An essay follows a structