasure deep within the story: “When I look at a strawberry, I think of a tongue, when I lick one, of a kiss”.
• Don’t worry about what people might think. The more you expose, the more powerful the writing. Readers also take part in the great drama. They experience universal emotions that mostly stay inside.  You can translate them into writing.

18. Gloria E. Anzaldúa – How to Tame a Wild Tongue

Anzaldúa, who was born in south Texas, had to struggle to find her true identity. She was American, but her culture was grounded in Mexico. In this way, she and her people were not fully respected in either of the countries. This essay is an account of her journey of becoming the ambassador of the Chicano (Mexican-American) culture. It’s full of anecdotes, interesting references, and different shades of Spanish. It’s a window into a new cultural dimension that you’ve never experienced before.

• If your mother tongue is not English, but you write in English, use some of your unique homeland vocabulary.
• You come from a rich cultural heritage. You can share it with people who never heard about it, and are not even looking for it, but it is of immense value to them when they discover it.
• Never forget about your identity. It is precious. It is a part of who you are. Even if you migrate, try to preserve it. Use it to your best advantage and become the voice of other people in the same situation.
• Tell them what’s really on your mind: “So if you want to hurt me, talk badly about my language. Ethnic identity is twin skin to linguistic identity – I am my language”.

19. Kurt Vonnegut – Dispatch From A Man Without a Country

In terms of style, this essay is flawless. It’s simple, conversational, humorous, and yet, full of wisdom. And when Vonnegut becomes a teacher and draws an axis of “beginning – end”, and, “good fortune – bad fortune” to explain literature, it becomes outright hilarious. It’s hard to find an author with such a down-to-earth approach. He doesn’t need to get intellectual to prove a point. And the point could be summed up by the quote from Great Expectations – “On the Rampage, Pip, and off the Rampage, Pip – such is Life!”

• Start with a curious question: “Do you know what a twerp is?”
• Surprise your readers with uncanny analogies: “I am from a family of artists. Here I am, making a living in the arts. It has not been a rebellion. It’s as though I had taken over the family Esso station.”
• Use your natural language without too many special effects. In time, the style will crystalize.
• An amusing lesson in writing from Mr. Vonnegut: “Here is a lesson in creative writing. First rule: Do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing. All they do is show you’ve been to college”.
• You can put actual images or vignettes between the paragraphs to illustrate something.

20. Mary Ruefle – On Fear

Most psychologists and gurus agree that fear is the greatest enemy of success or any creative activity. It’s programmed into our minds to keep us away from imaginary harm. Mary Ruefle takes on this basic human emotion with flair. She explores fear from so many angles (especially in the world of poetry-writing) that at the end of this personal essay, you will look at it, dissect it, untangle it, and hopefully be able to say “f**k you” the next time your brain is trying to stop you.

• Research your subject thoroughly. Ask people, have interviews, get expert opinions, and gather as much information as possible. Then scavenge through the fields of data, and pull out the golden bits that will let your prose shine.
• Use powerful quotes to add color to your story: “The poet who embarks on the creation of the poem (as I know by experience), begins with the aimless sensation of a hunter about to embark on a night hunt through the remotest of forests. Unaccountable dread stirs in his heart”. – Lorca.
• Writing advice from the essay: “One of the fears a young writer has is not being able to write as well as he or she wants to, the fear of not being able to sound like X or Y, a favorite author. But out of fear, hopefully, is born a young writer’s voice”.

21. Susan Sontag – Against Interpretation

In this highly intellectual essay, Sontag fights for art and its interpretation. It’s a great lesson, especially for critics and interpreters who endlessly chew on works that simply defy interpretation. Why don’t we just leave the art alone? I always hated it when at school they asked me: “What did the author have in mind when he did X or Y?” Iēsous Pantocrator! Hell if I know! I will judge it through my subjective experience!

• Leave the art alone: “Today is such a time, when the project of interpretation is reactionary, stifling. Like the fumes of the automobile and heavy industry which befoul the urban atmosphere, the effusion of interpretations of art today poisons our sensibilities”.
• When you have something really important to say, style matters less.
• There’s no use in creating a second meaning or inviting interpretation of our art. Just leave it be and let it speak for itself.

22. Nora Ephron – A Few Words About Breasts

This is a heartwarming, coming-of-age story about a young girl who waits in vain for her breasts to grow. It’s simply a humorous and pleasurable read. The size of breasts is a big deal for women. If you’re a man, you may peek into the mind of a woman and learn many interesting things. If you’re a woman, maybe you’ll be able to relate and at last, be at peace with your bosom.

• Touch an interesting subject and establish a strong connection with the readers (in that case, women with small breasts). Let your personality shine through the written piece. If you are lighthearted, show it.
• Use hyphens to create an impression of real talk: “My house was full of apples and peaches and milk and homemade chocolate chip cookies – which were nice, and good for you, but-not-right-before-dinner-or-you’ll-spoil-your-appetite.”
• Use present tense when you tell a story to add more life to it.
• Share the pronounced, memorable traits of characters: “A previous girlfriend named Solange, who was famous throughout Beverly Hills High School for having no pigment in her right eyebrow, had knitted them for him (angora dice)”.

23. Carl Sagan – Does Truth Matter – Science, Pseudoscience, and Civilization

Carl Sagan was one of the greatest proponents of skepticism, and an author of numerous books, including one of my all-time favorites – The Demon-Haunted World . He was also a renowned physicist and the host of the fantastic Cosmos: A Personal Voyage series, which inspired a whole generation to uncover the mysteries of the cosmos. He was also a dedicated weed smoker – clearly ahead of his time. The essay that you’re about to read is a crystallization of his views about true science, and why you should check the evidence before believing in UFOs or similar sorts of crap.

• Tell people the brutal truth they need to hear. Be the one who spells it out for them.
• Give a multitude of examples to prove your point. Giving hard facts helps to establish trust with the readers and show the veracity of your arguments.
• Recommend a good book that will change your reader’s minds – How We Know What Isn’t So: The Fallibility of Human Reason in Everyday Life

24. Paul Graham – How To Do What You Love

How To Do What You Love should be read by every college student and young adult. The Internet is flooded with a large number of articles and videos that are supposed to tell you what to do with your life. Most of them are worthless, but this one is different. It’s sincere, and there’s no hidden agenda behind it. There’s so much we take for granted – what we study, where we work, what we do in our free time… Surely we have another two hundred years to figure it out, right? Life’s too short to be so naïve. Please, read the essay and let it help you gain fulfillment from your work.

• Ask simple, yet thought-provoking questions (especially at the beginning of the paragraph) to engage the reader: “How much are you supposed to like what you do?”
• Let the readers question their basic assumptions: “Prestige is like a powerful magnet that warps even your beliefs about what you enjoy. It causes you to work not on what you like, but what you’d like to like”.
• If you’re writing for a younger audience, you can act as a mentor. It’s beneficial for younger people to read a few words of advice from a person with experience.

25. John Jeremiah Sullivan – Mister Lytle

A young, aspiring writer is about to become a nurse of a fading writer – Mister Lytle (Andrew Nelson Lytle), and there will be trouble. This essay by Sullivan is probably my favorite one from the whole list. The amount of beautiful sentences it contains is just overwhelming. But that’s just a part of its charm. It also takes you to the Old South which has an incredible atmosphere. It’s grim and tawny but you want to stay there for a while.

• Short, distinct sentences are often the most powerful ones: “He had a deathbed, in other words. He didn’t go suddenly”.
• Stay consistent with the mood of the story. When reading Mister Lytle you are immersed in that southern, forsaken, gloomy world, and it’s a pleasure.
• The spectacular language that captures it all: “His French was superb, but his accent in English was best—that extinct mid-Southern, land-grant pioneer speech, with its tinges of the abandoned Celtic urban Northeast (“boned” for burned) and its raw gentility”.
• This essay is just too good. You have to read it.

26. Joan Didion – On Self Respect

Normally, with that title, you would expect some straightforward advice about how to improve your character and get on with your goddamn life – but not from Joan Didion. From the very beginning, you can feel the depth of her thinking, and the unmistakable style of a true woman who’s been hurt. You can learn more from this essay than from whole books about self-improvement . It reminds me of the scene from True Detective, where Frank Semyon tells Ray Velcoro to “own it” after he realizes he killed the wrong man all these years ago. I guess we all have to “own it”, recognize our mistakes, and move forward sometimes.

• Share your moral advice: “Character — the willingness to accept responsibility for one’s own life — is the source from which self-respect springs”.
• It’s worth exploring the subject further from a different angle. It doesn’t matter how many people have already written on self-respect or self-reliance – you can still write passionately about it.
• Whatever happens, you must take responsibility for it. Brave the storms of discontent.

27. Susan Sontag – Notes on Camp

I’ve never read anything so thorough and lucid about an artistic current. After reading this essay, you will know what camp is. But not only that – you will learn about so many artists you’ve never heard of. You will follow their traces and go to places where you’ve never been before. You will vastly increase your appreciation of art. It’s interesting how something written as a list could be so amazing. All the listicles we usually see on the web simply cannot compare with it.

• Talking about artistic sensibilities is a tough job. When you read the essay, you will see how much research, thought and raw intellect came into it. But that’s one of the reasons why people still read it today, even though it was written in 1964.
• You can choose an unorthodox way of expression in the medium for which you produce. For example, Notes on Camp is a listicle – one of the most popular content formats on the web. But in the olden days, it was uncommon to see it in print form.
• Just think about what is camp: “And third among the great creative sensibilities is Camp: the sensibility of failed seriousness, of the theatricalization of experience. Camp refuses both the harmonies of traditional seriousness and the risks of fully identifying with extreme states of feeling”.

28. Ralph Waldo Emerson – Self-Reliance

That’s the oldest one from the lot. Written in 1841, it still inspires generations of people. It will let you understand what it means to be self-made. It contains some of the most memorable quotes of all time. I don’t know why, but this one especially touched me: “Every true man is a cause, a country, and an age; requires infinite spaces and numbers and time fully to accomplish his design, and posterity seems to follow his steps as a train of clients”. Now isn’t it purely individualistic, American thought? Emerson told me (and he will tell you) to do something amazing with my life. The language it contains is a bit archaic, but that just adds to the weight of the argument. You can consider it to be a meeting with a great philosopher who shaped the ethos of the modern United States.

• You can start with a powerful poem that will set the stage for your work.
• Be free in your creative flow. Do not wait for the approval of others: “What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think. This rule, equally arduous in actual and in intellectual life, may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness”.
• Use rhetorical questions to strengthen your argument: “I hear a preacher announce for his text and topic the expediency of one of the institutions of his church. Do I not know beforehand that not possibly say a new and spontaneous word?”

29. David Foster Wallace – Consider The Lobster

When you want simple field notes about a food festival, you needn’t send there the formidable David Foster Wallace. He sees right through the hypocrisy and cruelty behind killing hundreds of thousands of innocent lobsters – by boiling them alive. This essay uncovers some of the worst traits of modern American people. There are no apologies or hedging one’s bets. There’s just plain truth that stabs you in the eye like a lobster claw. After reading this essay, you may reconsider the whole animal-eating business.

• When it’s important, say it plainly and stagger the reader: “[Lobsters] survive right up until they’re boiled. Most of us have been in supermarkets or restaurants that feature tanks of live lobster, from which you can pick out your supper while it watches you point”.
• In your writing, put exact quotes of the people you’ve been interviewing (including slang and grammatical errors). It makes it more vivid, and interesting.
• You can use humor in serious situations to make your story grotesque.
• Use captions to expound on interesting points of your essay.

30. David Foster Wallace – The Nature of the Fun

The famous novelist and author of the most powerful commencement speech ever done is going to tell you about the joys and sorrows of writing a work of fiction. It’s like taking care of a mutant child that constantly oozes smelly liquids. But you love that child and you want others to love it too. It’s a very humorous account of what it means to be an author. If you ever plan to write a novel, you should read that one. And the story about the Chinese farmer is just priceless.

• Base your point on a chimerical analogy. Here, the writer’s unfinished work is a “hideously damaged infant”.
• Even in expository writing, you may share an interesting story to keep things lively.
• Share your true emotions (even when you think they won’t interest anyone). Often, that’s exactly what will interest the reader.
• Read the whole essay for marvelous advice on writing fiction.

31. Margaret Atwood – Attitude

This is not an essay per se, but I included it on the list for the sake of variety. It was delivered as a commencement speech at The University of Toronto, and it’s about keeping the right attitude. Soon after leaving university, most graduates have to forget about safety, parties, and travel and start a new life – one filled with a painful routine that will last until they drop. Atwood says that you don’t have to accept that. You can choose how you react to everything that happens to you (and you don’t have to stay in that dead-end job for the rest of your days).

• At times, we are all too eager to persuade, but the strongest persuasion is not forceful. It’s subtle. It speaks to the heart. It affects you gradually.
• You may be tempted to talk about a subject by first stating what it is not, rather than what it is. Try to avoid that.
• Simple advice for writers (and life in general): “When faced with the inevitable, you always have a choice. You may not be able to alter reality, but you can alter your attitude towards it”.

32. Jo Ann Beard – The Fourth State of Matter

Read that one as soon as possible. It’s one of the most masterful and impactful essays you’ll ever read. It’s like a good horror – a slow build-up, and then your jaw drops to the ground. To summarize the story would be to spoil it, so I recommend that you just dig in and devour this essay in one sitting. It’s a perfect example of “show, don’t tell” writing, where the actions of characters are enough to create the right effect. No need for flowery adjectives here.

• The best story you will tell is going to come from your personal experience.
• Use mysteries that will nag the reader. For example, at the beginning of the essay, we learn about the “vanished husband” but there’s no explanation. We have to keep reading to get the answer.
• Explain it in simple terms: “You’ve got your solid, your liquid, your gas, and then your plasma”. Why complicate?

33. Terence McKenna – Tryptamine Hallucinogens and Consciousness

To me, Terence McKenna was one of the most interesting thinkers of the twentieth century. His many lectures (now available on YouTube) attracted millions of people who suspect that consciousness holds secrets yet to be unveiled. McKenna consumed psychedelic drugs for most of his life and it shows (in a positive way). Many people consider him a looney, and a hippie, but he was so much more than that. He dared to go into the abyss of his psyche and come back to tell the tale. He also wrote many books (the most famous being Food Of The Gods ), built a huge botanical garden in Hawaii , lived with shamans, and was a connoisseur of all things enigmatic and obscure. Take a look at this essay, and learn more about the explorations of the subconscious mind.

• Become the original thinker, but remember that it may require extraordinary measures: “I call myself an explorer rather than a scientist because the area that I’m looking at contains insufficient data to support even the dream of being a science”.
• Learn new words every day to make your thoughts lucid.
• Come up with the most outlandish ideas to push the envelope of what’s possible. Don’t take things for granted or become intellectually lazy. Question everything.

34. Eudora Welty – The Little Store

By reading this little-known essay, you will be transported into the world of the old American South. It’s a remembrance of trips to the little store in a little town. It’s warm and straightforward, and when you read it, you feel like a child once more. All these beautiful memories live inside of us. They lay somewhere deep in our minds, hidden from sight. The work by Eudora Welty is an attempt to uncover some of them and let you get reacquainted with some smells and tastes of the past.

• When you’re from the South, flaunt it. It’s still good old English but sometimes it sounds so foreign. I can hear the Southern accent too: “There were almost tangible smells – licorice recently sucked in a child’s cheek, dill-pickle brine that had leaked through a paper sack in a fresh trail across the wooden floor, ammonia-loaded ice that had been hoisted from wet Croker sacks and slammed into the icebox with its sweet butter at the door, and perhaps the smell of still-untrapped mice”.
• Yet again, never forget your roots.
• Childhood stories can be the most powerful ones. You can write about how they shaped you.

35. John McPhee – The Search for Marvin Gardens

The Search for Marvin Gardens contains many layers of meaning. It’s a story about a Monopoly championship, but also, it’s the author’s search for the lost streets visible on the board of the famous board game. It also presents a historical perspective on the rise and fall of civilizations, and on Atlantic City, which once was a lively place, and then, slowly declined, the streets filled with dirt and broken windows.

• There’s nothing like irony: “A sign- ‘Slow, Children at Play’- has been bent backward by an automobile”.
• Telling the story in apparently unrelated fragments is sometimes better than telling the whole thing in a logical order.
• Creativity is everything. The best writing may come just from connecting two ideas and mixing them to achieve a great effect. Shush! The muse is whispering.

36. Maxine Hong Kingston – No Name Woman

A dead body at the bottom of the well makes for a beautiful literary device. The first line of Orhan Pamuk’s novel My Name Is Red delivers it perfectly: “I am nothing but a corpse now, a body at the bottom of a well”. There’s something creepy about the idea of the well. Just think about the “It puts the lotion in the basket” scene from The Silence of the Lambs. In the first paragraph of Kingston’s essay, we learn about a suicide committed by uncommon means of jumping into the well. But this time it’s a real story. Who was this woman? Why did she do it? Read the essay.

• Mysterious death always gets attention. The macabre details are like daiquiris on a hot day – you savor them – you don’t let them spill.
• One sentence can speak volumes: “But the rare urge west had fixed upon our family, and so my aunt crossed boundaries not delineated in space”.
• It’s interesting to write about cultural differences – especially if you have the relevant experience. Something normal for us is unthinkable for others. Show this different world.
• The subject of sex is never boring.

37. Joan Didion – On Keeping A Notebook

Slouching Towards Bethlehem is one of the most famous collections of essays of all time. In it, you will find a curious piece called On Keeping A Notebook. It’s not only a meditation about keeping a journal. It’s also Didion’s reconciliation with her past self. After reading it, you will seriously reconsider your life’s choices and look at your life from a wider perspective.

• When you write things down in your journal, be more specific – unless you want to write a deep essay about it years later.
• Use the beauty of the language to relate to the past: “I have already lost touch with a couple of people I used to be; one of them, a seventeen-year-old, presents little threat, although it would be of some interest to me to know again what it feels like to sit on a river levee drinking vodka-and-orange-juice and listening to Les Paul and Mary Ford and their echoes sing ‘How High the Moon’ on the car radio”.
• Drop some brand names if you want to feel posh.

38. Joan Didion – Goodbye To All That

This one touched me because I also lived in New York City for a while. I don’t know why, but stories about life in NYC are so often full of charm and this eerie-melancholy-jazz feeling. They are powerful. They go like this: “There was a hard blizzard in NYC. As the sound of sirens faded, Tony descended into the dark world of hustlers and pimps.” That’s pulp literature but in the context of NYC, it always sounds cool. Anyway, this essay is amazing in too many ways. You just have to read it.

• Talk about New York City. They will read it.
• Talk about the human experience: “It did occur to me to call the desk and ask that the air conditioner be turned off, I never called, because I did not know how much to tip whoever might come—was anyone ever so young?”
• Look back at your life and reexamine it. Draw lessons from it.

39. George Orwell – Reflections on Gandhi

George Orwell could see things as they were. No exaggeration, no romanticism – just facts. He recognized totalitarianism and communism for what they were and shared his worries through books like 1984 and Animal Farm . He took the same sober approach when dealing with saints and sages. Today, we regard Gandhi as one of the greatest political leaders of the twentieth century – and rightfully so. But did you know that when asked about the Jews during World War II, Gandhi said that they should commit collective suicide and that it: “would have aroused the world and the people of Germany to Hitler’s violence.” He also recommended utter pacifism in 1942, during the Japanese invasion, even though he knew it would cost millions of lives. But overall he was a good guy. Read the essay and broaden your perspective on the Bapu of the Indian Nation.

• Share a philosophical thought that stops the reader for a moment: “No doubt alcohol, tobacco, and so forth are things that a saint must avoid, but sainthood is also a thing that human beings must avoid”.
• Be straightforward in your writing – no mannerisms, no attempts to create ‘style’, and no invocations of the numinous – unless you feel the mystical vibe.

40. George Orwell – Politics and the English Language

Let Mr. Orwell give you some writing tips. Written in 1946, this essay is still one of the most helpful documents on writing in English. Orwell was probably the first person who exposed the deliberate vagueness of political language. He was very serious about it and I admire his efforts to slay all unclear sentences (including ones written by distinguished professors). But it’s good to make it humorous too from time to time. My favorite examples of that would be the immortal Soft Language sketch by George Carlin or the “Romans Go Home” scene from Monty Python’s Life of Brian. Overall, it’s a great essay filled with examples from many written materials. It’s a must-read for any writer.

• Listen to the master: “This mixture of vagueness and sheer incompetence is the most marked characteristic of modern English prose.” Do something about it.
• This essay is all about writing better, so go to the source if you want the goodies.

Other Essays You May Find Interesting

The list that I’ve prepared is by no means complete. The literary world is full of exciting essays and you’ll never know which one is going to change your life. I’ve found reading essays very rewarding because sometimes, a single one means more than reading a whole book. It’s almost like wandering around and peeking into the minds of the greatest writers and thinkers that ever lived. To make this list more comprehensive, below I included more essays you may find interesting.

Oliver Sacks – On Libraries

One of the greatest contributors to the knowledge about the human mind, Oliver Sacks meditates on the value of libraries and his love of books.

Noam Chomsky – The Responsibility of Intellectuals

Chomsky did probably more than anyone else to define the role of the intelligentsia in the modern world . There is a war of ideas over there – good and bad – intellectuals are going to be those who ought to be fighting for the former.

Sam Harris – The Riddle of The Gun

Sam Harris, now a famous philosopher and neuroscientist, takes on the problem of gun control in the United States. His thoughts are clear of prejudice. After reading this, you’ll appreciate the value of logical discourse overheated, irrational debate that more often than not has real implications on policy.

Tim Ferriss – Some Practical Thoughts on Suicide

This piece was written as a blog post , but it’s worth your time. The author of the NYT bestseller The 4-Hour Workweek shares an emotional story about how he almost killed himself, and what can you do to save yourself or your friends from suicide.

Edward Said – Reflections on Exile

The life of Edward Said was a truly fascinating one. Born in Jerusalem, he lived between Palestine and Egypt and finally settled down in the United States, where he completed his most famous work – Orientalism. In this essay, he shares his thoughts about what it means to be in exile.

Richard Feynman – It’s as Simple as One, Two, Three…

Richard Feynman is one of the most interesting minds of the twentieth century. He was a brilliant physicist, but also an undeniably great communicator of science, an artist, and a traveler. By reading this essay, you can observe his thought process when he tries to figure out what affects our perception of time. It’s a truly fascinating read.

Rabindranath Tagore – The Religion of The Forest

I like to think about Tagore as my spiritual Friend. His poems are just marvelous. They are like some of the Persian verses that praise love, nature, and the unity of all things. By reading this short essay, you will learn a lot about Indian philosophy and its relation to its Western counterpart.

Richard Dawkins – Letter To His 10-Year-Old Daughter

Every father should be able to articulate his philosophy of life to his children. With this letter that’s similar to what you find in the Paris Review essays , the famed atheist and defender of reason, Richard Dawkins, does exactly that. It’s beautifully written and stresses the importance of looking at evidence when we’re trying to make sense of the world.

Albert Camus – The Minotaur (or, The Stop In Oran)

Each person requires a period of solitude – a period when one’s able to gather thoughts and make sense of life. There are many places where you may attempt to find quietude. Albert Camus tells about his favorite one.

Koty Neelis – 21 Incredible Life Lessons From Anthony Bourdain

I included it as the last one because it’s not really an essay, but I just had to put it somewhere. In this listicle, you’ll find the 21 most original thoughts of the high-profile cook, writer, and TV host, Anthony Bourdain. Some of them are shocking, others are funny, but they’re all worth checking out.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca – On the Shortness of Life

It’s similar to the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam because it praises life. Seneca shares some of his stoic philosophy and tells you not to waste your time on stupidities. Drink! – for once dead you shall never return.

Bertrand Russell – In Praise of Idleness

This old essay is a must-read for modern humans. We are so preoccupied with our work, our phones, and all the media input we drown in our business. Bertrand Russell tells you to chill out a bit – maybe it will do you some good.

James Baldwin – Stranger in the Village

It’s an essay on the author’s experiences as an African-American in a Swiss village, exploring race, identity, and alienation while highlighting the complexities of racial dynamics and the quest for belonging.

Bonus – More writing tips from two great books

The mission to improve my writing skills took me further than just going through the essays. I’ve come across some great books on writing too. I highly recommend you read them in their entirety. They’re written beautifully and contain lots of useful knowledge. Below you’ll find random (but useful) notes that I took from The Sense of Style and On Writing.

The Sense of Style – By Steven Pinker

• Style manuals are full of inconsistencies. Following their advice might not be the best idea. They might make your prose boring.
• Grammarians from all eras condemn students for not knowing grammar. But it just evolves. It cannot be rigid.
• “Nothing worth learning can be taught” – Oscar Wilde. It’s hard to learn to write from a manual – you have to read, write, and analyze.
• Good writing makes you imagine things and feel them for yourself – use word pictures.
• Don’t fear using voluptuous words.
• Phonesthetics – or how the words sound.
• Use parallel language (consistency of tense).
• Good writing finishes strong.
• Write to someone. Never write for no one in mind. Try to show people your view of the world.
• Don’t tell everything you are going to say in summary (signposting) – be logical, but be conversational.
• Don’t be pompous.
• Don’t use quotation marks where they don’t “belong”. Be confident about your style.
• Don’t hedge your claims (research first, and then tell it like it is).
• Avoid clichés and meta-concepts (concepts about concepts). Be more straightforward!
• Not prevention – but prevents or prevented – don’t use dead nouns.
• Be more vivid while using your mother tongue – don’t use passive where it’s not needed. Direct the reader’s gaze to something in the world.
• The curse of knowledge – the reader doesn’t know what you know – beware of that.
• Explain technical terms.
• Use examples when you explain a difficult term.
• If you ever say “I think I understand this” it probably means you don’t.
• It’s better to underestimate the lingo of your readers than to overestimate it.
• Functional fixedness – if we know some object (or idea) well, we tend to see it in terms of usage, not just as an object.
• Use concrete language instead of an abstraction.
• Show your work to people before you publish (get feedback!).
• Wait for a few days and then revise, revise, revise. Think about clarity and the sound of sentences. Then show it to someone. Then revise one more time. Then publish (if it’s to be serious work).
• Look at it from the perspective of other people.
• Omit needless words.
• Put the heaviest words at the end of the sentence.
• It’s good to use the passive, but only when appropriate.
• Check all text for cohesion. Make sure that the sentences flow gently.
• In expository work, go from general to more specific. But in journalism start from the big news and then give more details.
• Use the paragraph break to give the reader a moment to take a breath.
• Use the verb instead of a noun (make it more active) – not “cancellation”, but “canceled”. But after you introduce the action, you can refer to it with a noun.
• Avoid too many negations.
• If you write about why something is so, don’t spend too much time writing about why it is not.

On Writing Well – By William Zinsser

• Writing is a craft. You need to sit down every day and practice your craft.
• You should re-write and polish your prose a lot.
• Throw out all the clutter. Don’t keep it because you like it. Aim for readability.
• Look at the best examples of English literature . There’s hardly any needless garbage there.
• Use shorter expressions. Don’t add extra words that don’t bring any value to your work.
• Don’t use pompous language. Use simple language and say plainly what’s going on (“because” equals “because”).
• The media and politics are full of cluttered prose (because it helps them to cover up for their mistakes).
• You can’t add style to your work (and especially, don’t add fancy words to create an illusion of style). That will look fake. You need to develop a style.
• Write in the “I” mode. Write to a friend or just for yourself. Show your personality. There is a person behind the writing.
• Choose your words carefully. Use the dictionary to learn different shades of meaning.
• Remember about phonology. Make music with words .
• The lead is essential. Pull the reader in. Otherwise, your article is dead.
• You don’t have to make the final judgment on any topic. Just pick the right angle.
• Do your research. Not just obvious research, but a deep one.
• When it’s time to stop, stop. And finish strong. Think about the last sentence. Surprise them.
• Use quotations. Ask people. Get them talking.
• If you write about travel, it must be significant to the reader. Don’t bother with the obvious. Choose your words with special care. Avoid travel clichés at all costs. Don’t tell that the sand was white and there were rocks on the beach. Look for the right detail.
• If you want to learn how to write about art, travel, science, etc. – read the best examples available. Learn from the masters.
• Concentrate on one big idea (“Let’s not go peeing down both legs”).
• “The reader has to feel that the writer is feeling good.”
• One very helpful question: “What is the piece really about?” (Not just “What the piece is about?”)

Now immerse yourself in the world of essays

By reading the essays from the list above, you’ll become a better writer , a better reader, but also a better person. An essay is a special form of writing. It is the only literary form that I know of that is an absolute requirement for career or educational advancement. Nowadays, you can use an AI essay writer or an AI essay generator that will get the writing done for you, but if you have personal integrity and strong moral principles, avoid doing this at all costs. For me as a writer, the effect of these authors’ masterpieces is often deeply personal. You won’t be able to find the beautiful thoughts they contain in any other literary form. I hope you enjoy the read and that it will inspire you to do your writing. This list is only an attempt to share some of the best essays available online. Next up, you may want to check the list of magazines and websites that accept personal essays .

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Rafal Reyzer

Hey there, welcome to my blog! I'm a full-time entrepreneur building two companies, a digital marketer, and a content creator with 10+ years of experience. I started RafalReyzer.com to provide you with great tools and strategies you can use to become a proficient digital marketer and achieve freedom through online creativity. My site is a one-stop shop for digital marketers, and content enthusiasts who want to be independent, earn more money, and create beautiful things. Explore my journey here , and don't miss out on my AI Marketing Mastery online course.

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How to Write Informative Essays

Informative essays are one of the main types of academic writing students must complete as part of the educational process. While this is a typical assignment in any curriculum, it can be hard to distinguish between different types of essays and how to write them.

In this article, we’ll delve into the genre of this essay type, learn the definition of an informative essay, and how to write an informational essay.

What is an informative essay?

An informative essay is a piece of academic writing that aims to give a reader information on a certain topic.

This essay type should include a succinct unbiased description of a certain matter. Its goal is to provide an analysis or an overview of facts, which would help the readers draw their own conclusions and encourage them to study the issue independently.

Information essay: functions and objectives

As we already learned, an information essay is an educational paper based on real-life facts. It’s generally written in a style that is very similar to textbooks or encyclopedia entries. This type of essay aims to fulfill the following objectives:

• Enlighten the audience . The most important function of any information essay is educating the readers. You need to give your readers insight into topics they may have never heard of before, so your writing must be insightful and provide a detailed account of new knowledge.
• Correct misinformation . If the topic you choose is associated with misleading myths, your essay must aim to debunk it. Give accurate information with believable evidence to educate your audience and clarify existing misconceptions.
• Raise awareness . Information essays are great avenues to raise awareness about certain issues. By providing well-researched information and keeping your analysis objective, you can motivate readers to study the issue further and make their own conclusions about the subject matter.
• Clarify complex ideas . In this type of essay, it's crucial to outline all important details in easily comprehensible terms. The author of an informative essay must strive to give an overview of difficult concepts in simple words to improve the readers’ understanding.
• Relay objective data . To support your chosen topic, your writing must include factual data. It can be backed up by statistical data, expert opinions, or research studies to give your audience a broader background and understanding of the issue.

As you can see, all objectives of information essays revolve around providing the readers with knowledge and understanding about the subject matter. These texts aim to broaden the audience’s perspective on the world by presenting it with an unbiased account of certain issues.

How to write an informational essay: tutorial

Now that we answered the question “What is an informative essay?”, let’s talk about how to actually write it.

There are several things you need to do before you begin to write the text.

1. Pick your subject matter

The very first step on your way to writing your essay is selecting the subject matter. Unless you were given a task to detail a specific issue, you will have to search for one on your own. The best option is to choose topics that have extensive research to back them up, are interesting to you, and are relevant to your audience.

Make a list of potential topics and consider which ones you can comfortably cover within your essay. Remember that essays generally have a limited word count. You have to select a subject matter that you will be able to explain to your audience fully.

2. Gather information

All informative essays must contain factual information from credible sources. Research your chosen topic and use only reliable references like academic journals, reputable websites, books, and so on. Keep track of all sources you use to provide proper citations later.

3. Create a draft

Like any other text of this kind, an informative essay can be divided into three main parts: the introduction, the body, and the conclusion.

The introduction is the part where you introduce the subject matter of your essay. This is also where you can provide background on the issue in question and give your audience more context.

The body paragraphs of an informative essay should center on giving your audience detailed and factual information about the subject matter. A typical information essay can address the following questions:

• Who? Introduce a person or persons who are known for doing a particular thing.
• What? Analyze an important object or an event that was caused by a specific person or persons.
• Where? Describe the place where a particular event occurred.
• When? Give the timeline of specific events.
• Why? Explain the reasons behind a particular event.
• How? Illustrate existing and proven methods for doing something.

Organize your research into main ideas, note which sources you plan to use, and create a cohesive and interconnected outline of your future narration. 

The conclusion provides a summary of everything you talked about in your essay. You can use bullet points to write down which facts you plan to restate in your conclusion.

4. How to write an informative essay introduction

Your introduction’s main goal is to give your readers information about the subject matter and attract their attention to continue reading your essay. Begin your writing with a hook like a quote or a rhetorical question to pique the readers’ curiosity.

Next, you need to provide a brief overview of the issue, which will help the audience understand why the topic of your essay is significant.

The most important part of your essay is the thesis statement. Students often don’t know how to write a thesis statement for an informative essay because this part generally introduces the author’s opinion. However, an informative essay should not represent the opinion of its author. Instead, give a preview of what your readers will learn from your essay and outline the main that will be covered next.

5. How to write the body of an informative essay

In this part, you should present your research points and evidence. Here are some rules that will help you write a perfect informative essay.

• Dedicate each body paragraph to a separate fact. This will keep your essay organized and easy to follow.
• Start each new paragraph with a topic sentence. Topic sentences give your audience an indication of what you’re going to discuss next.
• Provide evidence that supports your topic sentence. Use only credible sources and don’t forget to include citations in the text.
• Explain how the evidence relates to your topic sentence and the subject matter of the entire essay. Analyze the evidence and provide insights or interpretations that help deepen the audience’s understanding.
• Avoid repetitions. Be concise in your explanations and provide clear, relevant, and specific details that directly contribute to supporting your main ideas.

6. How to write a conclusion for an informative essay

The conclusion of your essay should briefly restate your thesis statement and provide an overview of all the ideas developed in the body. In the context of informative essays, you may recount what the audience learned from your essay. Finish your narration with suggestions for further research or action.

7. Prepare a list of references

Compile a list of all sources used in your research and mentioned in your essay. Learn which reference standard you’re supposed to use and organize your list per the established rules.

Conclusion: How to write informative essays

In this article, you learned everything you need to know to write a perfect informative essay. Remember that this type of academic writing should provide only factual information based on trustworthy sources.

If you have more questions, you can use our essay generator Aithor. Aithor is an innovative tool specifically designed to assist students in writing academic essays. Use the essay generator Aithor to generate essay ideas, find sources for your research, check your writing for plagiarism, and much more.

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Are you stuck in choosing a research question for your informative essay? You’ve come to the right place. This article seeks to demystify informational writing topics. To help you get started on your essay, we’ve defined informative essay topics, described their characteristics, and even elaborated on the correct way to choose them. In addition, we’ve compiled several lists of informational writing topics on various subjects in various levels of learning. Explore this article to find winning ideas for your informative essay. In case you need further assistance with your informative writing, turn to StudyCrumb to buy essay online . Let us know instructions and have a paper crafted to your needs. 

What Are Informative Essay Topics?

Informative essay is written to inform, explain, or teach a reader about any information.  Informative essay topics are ideas that focus on providing relevant facts, new information, as well as unique perspectives, to readers. They highlight data that may have not been discussed extensively in other sources. These research questions are designed to enlighten your audience about a particular topic in a detailed and elaborate manner, enabling them to make informed decisions.  Additionally, topics for informational writing should be well researched to allow providing accurate information. Usually, informative topics ought to be interesting and engaging to both the writer and the target audience. They may cover ideas related to history, science, current events, health, philosophy, literature, culture, among others.

Characteristics of Good Informative Essay Topics

Good informative essay topics should have the following characteristics:

• Relevant All good topics for informative essays should cover subjects that interest the readers and provide meaningful insights into relevant issues.
• Unbiased Outstanding informative writing topics do not take sides on any issue. They present facts and allow the readers to draw their conclusions themselves.
• Specific Good topics for informative essays should be precise enough to narrow down the focus of your paper but broad enough to still present room for exploration and argumentation. You should provide enough details for the reader to understand the subject matter.
• Engaging Perfect informative topics to write about should be stimulating for your audience. Ensure that the essay topic captures their attention and makes them want to learn more.
• Suited to your writing style Make sure that your ideas match your unique writing style so that you can feel comfortable expressing them in an informed and intelligent way.

How to Choose an Informative Essay Topic?

When choosing an informative essay topic, follow the procedure below:

• Identify your interests Start by brainstorming topics that you are passionate about. Think about your hobbies, desires, history, or current events, and consider a topic related to those interests.
• Consider your audience It is important to consider who your audience will be when choosing informative essay prompts. Think about your readers' interests and choose a topic that will be informative, interesting, and relevant to them.
• Research the topic Once you have narrowed down your list of potential ideas, it is important to study them thoroughly. Such investigation can help determine if your topic has enough information to make a good essay.
• Narrow down the topic Once you have identified several potential informative essays ideas, choose one that is most interesting and relevant to your assignment. Consider the scope of the essay when selecting a topic—it should be neither too broad nor too narrow. Be mindful of how much information you can cover within the paragraph limit assigned to an informative essay.
• Choose an appropriate tone When selecting a topic, consider the tone of your essay. Some ideas are better suited to a humorous approach, while others may require a more serious and professional tone.

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Best Informative Essay Topics List

When writing lists for topics for informative essays, you should consider interesting and challenging ideas. You should explore different issues, present facts and opinions, and develop a unique perspective. Doing this will enable you to educate your readers about areas that may not be familiar to them. It also allows you to express your views on issues often neglected by society. Such topics range from current events and history to science or technology. Below is a list of informative essay topics to get you started on your essay.

• The history of the American Civil War.
• Pros and cons of genetically modified foods.
• Causes and effects of global warming.
• Characteristics of successful entrepreneurs.
• How technology has affected education.
• The impact of social media on society.
• Key aspects of self-care.
• The pros and cons of nuclear energy.
• Popular myths about the environment.
• The science behind alternative medicine.

Good Topics for an Informative Essay

What are good informative essay topics? An informative essay idea should be based on factual information and should take a neutral stance on the subject matter. It needs to be educational, thought-provoking, interesting, and accurate. Coming up with top ideas requires researching, brainstorming, and thinking critically. Below is a list of good topics to write an informative essay on.

• Impact of climate change on the environment.
• Our solar system.
• The development of AI technology.
• How social media influences society.
• Genetics and its effects on human health.
• Benefits of exercising regularly.
• Agriculture and its impact on the environment.
• The history of the internet.
• Poverty and hunger in developing nations.
• Alternative energy sources.
• Gender equality, its challenges, and solutions.
• Immigration policy in America.
• Mental health awareness and treatment
• Cybersecurity : protecting online privacy.
• The impact of globalization on world politics.

Easy Informative Essay Topics

Writing an informative paper can be easy if you choose the right idea. Easy topics for an informative essay are uncomplicated to research. With these topics, you can make your essay interesting and engaging while still providing reliable facts and data. These research questions mostly appeal to the younger audience. No matter what ideas you choose for your informative paper, it's important to ensure that the information you give is accurate and understandable. Whether you need easy ideas for an informative essay assignment or want to explore some informational topics to write about, this list will help you find the perfect one!

• The advantages and disadvantages of online shopping.
• How air pollution affects human health.
• A history of space exploration.
• An overview of the evolutionary process.
• Different types of natural disasters.
• Impact of globalization on developing countries.
• How to save energy at home.
• The role of education in society.
• Differences between traditional and modern medicine.
• The history of the internet and its effects on communication.
• Causes and effects of climate change.
• The role of technology in our lives.
• Benefits and drawbacks of social media.
• Types of alternative energy sources.

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Interesting Informative Essay Topics

Essay on an interesting informational essay topic should arouse curiosity, provide insights, and provoke original discussions. It should create an opportunity for your audience to learn something new or gain a different perspective on a given area. Some topics that can make for engaging, inspiring, and thought-provoking essays include current events and issues, scientific and technological advances, cultural phenomena, politics, and global challenges. Below are some interesting topics to write an informative essay on:

• The impact of artificial intelligence on business.
• How to save money.
• The impact of the internet on commerce.
• The role of technology in curing diseases.
• Benefits and pitfalls of modern technology.
• The benefits of yoga and meditation.
• Principles of sustainable development.
• Causes and effects of gender inequality in the workplace.
• Human rights issues in developing nations.
• Domestic animals’ testing practices and their impact on society.
• How global warming has impacted our environment.
• Globalization's impact on small businesses.
• The power of social media and its effect on society.
• The hidden dangers of social networking sites.

Funny Informative Essay Topics

Funny informative essay topics can be a great way to make your readers laugh, while at the same time giving them useful and interesting information. To create funny informative essay topics, you'll want to come up with ideas that are humorous but also relevant and factual. They can encompass a wide range of subjects, from fairly absurd to more serious ones, guaranteeing a captivating reading experience. By writing on fun informative essay topics, you engage your audience's attention and curiosity while simultaneously educating them on substantial, important information. From the world's most unusual inventions to the science behind why we laugh, there are several funny information topics to write about. Here are humorous tips for you to explore:

• The weirdest laws around the world.
• Unusual uses for ordinary objects.
• The science of pranks and practical jokes.
• The origin and benefits of laughing.
• Historical misconceptions.
• Surprising facts about dreams.
• The most bizarre inventions of all time.
• Unconventional uses for superglue.
• How to fake your death and get away with it.
• Grandma's cures that worked.
• Amazing animal abilities you didn't know about.
• The history of the selfie.
• How to get out of an awkward conversation.
• The psychology of losing money.
• The real history behind fairy tales and fables.

Current Informative Essay Topics

Current informative paper topics provide readers with up-to-date information about a particular issue. Such ideas often focus on new developments in a certain field or delve deeper into existing knowledge. When selecting a current informative paper topic, it’s advisable to choose something interesting and relevant to your field. Below are some potential informative research topics:

• The increasing automation uses within the workplace.
• Ways to combat cybercrime.
• Economic impact on globalization.
• Effects of social media on mental health .
• Impact of climate change on agriculture.
• Technological evolution and its effects.
• Benefits and drawbacks of online education.
• Causes and solutions for income inequality.
• How automation can help ease unemployment issues.
• Outcomes of political policies on economic growth.
• Effects of unregulated carbon emissions.
• Benefits and drawbacks of nuclear power.
• Impact of global trade on local economies.
• Different approaches to climate change mitigation.
• How technology is changing healthcare delivery systems.

Informative Essay Ideas for Students

Informational essay ideas for students represent topics that are timely, relevant, as well as engaging. They should provide insights into subjects or concepts studied in particular educational institutions while also being creative and unique, if possible. When choosing these essay topics, it is important to consider the students’ interests as well as their current knowledge. It is also essential to think about how your research can be supported by proper factual evidence. In this section, we will explore some informative essay topic ideas for students in middle school, high school, different grades, and college:

Informative Essay Topics for Middle School

Writing informative essays provides middle school children with an opportunity to explore various topics and express their ideas. By researching topics and creating well-structured essays, you can refine your critical thinking skills while discovering more about the world around you. When choosing topics for an informative essay for middle school, it's important to select interesting, relevant, and age-appropriate ideas. Here are some middle school informative essay topics that may help you get started:

• The history of the American civil rights movement.
• The impact of technology on society.
• The role of media in our lives.
• The importance of environmental conservation.
• How to manage stress and anxiety.
• The science behind global warming.
• Effects of bullying on a child's mental health.
• Mental health awareness and prevention.
• Different cultures and their customs.
• Political issues that impact the life and well-being of middle school students.
• How to stay safe online.
• How to make healthy food choices.
• Ways to foster creativity and innovation.
• Importance of nutrition for physical and mental health.
• The power of money and how to manage it responsibly.

Informative Essay Topics for 6th Grade

Exploring informational essay ideas enables pupils to gain an in-depth understanding of their subject matter and learn more about topics that are important in today’s world. By researching these ideas, 6th grade students have the opportunity to develop critical thinking skills, make connections between different topics, as well as gain an appreciation for diverse cultures along with their perspectives. Ultimately, these topics can help children become informed citizens and positive contributors to their communities. Here are some topics to write an informative essay on for your elementary level:

• The industrial revolution.
• The solar system.
• Advantages and disadvantages of technology.
• Causes of climate change.
• History of ancient civilizations.
• The water cycle.
• Role of women in society.
• Immigration trends and laws.
• Different types of governments.
• The revolutionary war.
• Evolution and natural selection.
• Causes and effects of air pollution.
• Oceanic currents and tides.
• Human rights violations around the world.
• Causes and impact of bullying.

Informative Essay Topics for 7th Grade

As a 7th grade student, you are expected to come up with informative essay topics for your papers in order to demonstrate your knowledge and creativity. These ideas must be educational, appropriate for your age group, relevant, interesting, and also carefully selected to consider your strengths. They can include current events, matters of personal interests, history, science, mathematics, and more. Here are some topics for informational writing that you could consider:

• Causes and effects of the Civil War .
• The role of genetics in human development.
• Impact of media on society.
• The process of photosynthesis.
• Different types of energy.
• Benefits of volunteering in local communities.
• Human migration trends.
• Uses of natural resources.
• Factors contributing to poverty.
• The development of the internet.
• Benefits of recycling for our planet.
• Different types of rocks and minerals.
• Ancient religious beliefs around the world.
• The role of immigration in U.S. history.
• Globalization and its impact on society.

Informative Essay Topics for 8th Grade

8th grade is an important transition year for students, as they prepare to move on to high school and take on more challenging academic tasks. Studying informative writing topics at this level can provide them with valuable insights into various topics, such as the history of their community, conformity in society, or the effects of technology on everyday life. Here are some informative topics that you can consider writing an essay on as an 8th grader:

• The history of the United Nations.
• Causes of global warming.
• Bullying prevention and intervention strategies.
• Ancient Greek philosophy.
• The challenges of living in a multicultural society.
• Historical events in Europe.
• Major trade routes around the world.
• Ethical issues behind animal testing and experimentation.
• Different types of ecology.
• Evolution of technology.
• Different types of government systems.
• Air pollution causes and effects.

Informative Essay Topics for High School

Studying informative essay topics for high school students can be both challenging and rewarding. It requires you to thoroughly research a chosen idea within this level and present your findings in an informative and organized way. You can learn about different subjects, explore unknown aspects of these topics, and develop new areas for discussion. High school essay topics should be thought-provoking and relate to your school experience. Below are some high school informative essay topics to review:

• How social media has affected high school education.
• Strategies for overcoming stress in high school.
• Pros and cons of taking advanced placement courses.
• New technologies transforming education.
• How bullying affects students in high school.
• Solutions to homelessness.
• How climate change will affect future generations.
• Causes of teen pregnancies.
• How technology is affecting students' mental health.
• Effects of fast-food consumption.
• International travel for high school students.
• Gender roles in society and their effects on personal identity.
• How social media has contributed to political activism.
• How to protect the environment by reducing waste.
• Effects of drug abuse on high school students.

Informative Essay Topics for College

Selecting appropriate informative essay topics for college students is often complex but instructive. College-level essays require a higher degree of research and critical thinking skills to analyze. When exploring these topics, you should utilize your knowledge about the preferred one, explore new fields and ideas, and write your findings in an enlightening and systematic fashion. College essay topics should be engaging enough to encourage you to get creative with your research while remaining factual to showcase your ability to think critically. With dedication and hard work, you can become an expert in writing a compelling essay. Here are some college informative essay topics for you to explore:

• How genetics determines human behavior.
• Relationship between education and income inequality.
• How technology is transforming healthcare.
• Pros and cons of artificial intelligence.
• Prevention of overpopulation.
• The role of the government in combating climate change.
• Causes of homelessness.
• How to improve gender equality within the workplace.
• Strategies for managing time wisely as a college student.
• Impact of social media on our political choices.
• Impact of globalization on local cultures.
• How to deal with student debt responsibly.
• Effects of mass migration.
• Impacts of mobile phone addiction.
• Effects of social stratification.

Informative Writing Topics by Subject

Exploring a topic for an informative essay by subject can range from discussing the latest pedagogical trends to examining the impact of technology in the classroom. In this section, we have classified topics into various categories. We will provide helpful tips for choosing an essay topic that is suitable for your project, along with a list of informative writing ideas to get you started. Below are subsections dedicated to specific subjects such as education, business, religion, culture among others.

Topics for Informative Essays About Education

Exploring informational writing topics about education allows you to research and perform an analysis of various didactic issues. For example, it enables you to understand how technology changes our learning and teaching. You can also explore modern educators' challenges, such as bullying, mental health, as well as drug abuse. Here are some informative essay topics about education:

• Long-term effects of early childhood education programs.
• Strategies used to stop bullying in schools.
• The challenges of homeschooling and its effectiveness.
• Effective methods of teaching for special needs students.
• The role of standardized testing in student assessment.
• Use of technology for promoting student engagement.
• Impact of educational achievement on mental health.
• Challenges faced by rural schools.
• The growing trend towards online learning.
• How to create an inclusive classroom environment.

Read more: Research Paper Topics on Education

Informative Essay Topics on Social Issues

Social issues can range from poverty and homelessness to education reform or gender inequality. By writing on informative essay topics related to social matters, you can better understand the complexities and nuances of your community. You can also explore solutions required to improve the lives of those around you and challenge yourself to think critically about how you can make a difference. Here are some ideas for an informative essay on social issues:

• Impact of social injustice on the criminal justice system .
• How to promote positive values in our society through music.
• Effects of climate change on vulnerable communities.
• How to reduce poverty and its associated social issues.
• Implications of technology on our privacy and freedom of speech.
• Impact of media on our ideas about gender roles and relationships.
• Gender inequality in the workplace.
• Immigration policies and their impacts.
• Impact of the current immigration policies in the U.S. on communities.
• How to deal with the stigma around mental health issues.

Business Topic Ideas for an Informative Essay

Business informational writing ideas allow you to examine the ins and outs of the business world. By delving into marketing, finance, strategic planning, product development, and customer service, you can better understand how businesses function and develop. By exploring informative essay topics about business, you are able to analyze the complexities of the corporate environment as well as the potential solutions to help improve organizational operations. Explore the following informative report topics for your business project:

• The role of marketing in a successful business strategy.
• Impact of sales on the customer.
• How to improve employee engagement.
• Role of technology in the modern business environment.
• Impact of the global economy on business operations.
• How to protect intellectual property.
• Advantages and disadvantages of franchising a business.
• How businesses use data analytics to make decisions.
• Impact of sustainability practices on a business’s bottom line.
• How businesses leverage technology to stay competitive.

View more: Best Business Topics for Students

Informational Essay Topics on Religion

When researching on topics for informational writing on religion, you gain insight into the unique aspects of faith, culture, and spirituality. Religion has shaped societies in numerous ways throughout history. By engaging with topics related to ethics, scripture, traditions, customs and beliefs, we can understand how religion influences our lives. To effectively write an informative essay about religion, you must first research your topic and consider relevant topics such as the history of a particular faith, its scriptures, language, laws, and customs. Additionally, it would help if you thought critically about how religion has influenced different cultures during the past and in the present. Examine the following informative essay topic ideas on religion for your project:

• The relationship between science and religion in our society today.
• How faith has influenced our modern society.
• The pros and cons of interfaith dialogue.
• The role of religion in ancient civilizations.
• Similarities between religious faiths .
• How religion impacts the cultural identity of a people.
• Different types of religious ceremonies and rituals.
• The role played by spiritual beliefs in healing and human well-being.
• Impact of religion on political discourse within a region or country.
• Impact of proselytizing on religious beliefs.

Informative Essay Topics on Culture

Exploring cultural informative paper topics can cover a broad range of societal aspects. From customs, values, beliefs, and identity to the history and development of different societies, there are various ideas related to people’s heritage that are worth exploring for your essay. When looking for interesting topics to write about, it's important to consider aspects that are relevant and timely. Here are some topics for cultural informative paper to get you started:

• Role played by language in shaping cultural identity.
• How traditions shape our identities.
• Gender roles in different cultures.
• How societal values influence cultural practices.
• Migration patterns and their impact on culture.
• Ethnocentrism and its effects on society.
• Cultural aspects of food and eating habits.
• The relationship between art and society.
• Effects of technology on cultural development.
• Intercultural communication strategies for effective cross-cultural dialogue.

Racism Informative Essay Topics

Informative topics on racism can help to educate readers on various aspects of this complex issue, from the history and evolution of racism to its impact on society. When researching racial discrimination topics, ensure that your ideas are informational, thought-provoking, and backed up by credible sources. In addition, ascertain that your research questions are current and relevant. Consider the following topics to write about for an informative essay on racism:

• Effects of racial stereotypes in media.
• Racial inequality in healthcare.
• The psychological effects of racism .
• The relationship between immigration policies and racism.
• How intersectional identities contribute to experiences of racism.
• Impact of cultural appropriation on racial representations.
• Discriminatory policies and their consequences for people of color.
• Racism in sports and games and its impact on performance.
• The correlation between poverty and race.
• The role of language in maintaining racial hierarchies. ​

Informative Essay Topics About Health

Research on informational writing topics about health provides a way to explore various aspects related to physical and mental well-being. These topics can be used to write essays that inform, educate, and enlighten readers on the importance of being healthy. Some of these ideas may include diet and nutrition, physical activity, mental health, illnesses and diseases, healthcare policy, and more. Depending on the angle or emphasis, these ideas can provide a comprehensive overview of health and medicine, or delve into specific details related to certain conditions or treatments. Here are some informative essay ideas about health to help get you started:

• Impact of stress on mental health.
• The role of diet in maintaining a healthy body.
• How exercise affects physical performance.
• Health social determinants and their impact.
• Environmental factors’ impact on health.
• Use of vaccines to control disease outbreaks.
• Mental health stigmas and their consequences.
• Genetic disorders and their impact on health.
• Healthcare accessibility for marginalized communities.
• The relationship between mental and physical health.

>> Read more: Mental Health Research Topics

Topics for an Informative Essay on Stress

Research on informative paper topics on stress covers a wide range of issues related to physical, psychological, and emotional pressures. These research questions could include the causes of stress, its manifestation on people, strategies for managing it, and potential solutions to reduce its impact. Additionally, an informative essay on stress may explore ways to identify its sources in everyday life and recognize the signs of excessive stress. Below are informational topics to write about in relation to stress:

• Genetics' role in stress disorders.
• How to de-stress in under five minutes.
• Social support networks and their effectiveness in reducing stress.
• The link between stress, anxiety, and depression .
• Coping mechanisms for dealing with stress.
• How stress affects physical health and performance.
• The relationship between workplace stressors and productivity.
• Gender impact on experiences of stress.
• Cultural differences in responses to stress.
• How neuroscience helps to understand stress.

Informative Essay Topics on Science

Research in informative paper topics on science requires you to examine scientific phenomena and findings in a way that is easy for the average person to understand. These ideas can cover anything from the latest advancements in technology to the basics of physics, chemistry and biology. Here are some scientific information topics to write about in your next project:

• Physics’ laws and their applications.
• How advancements in genetics have impacted our society.
• Important developments in space exploration.
• Scientific methods for studying human behavior.
• How the human genome project is transforming medicine.
• The role of chemistry in everyday life.
• Social and ethical issues in genetics research.
• New developments in the field of medical science.
• Technology's impact on environmental sustainability.
• Advances in energy sources and their impact.

View more: Science Topics to Write Your Paper On 

Informative Essay Topics on Technology

From the invention of the wheel to artificial intelligence, information essay topics usually entail discussing modern conveniences that have made a profound impact on human history. Undoubtedly, technology has become a vital part of our lives, revolutionizing the way we live, work, communicate, and entertain ourselves. Here are some informational writing ideas to help get you started:

• How technology is shaping healthcare delivery.
• How the internet has changed communication.
• How artificial intelligence affects human society.
• Big data and its applications in everyday life.
• Cybersecurity challenges within a connected world.
• Robotics' role in manufacturing and automation.
• Impact of the internet on globalization.
• Emerging technologies and their potential impact.
• Social media platforms and their influence on society.
• Biotechnology and its impact on human health.

You might also be interested in other title suggestions for your academic assignments. Browse our Blog to find best ideas for expository essay topics , narrative essay topics , or definition essay topics .  

Bottom Line on Informative Essay Topics

In summary, exploring informative essay concepts can be a great way to educate readers on a wide range of topics. When deciding on informative topics for your essay, it is important to consider what you are passionate about, your audience's interests, and the subject's relevance. You should also ensure that your topic provides new and stimulating information. With a great topic, your essay can be an invaluable source of knowledge for readers. Whether you are writing about history, science, or technology, this article provides a guide on how to come up with good ideas for an informative essay.

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Home — Essay Types — Informative Essay

Informative Essay Examples

Selecting an informative essay topic is a critical step in the writing process, shaping the direction and scope of your essay. The topic you choose should not only capture your interest but also offer ample opportunities for research and exploration. In this guide, we'll explore strategies for choosing the right topic and provide a diverse range of examples across various categories to inspire your writing journey.

When selecting an informative essay topic, consider your interests, expertise, and the preferences of your audience. Begin by brainstorming ideas based on subjects that intrigue you or align with your academic field. Conduct preliminary research to gauge the availability of credible sources and the depth of information on each topic. Additionally, assess the relevance and significance of potential topics, ensuring they align with the objectives of your essay and offer value to your readers.

Examples of Good Informative Essay Topics

Health and wellness.

• The Benefits of Meditation for Mental Health
• Understanding the Importance of Vaccinations
• Exploring Alternative Medicine Practices

Science and Technology

• The Impact of Artificial Intelligence on Society
• Emerging Technologies in Renewable Energy
• The Future of Space Exploration

Education and Learning

• Innovations in Online Learning Platforms
• Strategies for Effective Study Habits
• The Evolution of Literacy in the Digital Age

History and Culture

• The Legacy of Ancient Civilizations: Egypt, Greece, Rome
• Women's Rights Movements Throughout History
• Cultural Traditions and Festivals Around the World

Environment and Sustainability

• Addressing Climate Change: Causes and Solutions
• The Importance of Biodiversity Conservation
• Sustainable Practices for Reducing Plastic Pollution

Social Issues and Politics

• The Effects of Social Media on Mental Health
• Analyzing Global Refugee Crises and Solutions
• Racial Inequality in Criminal Justice Systems

Economics and Finance

• Understanding Cryptocurrency: Benefits and Risks
• The Impact of Globalization on Local Economies
• Financial Literacy: Budgeting and Saving Strategies

Arts and Entertainment

• Exploring the Evolution of Film Genres
• The Influence of Music on Mood and Emotions
• Cultural Significance of Literature and Folklore

Travel and Tourism

• Sustainable Tourism Practices: Balancing Conservation and Recreation
• Hidden Gems: Off-the-Beaten-Path Destinations
• Cultural Immersion Through Food and Cuisine

Sports and Recreation

• The Psychology of Sports: Mental Toughness and Resilience
• Exploring Extreme Sports and Adventure Activities
• Sportsmanship and Ethics in Competitive Athletics

Some Informative Essay Ideas for Inspiration

• The Influence of Social Media on Teenagers
• Benefits of Renewable Energy Sources
• Importance of Financial Literacy Education
• Causes and Effects of Climate Change
• Types and Treatments of Anxiety Disorders
• Evolution of Artificial Intelligence
• Diversity and Inclusion in the Workplace
• Effects of Sleep Deprivation on Health
• Cultural Customs and Traditions Around the World
• Education's Role in Economic Development

By considering these examples and employing effective strategies for topic selection, you can embark on your informative essay writing journey with confidence and enthusiasm. Remember to choose a topic that aligns with your interests, offers valuable insights to your audience, and inspires further exploration and learning.

Mastering the art of informative essay writing is invaluable for students across all academic disciplines. Whether you’re tasked with dissecting complex topics or elucidating fundamental concepts, honing your skills in this form of composition can significantly enhance your academic prowess. In this guide, we’ll delve into key strategies and techniques to help you craft compelling and informative essays that captivate your readers’ attention and convey your message effectively.

Understanding the Informative Essay

Before embarking on your writing journey, it’s crucial to grasp the essence of informative essays. Unlike persuasive or argumentative essays, which aim to sway the reader’s opinion, informative essays primarily seek to educate and inform. These essays present factual information in a clear, concise, and engaging manner, devoid of personal bias or subjective viewpoints. By adhering to this objective stance, you can maintain credibility and authority in your writing.

Selecting a Compelling Topic

The foundation of a successful informative essay lies in the choice of an intriguing and relevant topic. Whether you’re exploring historical events, scientific phenomena, or societal issues, opt for subjects that pique your interest and offer ample scope for exploration. Conduct thorough research to ensure the availability of credible sources and sufficient information to support your discussion. Additionally, consider your target audience and their level of familiarity with the topic to tailor your essay effectively.

Structuring Your Informative Essay

A well-organized structure is essential for conveying information effectively in your essay. Begin with an introduction that provides context and previews the main points you’ll cover. Follow this with a series of body paragraphs, each focusing on a distinct aspect or subtopic related to your chosen subject. Use topic sentences to introduce each paragraph’s main idea and support it with evidence, examples, and relevant data. Finally, conclude your essay by summarizing key points and reinforcing the significance of your topic.

To craft an effective introduction for an informative essay, focus on engaging your readers while providing essential context.

Here’s an example of an informative essay introduction following these guidelines:

“Have you ever wondered how social media platforms collect and use your personal data? In an age where online privacy concerns continue to grow, understanding the intricacies of data collection is crucial. In this informative essay, we will delve into the world of data mining by social media giants, exploring how your information is gathered and utilized to personalize your online experience. As we uncover the methods and implications of this practice, you’ll gain valuable insights into the digital landscape and learn how to protect your online privacy effectively.”

This introduction combines a captivating hook, context about the topic’s significance, and a clear thesis statement to engage the reader and set the stage for the informative essay.

Before you continue with our free example of informative essay, make sure that you check our informative writing checklist , which will help you structure and keep your writing readable and logical: 

✔️ Your tone should be informative as the purpose of this essay type is to inform. ( Explain your subject by starting with a brief introduction or the fact that will inspire your readers.)

✔️ You have studies the topic and gathered some evidence to support the facts. ( It can be statistica data, peer-reviewed journals, or quotes from the books in print. Use only verified resources.)

✔️ Focus on your audience and explain complex terms if necessary.

✔️ No argumentation or bias is allowed.

✔️ Only the paragraph before.

✔️ The conclusion can contain analysis that speaks of your opinion. 

As always, keep things structured and show due respect and care when informing your readers about sensitive or controversial issues. 

How to Start an Informative Essay

Starting an informative essay with a compelling introduction is essential to engage your readers and set the stage for the discussion ahead. Follow these steps to craft an impactful beginning:

1. Grab Attention with a Hook: Begin your essay with an attention-grabbing hook that intrigues your readers and draws them into your topic. This could be an interesting fact, a startling statistic, a thought-provoking question, or a compelling anecdote related to your subject matter.

Example: “Did you know that the average person spends over two hours a day on social media platforms?”

2. Provide Context: After hooking your readers, provide some background information to contextualize your topic. Briefly explain the significance of the subject matter and why it’s worth exploring further. This helps orient your audience and prepares them for the information you’re about to present.

Example: “In today’s digital age, social media has become an integral part of our daily lives, shaping how we communicate, consume information, and interact with the world around us.”

3. Present a Thesis Statement: Conclude your introduction with a clear and concise thesis statement that outlines the main purpose and focus of your essay. Your thesis should articulate the specific topic you’ll be discussing and the key points you’ll be exploring in the subsequent sections of your essay.

Example: “This essay will delve into the impact of social media on interpersonal relationships, exploring its influence on communication patterns, social interactions, and personal connections.”

By following these steps, you can craft a captivating introduction that entices readers to continue reading and sets the tone for your informative essay.

Informative Essay Examples for College Students

College students often encounter the task of writing informative essays as part of their coursework. Here are a few examples of topics suitable for college-level informative essays:

• The Rise of Renewable Energy Sources: Explore the advancements in renewable energy technologies such as solar, wind, and hydroelectric power, highlighting their environmental benefits and potential to mitigate climate change.
• The Impact of Artificial Intelligence on Society: Investigate the growing influence of AI in various sectors, including healthcare, finance, and transportation, discussing its implications for employment, privacy, and ethics.
• Understanding Mental Health Disorders: Provide an overview of common mental health disorders such as anxiety, depression, and bipolar disorder, discussing their symptoms, causes, and available treatment options.
• The Evolution of Social Media: Trace the evolution of social media platforms from their inception to the present day, examining their role in shaping communication patterns, social interactions, and online communities.
• Exploring Cultural Diversity in Modern Society: Examine the concept of cultural diversity and its importance in today’s globalized world, discussing the benefits of multiculturalism and strategies for promoting inclusivity.
• The Science of Climate Change: Present an in-depth analysis of the scientific evidence behind climate change, explaining key concepts such as greenhouse gas emissions, global warming, and sea-level rise.
• The Impact of Globalization on International Trade: Analyze the effects of globalization on global trade patterns, discussing factors such as trade agreements, outsourcing, and supply chain management.
• The History and Significance of the Civil Rights Movement: Explore the history of the civil rights movement in the United States, highlighting key events, leaders, and achievements in the struggle for racial equality.

These topics provide college students with ample opportunities to research, analyze, and present information on diverse subjects of interest. When writing informative essays, students should focus on providing factual information, supporting their arguments with evidence, and presenting their findings in a clear and organized manner.

Informative Essay Examples for High School Students

High school students often engage in informative essay writing to develop critical thinking skills and enhance their ability to convey information effectively. Here are some examples of informative essay topics suitable for high school students:

• The Importance of Healthy Eating Habits: Discuss the benefits of a balanced diet, including the role of nutrients in maintaining overall health and preventing chronic diseases such as obesity and diabetes.
• The Impact of Social Media on Teenagers: Examine the effects of excessive social media use on teenage mental health, self-esteem, and interpersonal relationships, highlighting both the positive and negative aspects.
• Exploring Career Options in STEM Fields: Provide an overview of career opportunities in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), discussing the educational requirements, job prospects, and potential for innovation in these fields.
• Understanding Cyberbullying and Its Consequences: Define cyberbullying and discuss its prevalence among adolescents, exploring the psychological and emotional effects on victims and strategies for prevention and intervention.
• The Benefits of Exercise for Teenagers: Explain the importance of regular physical activity for teenage health and well-being, discussing its effects on physical fitness, mood regulation, and academic performance.
• The History of Civil Rights Movements: Explore significant civil rights movements throughout history, such as the Civil Rights Movement in the United States and the fight for gender equality, discussing key events, leaders, and achievements.
• The Science Behind Climate Change: Present scientific evidence for climate change and its causes, including the role of greenhouse gases, deforestation, and industrialization, and discuss potential solutions to mitigate its impact.
• The Impact of Technology on Education: Analyze the influence of technology on modern education, discussing its role in facilitating learning, expanding access to resources, and promoting innovative teaching methods.

These informative essay topics provide high school students with opportunities to explore relevant issues, develop research skills, and articulate their ideas in a clear and organized manner. When writing informative essays, students should focus on presenting factual information, supporting their arguments with evidence, and engaging their audience with compelling content.

Informative Essay Examples for Middle School Students

Middle school students can benefit from engaging in informative essay writing to develop research skills and enhance their ability to communicate information effectively. Here are some examples of informative essay topics suitable for middle school students:

• The Life Cycle of Butterflies: Provide an overview of the stages of a butterfly’s life cycle, including egg, larva (caterpillar), pupa (chrysalis), and adult, discussing the significance of each stage and the transformation process.
• Exploring Volcanoes and How They Form: Explain the geological processes that lead to the formation of volcanoes, discussing the types of volcanoes, volcanic eruptions, and their impact on the environment and communities.
• The Importance of Recycling: Discuss the benefits of recycling materials such as paper, plastic, glass, and metal, explaining how recycling conserves natural resources, reduces waste, and helps protect the environment.
• The Human Digestive System: Describe the organs and functions of the human digestive system, including the mouth, esophagus, stomach, small intestine, and large intestine, and discuss the process of digestion and nutrient absorption.
• The Solar System and Its Planets: Provide an overview of the solar system, including the sun, planets, moons, asteroids, and comets, discussing the characteristics of each planet and their orbits around the sun.
• The History of Ancient Civilizations: Explore the achievements and contributions of ancient civilizations such as Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, and Rome, discussing their culture, government, religion, and technological advancements.
• Endangered Species and Conservation Efforts: Identify endangered species around the world and discuss the factors contributing to their decline, including habitat loss, pollution, and poaching, and explore conservation efforts to protect these species.
• The Water Cycle and Its Importance: Explain the processes involved in the water cycle, including evaporation, condensation, precipitation, and runoff, discussing the significance of the water cycle for sustaining life on Earth.

These informative essay topics provide middle school students with opportunities to explore diverse subjects, develop research skills, and present their findings in a clear and organized manner. When writing informative essays, students should focus on providing factual information, supporting their arguments with evidence, and engaging their audience with interesting and relevant content.

Conclusion: Mastering the Art of Informative Essay Writing

In mastering the craft of informative essay writing, students embark on a journey of discovery, exploration, and communication. Through the meticulous selection of topics, diligent research, and thoughtful structuring of their essays, students can effectively convey factual information and captivate their readers’ attention. By adhering to the principles outlined in this guide, students can hone their writing skills, develop critical thinking abilities, and enhance their academic proficiency.

Remember, the key to crafting compelling informative essays lies in maintaining objectivity, clarity, and coherence throughout the writing process. Whether delving into the complexities of scientific phenomena or unraveling the intricacies of historical events, students have the power to inform, educate, and inspire through their writing.

As you embark on your informative essay writing journey, remember to engage with your topic passionately, remain open to new ideas, and strive for excellence in every aspect of your writing. With dedication, perseverance, and a commitment to continuous improvement, you can become a proficient and persuasive communicator, capable of leaving a lasting impact through your informative essays.

Happy writing, and may your essays enlighten, educate, and empower those who read them.

If you have any further questions or need assistance with your writing endeavors, don’t hesitate to reach out for guidance and support.

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What is an informative essay?

The key is to provide your audience with information on a certain topic. You must educate by offering a brief description and accessible information. Some informative essay examples include topics that deal with a process, an effect of something that took place, or the list of ideas that are not common knowledge. Remember that you only provide certain data with no opinion or bias towards any side.

How to write an informative essay?

The trick is to make things readable and clear enough if you are not writing for a specific audience. As a rule, you should provide a brief description and talk about the importance of a certain subject. Use facts, statistical data, and reliable references. It must be informative and implement real-life examples to make your essay supported. Once again, do not use a biased tone and avoid posing an opinion.

The types of informative essays

The examples of informative essays will vary depending on a task that you have been given. The types will divide on the definition of a term, comparison or contrasting of particular information, analysis of discovered data, and an explanation of how something must be done. When using argumentation, try to find information that does not lean towards critical thinking. If it is not possible provide both opinions without stating yours.

The most popular topics for Informative Essay

• Drug Addiction
• Christopher Columbus
• Cyber Security
• Teenage Pregnancy
• Homelessness
• Procrastination
• Global Warming
• Child Abuse
• Capital Punishment
• Human Resources

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70+ Fascinating Informative Essay Topics for Kids and Teens

Tell them what you know.

Informative essays are a chance to show what you know. They’re all about informing the reader, without trying to persuade or offer an opinion. Informative writing can include how-to process essays, biographical writing, an in-depth analysis of a topic, research papers, or compare-and-contrast essays . Just remember to stick to the facts, and be clear and descriptive. These informative essay topics offer something for all interests and ages.

How-To Informative Essay Topics

Social studies informative essay topics, science informative essay topics, pop culture informative essay topics.

Teach your reader the steps or process to:

• Cook a recipe
• Set a table
• Make a quilt
• Change a tire
• Start a recycling program
• Play a game
• Build a birdhouse
• Plant a garden
• Make and care for a compost pile

• Care for an animal
• Start a business
• Catch a fish
• Tie a necktie
• Train for a marathon
• Prepare a campsite
• Make a campfire
• Clean a room
• Wrap a gift
• Plan a party
• Kick a bad habit
• Use social media responsibly

• Manage time effectively
• Make a budget
• Describe the life of a world leader.
• How has the role of women in the workplace changed in the last hundred years?

• Explore the current path to becoming an American citizen.
• What are some of the possible ways the pyramids were built?
• Describe a time period in history.
• How does one country’s economy affect another country?
• What is the difference between socialism and communism?
• Explore the benefits and drawbacks of legalizing drugs.
• Describe the political system in a foreign country.
• Explore the causes of a specific war or armed conflict in history.

• How is a new law passed in the United States?
• Give an overview of the history of any country, state, or city.
• Describe the three branches of American government.
• Explain how the American judicial system works.
• Describe the evolution of fashion throughout history.
• Describe a science experiment, including the hypothesis, process, and conclusion.

• Explain what it means to lead a healthy lifestyle.
• What is the relationship between calories and fat?
• What is the physics behind a bicycle?
• How do plants convert sunlight into energy?
• Describe any element from the periodic table, including its makeup and uses.
• What is the difference between a crocodile and an alligator?
• Describe the life cycle of any animal.
• What are the benefits of recycling?
• Describe the life of a prominent scientist.
• Explain what E = mc 2 means.
• Describe any disease, including its symptoms and treatments.

• Why do leaves change color in the fall?
• Explain the difference between climate and weather.
• Describe a specific ecosystem, including the plants and animals that live there.
• Describe the history of video games.
• What are recent trends in the video game industry?
• Describe your favorite superhero.
• Explain the motivations of any fictional villain.
• Describe the life of your favorite celebrity.
• Explore the development and growth of a main character in any book series.

• Describe the process of making a movie or TV show.
• Tell the story of any band, including its founding, successes and challenges, and breakup (if applicable).
• Describe the life of a famous artist.
• Explore the history of Disney World (or any theme park).
• Plan the perfect fantasy football league team.
• Describe popular trends and fads from any decade.
• Explore the history of the Olympics.
• Describe the music of a generation and how it reflected that time.

• Explain the history of the internet.

What are some of your favorite informative essay topics? Come share your ideas in the WeAreTeachers HELPLINE group on Facebook .

Plus, check out the big list of essay topics for high school (100+ ideas).

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The Big List of Essay Topics for High School (120+ Ideas!)

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Informative Essay

Informative Essay Topics

The Ultimate Handbook for Informative Essay Topics

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Informative Essay - Writing Tips, Examples and Topics

Informative Essay Outline - Steps, Template. & Samples

Have you ever found yourself struggling to choose a captivating topic for your informative essay? The pressure to select a topic that is not only interesting but also relevant can be a daunting challenge.

Also the process of selecting an engaging subject for an informative essay can often leave you overwhelmed and unsure where to begin.

Fret not! 

In this blog post, we will provide you with compelling informative essay topics. 

By the end of this article, you'll have a number of informative essay topic examples to choose from, making the writing  process stress-free.

So, let’s dive in!

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• 1. Informative Essay Topics for Primary School Students
• 2. Easy Informative Essay Topics for Middle School Students
• 3. Informative Essay Topics for High School Students
• 4. Good Informative Essay Topics For College Students
• 5. Easy Informative Essay Topics
• 6. Funny Informative Essay Topics
• 7. Controversial Informative Essay Topics 
• 8. Informative Essay Topics About Animals
• 9. Informative Essay Topics About Mental Health 
• 10. Informative Essay Topics About Health 
• 11. Interesting Informative Essay Topics
• 12. Good Informative Essay Topics 
• 13. Informative Process Analysis Essay Topics 
• 14. How-To Informative Essay Topics
• 15. Social Studies Informative Essay Topics
• 16. Science Informative Essay Topics
• 17. Pop Culture Informative Essay Topics
• 18. General Topics for Informative Essay
• 19. Informative Narrative Essay Topics 
• 20. Compare and Contrast Informative Essay Topics
• 21. Informative Essay Topics on Religion
• 22. Informative Essay Topics About Stress
• 23. Informative Essay Topics on Social Issues
• 24. Business and Economics Informative Essay Ideas 
• 25. Informative And Surprising Essay Topics
• 26. Informative Essay Topics about Technology
• 27. Informative Essay Topics On Sports
• 28. Informative Essay Topics About Education
• 29. Informative Essay Topics About Politics, Government, And Immigration 
• 30. How to Choose Good Informative Essay Topics?

Informative Essay Topics for Primary School Students

As a student, you're likely looking for topics that not only captivate your audience but also showcase your ability to convey information effectively.

Below we have gathered a list of easy topics for an informative essay for students.

Informative Essay Topics for 3rd Grade

• What are emotional support animals?
• Discuss the significance of wearing a uniform
• What is the significance of taking minerals and nutrition in your diet?
• What is the impact of gun control on minds?
• How to weave a carpet?
• How to read the map?
• How to solve your maths paper?
• Discuss the history and evolution of video games
• How to find a good roommate?
• Discuss a trip to Paris

Informative Essay Topics for 5th Grade

• How to train your dog?
• Discuss Darwin’s Theory of Evolution
• Discuss different cultures of the world
• Explain the Taboos in Africa
• Evaluate the education system of the United States
• How to overcome phobias?
• How to become a billionaire?
• How to throw a surprise party?
• What are the causes and effects of World War II?
• How to control bullying?

Easy Informative Essay Topics for Middle School Students

Middle school is a crucial time for students to develop their writing skills and explore various forms of expression.

Here are some topics for middle school students to get a better idea.

6th Grade Informative Essay Topics

• The life cycle of butterflies: a fascinating journey
• How photosynthesis powers plant growth
• The basics of volcanoes: how they form and erupt
• Exploring the solar system: a tour of our planets
• The importance of recycling: reducing waste for a greener planet
• How your digestive system works: from food to energy
• The wonders of ancient civilizations: egypt, greece, and rome
• Animal adaptations: surviving in different environments
• The water cycle: nature's way of recycling water
• Understanding ecosystems: how plants and animals interact

Informative Essay Topics for 7th Grade

• Discuss the concept of Vegetarianism
• What is domestic violence?
• How is making tattoos interesting?
• Analyze the advantages and disadvantages of plastic surgery
• Is organ donation legal?
• Describe the importance of a Balanced diet
• Discuss Homosexuality and its effects on society
• What are gambling and its results?
• Discuss the negative consequences of drinking
• How is water pollution affecting the environment?

Informative Essay Topics for 8th Grade

• Discuss the Theory of relativity
• What are the causes and effects of cancer?
• Discuss the Big Bang Theory
• What is the Greenhouse Effect?
• Discuss the functions of DNA
• Describe the importance of recycling
• What is the impact of deforestation?
• How is space exploration effective?
• Discuss the Law of Gravity
• What is the history and origin of the Anatolian Shepherd?

Informative Essay Topics for High School Students

Here are topics to inspire critical thinking and encourage students to express their ideas with clarity.

Informative Essay Topics For 10th Grade

• Discuss different mental disorders 
• How is unemployment affecting third-world countries?
• What leads to drug addiction?
• What is the impact of illegal immigrants on the country's economy?
• How to overcome anxiety?
• What is the significance of death penalties?
• What are the factors of teen pregnancy?
• Discuss artificial intelligence and its importance in today’s world. 
• What is cybersecurity?
• What are the effects of global warming?

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Good Informative Essay Topics For College Students

For college students, choosing a topic for their informative essays is a challenging task. For your help, we have compiled a list of some ideas to create a well-written essay.

• What is the history of the Bible?
• Discuss the significance of higher education.
• What is the history of Voodoo magic?
• What are the effects of consuming fast food on health?
• Discuss different herbal medicines and their effectiveness.
• How to cure post traumatic stress disorder?
• How to handle a panic attack?
• How is a sleeping disorder affecting our lives?
• How does the government eradicate poverty?
• What are the causes of Anorexia Nervosa? 

Easy Informative Essay Topics

• What do dog shows look like?
• How to find a nice roommate?
• A guide to hiking on your closest trail
• Effectiveness of online education
• The best vitamin to give children
• What is the working of social engineering?
• How can a war affect the citizens of a country?
• Effects of earthquakes
• How to choose an informative essay idea?
• How to grow herbs and vegetables at home?

Funny Informative Essay Topics

• How to perfectly delay everything?
• A comprehensive guide to surviving family dinners
• Discuss the most famous fails in basketball
• Enlist some funny incidents at the Olympics.
• The struggles of remembering names
• How successful are songs made?
• Why do rock stars break their guitars on stage?
• The art of witty comebacks: a guide to quick thinking
• The dos and don'ts of awkward elevator encounters
• Why do some people and their dogs look alike?

Controversial Informative Essay Topics 

• The ethics of genetic engineering in humans
• Mandatory vaccination: balancing public health and personal freedom
• The impact of artificial intelligence on employment and society
• Legalization of recreational drugs: pros and cons
• Gun control: striking a balance between safety and individual rights
• Should assisted suicide be legalized? examining ethical dilemmas
• The morality of animal testing in scientific research
• The Death penalty: justifiable punishment or human rights violation?
• Censorship in the age of the internet: protecting vs. restricting free speech
• The role of government in regulating social media content

Informative Essay Topics About Animals

• What are the effects of poaching?
• How do climate change and global warming affect the animal kingdom?
• Describe the anatomy of a bird.
• Explain how bees help in pollination.
• Discuss the different types of animal cruelty.
• How does overpopulation affect wildlife habitats?
• What are the effects of deforestation on animal habitats?
• How do you protect endangered species?
• Explain how dolphins use echolocation.
• Discuss the importance of proper pet care.

Informative Essay Topics About Mental Health 

• Exploring the connection between nutrition and mental health
• Teenagers and mental health: navigating challenges in high school
• Workplace stress and Strategies for employee mental health
• The effects of sleep quality on mental health
• Examining the link between substance abuse and mental health disorders
• Mental health in the lgbtq+ community: challenges and support
• Post-traumatic stress disorder (ptsd) and coping mechanisms
• Mental health education in schools: importance and implementation
• The influence of cultural factors on mental health perception
• Technology addiction and its impact on mental well-being

Informative Essay Topics About Health 

• The importance of a balanced diet for overall health
• Benefits and risks of intermittent fasting on health
• The impact of regular exercise on mental and physical health
• Understanding the role of gut microbiota in digestive health
• The relationship between sleep patterns and health
• The dangers of sedentary lifestyles and ways to combat them
• Exploring alternative medicine practices and their health benefits
• The effects of stress on the body and mind: coping strategies
• The role of genetics in determining health conditions
• The impact of smoking on respiratory and cardiovascular health

Interesting Informative Essay Topics

• What is the future of AI in the medical field?
• Discuss the different types of renewable energy sources.
• How does virtual reality work and what are its potential applications?
• The history of cryptocurrency: from bitcoin to altcoins
• Describe the history of animation and its importance in modern media.
• Discuss genetic engineering and its effects on human life.
• What are the effects of political unrest in different countries?
• Discuss the impact of social media on society.
• How does quantum computing work and what are its applications?
• Explain the concept of blockchain technology.

Good Informative Essay Topics 

• What are the effects of poverty on educational opportunities?
• Describe how music affects mental health.
• Explain the concept of microaggressions.
• Discuss how drug addiction can be treated.
• Explain online privacy and its importance.
• What is cyberbullying and what are its long-term effects?
• How do racism and discrimination affect mental health?
• Discuss the challenges of women empowerment.
• How do technological advancements help in protecting the environment?
• Explain the history and importance of public transportation.

Informative Process Analysis Essay Topics 

• How to create a budget and manage finances?
• Explain the process of composting and its benefits.
• Discuss how to maintain healthy skin naturally.
• What are the steps in creating an effective CV?
• Describe the process of making a perfect omelet?
• Explain how recycling works and why it is important?
• How to create an effective marketing plan?
• Discuss how to build a successful career.
• Describe the steps of making homemade soap.
• How does a car engine work?

How-To Informative Essay Topics

• How to write a successful college application essay?
• How to manage time and prioritize tasks?
• How to build a strong online presence? 
• How to create a successful YouTube channel? 
• How to Bake a Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookie
• How to Grow Your Own Organic Vegetable Garden
• How to Master Basic First Aid Techniques
• How to Develop Effective Public Speaking Skills
• How to Create and Manage a Blog

Social Studies Informative Essay Topics

• What are the effects of censorship in different countries?
• Discuss the importance of digital literacy in the modern world.
• How is technology changing the job market?
• Explain the idea of net neutrality and its importance. 
• Describe the history and evolution of social media.
• Discuss how to promote gender equality in society. 
• What are the causes and effects of racism? 
• How does the economy impact our lives?
• What are the effects of using non-renewable energy sources? 
• Explain how mass media affects public opinion.

Science Informative Essay Topics

• What are the benefits of stem cell research?
• Discuss the history and progress of space exploration.
• How does human activity affect climate change? 
• Explain how renewable energy sources work. 
• Describe the effect of air pollution on human health. 
• What are quantum physics and its applications? 
• Discuss the causes and effects of deforestation.
• How do viruses and bacteria spread?
• What are the effects of ocean acidification? 
• Explain the differences between nuclear and renewable energy sources.

Pop Culture Informative Essay Topics

• Discuss the influence of hip hop culture in modern society.
• Explain the history and importance of comic books.
• What are the effects of reality TV shows?
• How has streaming changed the entertainment industry?
• Describe how social media creates trends.
• Discuss the impact of video games on mental health.
• What is the power of influencers in digital marketing?
• Explain the evolution and history of fashion.
• How does advertising shape our views on gender roles?
• Discuss the power of K-pop music around the world.

General Topics for Informative Essay

• How do sleep patterns affect physical health?
• Discuss how sports can be used to build character. 
• What are the effects of bullying in school? 
• Explain the importance of music in education. 
• Describe the impact of technology on communication. 
• How does poverty lead to poor health outcomes? 
• Discuss the power of positive thinking. 
• What are the benefits of exercising regularly? 
• Explain how volunteering can make a difference in society. 
• How do advancements help in protecting the environment?

Informative Narrative Essay Topics 

• Describe a life-changing event that happened in your family.
• Share an experience of facing a natural disaster. 
• Recall an inspiring moment when you felt proud of yourself. 
• Explain the importance of learning from mistakes. 
• Discuss how creativity can help overcome hardships. 
• Describe the power of storytelling and its impact on society. 
• How did a special person in your life shape who you are today? 
• Discuss the beauty of self-expression through music and art. 
• What have been some of the biggest challenges you faced growing up? 
• Explain how travel has changed your worldview. 

Compare and Contrast Informative Essay Topics

• Compare and contrast the benefits of working remotely versus in-office.
• Compare and contrast the effects of high school vs college education. 
• Explain how online education differs from traditional classroom learning. 
• Compare and contrast the pros and cons of living in a city or a rural area. 
• Discuss how different types of music can affect the brain. 
• Compare and contrast the impact of digital media and print media. 
• Explain how different generations view technology differently. 
• Compare and contrast the three major religions in terms of their beliefs. 
• Discuss how traditional values differ from modern values. 
• Compare and contrast the benefits of online shopping versus in-store shopping.

Informative Essay Topics on Religion

• Discuss the concept of original sin in Christianity. 
• Explain how free will differs between Islam and Christianity. 
• Describe the impact of religion on culture and politics. 
• What are some similarities and differences between Hinduism and Buddhism? 
• How have religious beliefs changed over time? 
• What is the meaning of karma in different religions? 
• Explain the purpose of religious rituals and ceremonies. 
• Discuss how religion can foster compassion in society. 
• Describe the role of faith in helping people cope with difficult times. 
• What is the importance of prayer in various religious traditions?

Informative Essay Topics About Stress

• What are the physical and mental effects of stress? 
• Explain how lifestyle changes can reduce stress levels. 
• Discuss how social media can heighten anxiety. 
• Describe how different people cope with stress. 
• What strategies can help manage stress effectively? 
• Discuss the power of positive self-talk in reducing stress. 
• Explain how exercise can help alleviate stress. 
• What are the benefits of engaging in mindfulness activities? 
• Describe different techniques of relaxation. 
• Discuss the importance of self-care for reducing stress levels.

Informative Essay Topics on Social Issues

• Discuss the challenges of poverty in developing countries. 
• Describe the effects of gender inequality on society. 
• What are the causes and consequences of racism? 
• Explain how mental health issues can be addressed through policymaking. 
• How does technology help combat global warming? 
• What strategies can be used to reduce homelessness? 
• What is the impact of access to clean water on global health? 
• Discuss the role of education in promoting economic stability. 
• Describe how human rights violations can be prevented. 
• Explain the importance of making a difference in society.

Business and Economics Informative Essay Ideas 

• Describe the different types of business models.
• Discuss the importance of financial literacy. 
• Explain how to start and manage a successful business. 
• What are the economic impacts of globalization? 
• How do entrepreneurs use technology to their advantage? 
• Discuss the importance of innovation in the business world. 
• Explain how companies can reduce waste and conserve resources.
• What strategies do businesses use to increase profits? 
• Describe the legal implications of starting a business. 
• Discuss the different marketing tactics used by businesses.

Informative And Surprising Essay Topics

• Describe the effects of climate change on societies.
• Explain how learning a second language can benefit you. 
• What are the advantages and disadvantages of genetic engineering? 
• Discuss how to become a professional gamer. 
• What is the future of artificial intelligence? 
• How can virtual reality be used to improve education? 
• Describe the impact of technology on society. 
• What is the importance of space exploration? 
• Discuss how travel can broaden your worldview. 
• Explain the benefits of living a minimalist lifestyle.

Informative Essay Topics about Technology

• Describe the impact of the internet on communication. 
• How do social media platforms influence behavior? 
• Explain how machine learning is changing our world. 
• Discuss the effects of AI on businesses. 
• What are the advantages and disadvantages of 5G technology? 
• What strategies can be used to protect data privacy online?
• How is virtual reality being used in the medical field? 
• Discuss the potential implications of quantum computing. 
• What are the benefits and drawbacks of using robots in manufacturing?
• Explain how blockchain technology can revolutionize banking.

Informative Essay Topics On Sports

• Discuss the effects of doping in sport. 
• Explain how different sports promote physical fitness. 
• What strategies can be used to prevent injuries in sports? 
• Describe the role of sports in developing teamwork skills. 
• How does technology help improve performance in athletics? 
• What are the benefits of playing a team sport?
• Explain the importance of sportsmanship in competitive sports. 
• Discuss the effects of racism on athletes and teams. 
• How has coaching changed over time? 
• Describe the different nutritional requirements for athletes.

Informative Essay Topics About Education

• Describe the benefits of a liberal arts education. 
• Compare and contrast different learning strategies. 
• Explain how technology can help improve educational outcomes. 
• What are the implications of homeschooling? 
• Discuss the role of teachers in student development. 
• How does access to quality education impact society? 
• What strategies can help students be successful in the classroom? 
• What are the benefits of using learning management systems?
• Discuss the different criteria for selecting a college. 
• Explain how to create an optimal study environment.

Informative Essay Topics About Politics, Government, And Immigration 

• Describe the role of government in society. 
• Discuss the causes and effects of political corruption. 
• What strategies can be used to address income inequality? 
• Explain the different forms of government around the world. 
• How does immigration law shape public policy? 
• What are the pros and cons of globalism?  
• Discuss the challenges of achieving world peace. 
• What strategies can be used to combat terrorism? 
• How does international trade impact economic growth?
• Explain how trade agreements shape global politics.

How to Choose Good Informative Essay Topics?

Choosing an informative topic doesn’t really involve an official procedure. But there are some steps that professional essay writers take to make the paper writing process easier.

Writing an informative essay aims to educate the audience about the topic so that every aspect is covered in detail. So while choosing a topic, ensure that it should be in-depth and useful for the audience.

If you are finding it hard to choose topics for an informative essay, follow the below-given steps.

1. Brainstorm Ideas

The first step that a writer takes to decide a topic is to brainstorm ideas. If your instructor does not assign you a topic, think of interesting ideas. The best trick is to analyze your passions and see what you are interested in telling the audience about.

Another way is to pick something relevant to your field. For example, if you are a science student, you can search for interesting discoveries or theories to write your informative essay.

2. Identify the Audience

Determining the audience can help select the topic as well. When you know who you are writing for and what they expect from the essay. It gets easier to select a topic idea.

For example, if your audience is your instructor, impress him by choosing theories and other discoveries related to their field.

3. Search for Credible Sources

Thinking of a good topic is not enough if you lack credible sources of information. Therefore, when gathering information on the topic, the sources used should be credible and authentic. Informative essays are based on facts and objective data, so the sources should be reliable.

If you fail to find these sources for your topic, reconsider the topic idea.

4. Form a Strong Thesis Statement

A thesis statement is directly related to the topic as well. It is a stance that a writer takes to discuss the topic, and the whole essay content will revolve around it. A strong essay topic will help the writer develop a good thesis statement as well.

5. Finalize the Topic

Passing your raw idea from the above filters will help you finalize the topic. The end product that you will receive will be the ideal and the best topic. With this, you can begin writing your informative paper.

All in all, the significance of choosing a great topic to write your essay can not be ignored. Now you have a list of informative essay topic ideas to choose from. Remember, writing a good one depends on how strong and catchy your subject is. 

If you are stuck and can not think of a good essay theme, or if you have a topic in hand but have no clue how to start, get help from MyPerfectWords.com. 

We cater to all your academic assignments. Be it a simple essay or a complex research paper, you can get quality content written in no time. 

Just ask our team to " write my essay online " and get exceptional writing services!

Write Essay Within 60 Seconds!

Dr. Barbara is a highly experienced writer and author who holds a Ph.D. degree in public health from an Ivy League school. She has worked in the medical field for many years, conducting extensive research on various health topics. Her writing has been featured in several top-tier publications.

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E. B. White is one of the most famous children’s book authors. But he should be better known for his essays.

I was well into adulthood before I realized the co-author of my battered copy of The Elements of Style was also the author of Stuart Little and Charlotte’s Web . That’s right, the White of the revered style manual that everyone knew as “Strunk and White” also wrote children’s books…as well as some of the best essays in the English language.

If you’re of a certain age, you might well remember E. B. White’s pointers in The Elements of Style :

Place yourself in the background; write in a way that comes naturally; work from a suitable design; write with nouns and verbs; do not overwrite; do not overstate; avoid the use of qualifiers; do not affect a breezy style; use orthodox spelling; do not explain too much; avoid fancy words; do not take shortcuts at the cost of clarity; prefer the standard to the offbeat; make sure the reader knows who is speaking; do not use dialect; revise and rewrite.

That’s some good advice, much better than the terrible counsel offered on Page 76: “Avoid the elaborate, the pretentious, the coy, and the cute.” Thanks, E. B., I do what I want. ☹️

Born in 1899 in Mount Vernon, N.Y., Elwyn Brooks White attended Cornell University, where he earned the nickname “Andy.” (Weird historical fact: If your last name was White, you were automatically an Andy at Cornell, in honor of the school’s co-founder, Andrew Dickson White. There is no connection to fellow Cornell alum Andy Bernard .) After graduation, White worked as a journalist and an advertising copywriter for several years. He published his first article in The New Yorker the year it was founded, 1925.

White became a staff writer at The New Yorker in 1927, but was an early enthusiast of the work-from-home movement, initially refusing to come to the office and eventually agreeing to come in only on Thursdays. In those days, he shared a small office (“a sort of elongated closet,” he called it) with James Thurber.

His famous officemate later recalled that White had an odd a brilliant habit: When visitors were announced, he would climb out the office window and scamper down the fire escape. “He has avoided the Man in the Reception Room as he has avoided the interviewer, the photographer, the microphone, the rostrum, the literary tea, and the Stork Club,” Thurber later remembered of the chronically shy author. “His life is his own.”

In 1929, White and Thurber co-authored their first book, Is Sex Necessary? Or, Why You Feel the Way You Do . (Don’t worry: It was comic essays.) That same year, White married Katharine Angell, The New Yorker’s fiction editor from its inaugural year until 1960. She was the mother of Roger Angell , the famed essayist and baseball writer who himself became a fiction editor at The New Yorker in the 1950s.

In 1938, White and Katharine moved permanently to a farm in Maine they had purchased five years before. If you’re wondering about the inspiration for 1952’s Charlotte’s Web , look no further than White’s 1948 essay for The Atlantic, “ Death of a Pig .” (He bought the pig with the intention of fattening it for slaughter; instead, he later nursed it through a fatal illness and buried it on the farm.)

Stuart Little had been published seven years before Charlotte’s Web . Along with 1970’s The Trumpet of the Swan , these books have made White one of the nation’s best-known children’s authors. I’m sure White didn’t mind, but by all rights, he should be better known for his essays. He authored over 20 collections of such classics as “Once More to the Lake,” “The Sea and The Wind That Blow,” “The Ring of Time,” “A Slight Sound at Evening” and “Farewell, My Lovely!” Endlessly anthologized, many are also taught in writing workshops to this day.

In 1949, White published Here Is New York , a short book developed from an essay about the pros and cons of living in New York City. In a 2012 essay for America , literary editor Raymond Schroth, S.J., noted White’s juxtaposition in Here Is New York of technological terrors like nuclear bombers (the Soviet Union detonated its first atomic bomb in 1949) with the simple beauties of nature:

Grand Central Terminal has become honky tonk, the great mansions are in decline, and there is generally more tension, irritability and great speed. The subtlest change is that the city is now destructible. A single flight of planes no bigger than a flock of geese could end this island fantasy, burn the towers and crumble the bridges. But the United Nations will make this the capital of the world. The perfect target may become the perfect “demonstration of nonviolence and racial brotherhood.” A block away in an interior garden was an old willow tree. This tree, symbol of the city, White said, must survive.

“It is a battered tree, long suffering and much climbed, held together by strands of wire but beloved of those who know it,” White wrote in Here Is New York . “In a way it symbolizes the city: life under difficulties, growth against odds, sap-rise in the midst of concrete, and the steady reaching for the sun. Whenever I look at it nowadays, and feel the cold shadow of the planes, I think: ‘This must be saved, this particular thing, this very tree.’”

The tree lasted for another six decades —two more than the Cold War, in fact—before finally being chopped down in 2009.

In a 1954 review of books by White and James Michener, America literary editor Harold C. Gardiner, S.J. , said White “has one of the most distinctive styles discernible on the American literary scene.” Since even the most cursory review of Father Gardiner’s many years of commentary shows he hated almost everything, it was quite a compliment. (Later in the review, he noted that “Mr. Michener, who has done better in his other books, comes a cropper here mainly because his style is wooden, sententious and dull.”)

In 1963, White received the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his writings. Fifteen years later, he was awarded a special Pulitzer Prize for “his letters, essays, and the full body of his work.” In 2005, the composer Nico Muhly debuted a song cycle based on The Elements of Style at the New York Public Library. Among its signature moments was a tenor offering more of White’s good advice, this time in song:

Do not use a hyphen between words that can be better written as one word .

White died in 1985 at his farm in Maine. His wife Katharine had died eight years earlier. His obituary in The New York Times quoted William Shawn, the legendary editor of The New Yorker:

His literary style was as pure as any in our language. It was singular, colloquial, clear, unforced, thoroughly American and utterly beautiful. Because of his quiet influence, several generations of this country's writers write better than they might have done. He never wrote a mean or careless sentence. He was impervious to literary, intellectual and political fashion. He was ageless, and his writing was timeless.

Our poetry selection for this week is “ Another Doubting Sonnet ,” by Renee Emerson. Readers can view all of America ’s published poems here .

Also, news from the Catholic Book Club: We are reading Norwegian novelist and 2023 Nobel Prize winner Jon Fosse’s multi-volume work Septology . Click here to buy the book, and click here to sign up for our Facebook discussion group .

In this space every week, America features reviews of and literary commentary on one particular writer or group of writers (both new and old; our archives span more than a century), as well as poetry and other offerings from America Media. We hope this will give us a chance to provide you with more in-depth coverage of our literary offerings. It also allows us to alert digital subscribers to some of our online content that doesn’t make it into our newsletters.

Other Catholic Book Club columns:

The spiritual depths of Toni Morrison

What’s all the fuss about Teilhard de Chardin?

Moira Walsh and the art of a brutal movie review

​​Who’s in hell? Hans Urs von Balthasar had thoughts.

Happy reading!

James T. Keane

James T. Keane is a senior editor at America.

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What is ChatGPT? Here's everything you need to know about ChatGPT, the chatbot everyone's still talking about

• ChatGPT is getting a futuristic human update. 
• ChatGPT has drawn users at a feverish pace and spurred Big Tech to release other AI chatbots.
• Here's how ChatGPT works — and what's coming next.

OpenAI's blockbuster chatbot ChatGPT is getting a new update. 

On Monday, OpenAI unveiled GPT-4o for ChatGPT, a new version of the bot that can hold conversations with users in a very human tone. The new version of the chatbot will also have vision abilities.

The futuristic reveal quickly prompted jokes about parallels to the movie "Her," with some calling the chatbot's new voice " cringe ."

The move is a big step for the future of AI-powered virtual assistants, which tech companies have been racing to develop.

Since its release in 2022, hundreds of millions of people have experimented with the tool, which is already changing how the internet looks and feels to users.

Users have flocked to ChatGPT to improve their personal lives and boost productivity . Some workers have used the AI chatbot to develop code , write real estate listings , and create lesson plans, while others have made teaching the best ways to use ChatGPT a career all to itself.

ChatGPT offers dozens of plug-ins to those who subscribe to ChatGPT Plus subscription. An Expedia one can help you book a trip, while an OpenTable one will get nab you a dinner reservation. And last month, OpenAI launched Code Interpreter, a version of ChatGPT that can code and analyze data .

While the personal tone of conversations with an AI bot like ChatGPT can evoke the experience of chatting with a human, the technology, which runs on " large language model tools, " doesn't speak with sentience and doesn't "think" the way people do. 

That means that even though ChatGPT can explain quantum physics or write a poem on command, a full AI takeover isn't exactly imminent , according to experts.

"There's a saying that an infinite number of monkeys will eventually give you Shakespeare," said Matthew Sag, a law professor at Emory University who studies copyright implications for training and using large language models like ChatGPT.

"There's a large number of monkeys here, giving you things that are impressive — but there is intrinsically a difference between the way that humans produce language, and the way that large language models do it," he said. 

Chatbots like ChatGPT are powered by large amounts of data and computing techniques to make predictions to string words together in a meaningful way. They not only tap into a vast amount of vocabulary and information, but also understand words in context. This helps them mimic speech patterns while dispatching an encyclopedic knowledge. 

Other tech companies like Google and Meta have developed their own large language model tools, which use programs that take in human prompts and devise sophisticated responses.

Despite the AI's impressive capabilities, some have called out OpenAI's chatbot for spewing misinformation , stealing personal data for training purposes , and even encouraging students to cheat and plagiarize on their assignments. 

Some recent efforts to use chatbots for real-world services have proved troubling. In 2023, the mental health company Koko came under fire after its founder wrote about how the company used GPT-3 in an experiment to reply to users. 

Koko cofounder Rob Morris hastened to clarify on Twitter that users weren't speaking directly to a chatbot, but that AI was used to "help craft" responses. 

Read Insider's coverage on ChatGPT and some of the strange new ways that both people and companies are using chat bots: 

The tech world's reception to ChatGPT:

Microsoft is chill with employees using ChatGPT — just don't share 'sensitive data' with it.

Microsoft's investment into ChatGPT's creator may be the smartest $1 billion ever spent

ChatGPT and generative AI look like tech's next boom. They could be the next bubble.

The ChatGPT and generative-AI 'gold rush' has founders flocking to San Francisco's 'Cerebral Valley'

Insider's experiments: 

I asked ChatGPT to do my work and write an Insider article for me. It quickly generated an alarmingly convincing article filled with misinformation.

I asked ChatGPT and a human matchmaker to redo my Hinge and Bumble profiles. They helped show me what works.

I asked ChatGPT to reply to my Hinge matches. No one responded.

I used ChatGPT to write a resignation letter. A lawyer said it made one crucial error that could have invalidated the whole thing .

Read ChatGPT's 'insulting' and 'garbage' 'Succession' finale script

An Iowa school district asked ChatGPT if a list of books contains sex scenes, and banned them if it said yes. We put the system to the test and found a bunch of problems.

Developments in detecting ChatGPT: 

Teachers rejoice! ChatGPT creators have released a tool to help detect AI-generated writing

A Princeton student built an app which can detect if ChatGPT wrote an essay to combat AI-based plagiarism

Professors want to 'ChatGPT-proof' assignments, and are returning to paper exams and requesting editing history to curb AI cheating

ChatGPT in society: 

BuzzFeed writers react with a mix of disappointment and excitement at news that AI-generated content is coming to the website

ChatGPT is testing a paid version — here's what that means for free users

A top UK private school is changing its approach to homework amid the rise of ChatGPT, as educators around the world adapt to AI

Princeton computer science professor says don't panic over 'bullshit generator' ChatGPT

DoNotPay's CEO says threat of 'jail for 6 months' means plan to debut AI 'robot lawyer' in courtroom is on ice

It might be possible to fight a traffic ticket with an AI 'robot lawyer' secretly feeding you lines to your AirPods, but it could go off the rails

Online mental health company uses ChatGPT to help respond to users in experiment — raising ethical concerns around healthcare and AI technology

What public figures think about ChatGPT and other AI tools:

What Elon Musk, Bill Gates, and 12 other business leaders think about AI tools like ChatGPT

Elon Musk was reportedly 'furious' at ChatGPT's popularity after he left the company behind it, OpenAI, years ago

CEO of ChatGPT maker responds to schools' plagiarism concerns: 'We adapted to calculators and changed what we tested in math class'

A theoretical physicist says AI is just a 'glorified tape recorder' and people's fears about it are overblown

'The most stunning demo I've ever seen in my life': ChatGPT impressed Bill Gates

Ashton Kutcher says your company will probably be 'out of business' if you're 'sleeping' on AI

ChatGPT's impact on jobs: 

AI systems like ChatGPT could impact 300 million full-time jobs worldwide, with administrative and legal roles some of the most at risk, Goldman Sachs report says

Jobs are now requiring experience with ChatGPT — and they'll pay as much as $800,000 a year for the skill

Related stories

ChatGPT may be coming for our jobs. Here are the 10 roles that AI is most likely to replace.

AI is going to eliminate way more jobs than anyone realizes

It's not AI that is going to take your job, but someone who knows how to use AI might, economist says

4 careers where workers will have to change jobs by 2030 due to AI and shifts in how we shop, a McKinsey study says

Companies like Amazon, Netflix, and Meta are paying salaries as high as $900,000 to attract generative AI talent

How AI tools like ChatGPT are changing the workforce:

10 ways artificial intelligence is changing the workplace, from writing performance reviews to making the 4-day workweek possible

Managers who use AI will replace managers who don't, says an IBM exec

How ChatGPT is shaping industries: 

ChatGPT is coming for classrooms, hospitals, marketing departments, and everything else as the next great startup boom emerges

Marketing teams are using AI to generate content, boost SEO, and develop branding to help save time and money, study finds

AI is coming for Hollywood. 'It's amazing to see the sophistication of the images,' one of Christopher Nolan's VFX guy says.

AI is going to offer every student a personalized tutor, founder of Khan Academy says

A law firm was fined $5,000 after one of its lawyers used ChatGPT to write a court brief riddled with fake case references

How workers are using ChatGPT to boost productivity:  

CheatGPT: The hidden wave of employees using AI on the sly

I used ChatGPT to talk to my boss for a week and she didn't notice. Here are the other ways I use it daily to get work done.

I'm a high school math and science teacher who uses ChatGPT, and it's made my job much easier

Amazon employees are already using ChatGPT for software coding. They also found the AI chatbot can answer tricky AWS customer questions and write cloud training materials.

How 6 workers are using ChatGPT to make their jobs easier

I'm a freelance editor who's embraced working with AI content. Here's how I do it and what I charge.

How people are using ChatGPT to make money:

How ChatGPT and other AI tools are helping workers make more money

Here are 5 ways ChatGPT helps me make money and complete time-consuming tasks for my business

ChatGPT course instruction is the newest side hustle on the market. Meet the teachers making thousands from the lucrative gig.

People are using ChatGPT and other AI bots to work side hustles and earn thousands of dollars — check out these 8 freelancing gigs

A guy tried using ChatGPT to turn $100 into a business making 'as much money as possible.' Here are the first 4 steps the AI chatbot gave him

We used ChatGPT to build a 7-figure newsletter. Here's how it makes our jobs easier.

I use ChatGPT and it's like having a 24/7 personal assistant for $20 a month. Here are 5 ways it's helping me make more money.

A worker who uses AI for a $670 monthly side hustle says ChatGPT has 'cut her research time in half'

How companies are navigating ChatGPT: 

From Salesforce to Air India, here are the companies that are using ChatGPT

Amazon, Apple, and 12 other major companies that have restricted employees from using ChatGPT

A consultant used ChatGPT to free up time so she could focus on pitching clients. She landed $128,000 worth of new contracts in just 3 months.

Luminary, an AI-generated pop-up restaurant, just opened in Australia. Here's what's on the menu, from bioluminescent calamari to chocolate mousse.

A CEO is spending more than $2,000 a month on ChatGPT Plus accounts for all of his employees, and he says it's saving 'hours' of time

How people are using ChatGPT in their personal lives:

ChatGPT planned a family vacation to Costa Rica. A travel adviser found 3 glaring reasons why AI won't replace experts anytime soon.

A man who hated cardio asked ChatGPT to get him into running. Now, he's hooked — and he's lost 26 pounds.

A computer engineering student is using ChatGPT to overcome learning challenges linked to her dyslexia

How a coder used ChatGPT to find an apartment in Berlin in 2 weeks after struggling for months

Food blogger Nisha Vora tried ChatGPT to create a curry recipe. She says it's clear the instructions lacked a human touch — here's how.

Men are using AI to land more dates with better profiles and personalized messages, study finds

Lawsuits against OpenAI:

OpenAI could face a plagiarism lawsuit from The New York Times as tense negotiations threaten to boil over, report says

This is why comedian Sarah Silverman is suing OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT

2 authors say OpenAI 'ingested' their books to train ChatGPT. Now they're suing, and a 'wave' of similar court cases may follow.

A lawsuit claims OpenAI stole 'massive amounts of personal data,' including medical records and information about children, to train ChatGPT

A radio host is suing OpenAI for defamation, alleging that ChatGPT created a false legal document that accused him of 'defrauding and embezzling funds'

Tips on how to write better ChatGPT prompts:

7 ways to use ChatGPT at work to boost your productivity, make your job easier, and save a ton of time

I'm an AI prompt engineer. Here are 3 ways I use ChatGPT to get the best results.

12 ways to get better at using ChatGPT: Comprehensive prompt guide

Here's 9 ways to turn ChatGPT Plus into your personal data analyst with the new Code Interpreter plug-in

OpenAI's ChatGPT can write impressive code. Here are the prompts you should use for the best results, experts say.

Axel Springer, Business Insider's parent company, has a global deal to allow OpenAI to train its models on its media brands' reporting.

Watch: What is ChatGPT, and should we be afraid of AI chatbots?

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Guest Essay

And the Winner Is: Kendrick Lamar. And Old-School Hip-Hop.

By Laurence Ralph

Dr. Ralph is a professor of anthropology at Princeton.

The rap battle between Drake and Kendrick Lamar is about more than whatever personal beefs these two men have with each other. As many have noted , it is a significant moment in hip-hop history, and not just because Mr. Lamar’s diss track “ Not Like Us ,” released last week, has become the hip-hop song with the most plays on U.S. Spotify in a single day — surpassing the high set previously by Drake and Lil Baby.

What sets this rap battle apart from previous high-profile hip-hop feuds is its magnitude and implications for popular music. Hip-hop, born as an underground movement, has long been a global phenomenon, leading certain artists to blur the lines between authenticity and commercialization. The global pop audience has always been more drawn to a simplified hip-hop sound devoid of the complex lyrics and politicized messages that characterize “conscious” rap.

Mr. Lamar’s victory signals a resurgence of lyrically rich rap — and a return to the roots of hip-hop culture — all while establishing a new template for relevance in an era when content can go viral instantly on social media and streaming platforms. If Drake, who has become the face of rap’s mainstream pop faction, has lost this battle, that setback is not his alone.

Mr. Lamar’s ability to write layered and intricate lyrics has long been lauded. But this battle has brought new attention and enthusiasm to the particular artistic element at which he excels. Fans have scrambled to decipher his complex verses with each new release. (The website Genius , where users annotate lyrics, crashed from the volume of visitors investigating this feud.) Mr. Lamar’s apparent decision to remove copyright protections for “Not Like Us” has also enabled a wide dissemination of the track, allowing content creators to monetize posts featuring the song.

Removing these kind of constraints on the distribution of the song signals a new and savvy approach to marketing and sales in the music industry. It’s another facet of Mr. Lamar’s victory — enlisting countless unseen collaborators to spread his message and join his crusade.

Drake has been doing his best to counter and innovate. His second volley in the battle, “Taylor Made Freestyle,” incorporated A.I. to enlist two iconic figures from West Coast hip-hop: Tupac Shakur and Snoop Dogg. (Drake removed the song from social media after objections from Mr. Shakur’s estate .) Drake also took direct aim at Mr. Lamar’s supposed lyrical prowess, taunting him to respond with a “quintuple entendre.”

Underestimating Mr. Lamar — who won a Pulitzer Prize for his album “DAMN.” — was a questionable move. Mr. Lamar’s response, “ Euphoria ,” arrived with the precision and effectiveness of a heat-seeking missile. The title “Euphoria” nods not only to the feeling but to the HBO series on which Drake has been an executive producer — a show known for its controversial portrayal of teenage sexuality, a parallel that underscores Mr. Lamar’s allegations that Drake harbors inappropriate infatuations.

In the arena of rap battles, entendres are wielded precisely because they imbue words with layers of meaning. Nowhere is this more evident than in the stark contrast between love and hate, the poles around which rap oscillates. In a pivotal moment in “Euphoria,” Mr. Lamar adopted the persona of the late rapper DMX, who in 2012 aired his grievances about Drake on “The Breakfast Club,” a radio show that was a cornerstone of hip-hop media. On the track, Mr. Lamar echoes DMX as he snarls at Drake, “I hate the way that you walk, the way that you talk, I hate the way that you dress.”

Drake parried by questioning Mr. Lamar’s authenticity, characterizing his portrayal of Black empowerment as superficial and insincere. But Mr. Lamar swiftly retaliated, targeting Drake’s alleged cultural appropriation. Authenticity in hip-hop is often tied to a rapper’s ability to embody the distinctive sound of their hometown — something Drake, a Canadian of ambiguous racial identity, has skillfully transcended, crossing geographical and musical boundaries and incorporating regional sounds from across the United States, particularly the South.

In the closing lines of “Not Like Us,” Mr. Lamar zeros in on what he sees as Drake’s vulnerability. Mr. Lamar’s artistry shines through as he seamlessly weaves together social commentary and catchy rhythms. He begins by evoking the painful legacy of Black Americans in chains, then highlights Atlanta’s historical significance as a hub for the slave trade in the South — before drawing parallels to Drake’s exploitation of Southern rap culture for personal gain. His indictment culminates with a damning accusation: “You run to Atlanta when you need a few dollars,” he says. Drake is not a “colleague,” he’s a “colonizer.”

Through his incisive lyrics Mr. Lamar exposes the complexities of cultural identity and power dynamics within the rap industry — all while carrying the banner of lyrical rap. His verbal offensive proves the depth and staying power of hip-hop’s history and culture, with its legacy of lyrical dexterity and complexity.

Armed with these tools and talents, Mr. Lamar managed to topple Drake, and in the process has shown himself, by calling on hip-hop’s traditions, to be more relevant to the current moment. At least until the bell sounds to signal the next round.

Laurence Ralph is a professor of anthropology at Princeton and the author of “Sito: An American Teenager and the City That Failed Him.”

Source photographs by Arturo Holmes/MG23 and Prince Williams, via Getty Images.

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips . And here’s our email: [email protected] .

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Jumpstart Your Writing: AI Use, Plagiarism, and Academic Integrity: Doing the "Write" Thing

Join us virtually on May 23, 2024, from 12-1pm PST for the first installment of the Summer 2024 Jumpstart Your Writing Series: AI Use, Plagiarism, and Academic Integrity: Doing the "Write" Thing hosted by GSEP Writing Support Services.

We will discuss AI, its responsible use, plagiarism detection, and writing through the struggle. We hope you'll join us for this exciting discussion about the use of AI in education as we collectively explore and determine what the "write" thing will be in this new age. 

Be sure to register for this free event. We hope to see you there!

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Lawrence creative writing instructor honored for endeavors in county jail

TOPEKA, Kan. (KCTV) - A creative writing instructor who calls Lawrence home has been honored for his efforts to teach creative writing to those in the Douglas County, Kan., Jail.

Washburn University in Topeka, Kan., announced on Wednesday, May 15, that Brian Daldorph, of Lawrence, has won the 2024 Hefner Heitz Kansas Book Award in Literary Nonfiction. The award honors his book, “Words is a Powerful Thing: Twenty Years of Teaching Creative Writing at Douglas County Jail.”

The University noted that Doldoprh is a creative writing instructor at the county jail in Lawrence, as well as a senior lecturer in the University of Kansas English Department. He has penned six books of poetry, including “Kansas Poems” and “Blue Notes.” He is also editor of the literary journal “Coal City Review.”

Washburn indicated that the 2024 judge, Rebekah Taussig, won the award in 2021 for her memoir “Sitting Pretty.”

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“I kept finding myself turning back to Daldorph’s book, rereading underlined passages and thinking about the inmates’ poems at different times throughout the day. This book cuts to the heart of what so many of us value as writers and readers—the power of bare language and simple self-narration,” Taussig said. “And also, at times, a stark look at its limitations. I found myself thinking differently about my own writing - what are the stories I want to tell and why - and the way I teach writing - what is this work, what is the goal? I was surprised by this book, and the words I read will stay with me.”

The University said the Hefner Heitz Kansas Book Award alternates between genres. Poetry will be judged in 2025, Fiction in 2026 and Literary Nonfiction again in 2027.

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David Sanborn Died in Mid-May 2024 — He's Survived by His Wife and Son

I f you're especially into jazz, then chances are you've at least heard of David Sanborn . The alto saxophonist had been playing the instrument since before high school and he used that experience to propel himself through the music industry. Recognized as one of the most commercially successful American saxophonists in the business, his music helped influence generations of R&B, jazz, and pop. Despite having been active since 1959, he reportedly had concert dates lined up into 2025.

Clearly, David was ready to play music for the rest of his life. Unfortunately, his time came a little earlier than most would have expected. It was announced that David died on May 12, 2024. The jazz musician's death is mourned by several fans and celebrities, including Mark Hamill . He leaves behind an enormous legacy comprised of several accomplishments in the world of jazz. He is also survived by his wife and son. Here's what we know about his family.

David Sanborn was married to another musician named Alice Soyer.

David had been married to Alice Soyer , a fellow musician with whom he performed several times in the past.

Alice is a composer, pianist, and vocalist who was born and raised in Paris, France. She is also an accomplished painter and sells artisanal scarves on Etsy.

In a 2020 interview with All That Jazz , Alice revealed that she met David while attending a concert in the South of France. Not unlike a scene straight out of a romance film, they met each other after she heard David practicing saxophone through a window.

"I didn't see him right away, but I heard him," she told the outlet. "Then we spoke at dinner. It was so great and so natural. He was very encouraging. Told me to keep on writing, that it is great."

They officially started dating in 2016 and were married by 2020, spending the COVID-19 quarantine together.

As of this writing, Alice has made no public statements on the death of her husband on social media.

What was David Sanborn's cause of death?

In a statement posted to Twitter, David's cause of death was revealed. He passed away after "an extended battle with prostate cancer." He was 78 years old.

David was reportedly diagnosed back in 2018, but maintained his music career while undergoing treatment.

Did David Sanborn have any kids?

David is survived by his family, including his adult son, Jonathan Sanborn . Like his father, Jonathan is a musician himself. He is a bass player who previously played in albums released in the 1990s.

Our hearts go out to David's family and friends during this difficult time. His music and legacy will live on and continue to inspire artists in R&B, jazz, and pop.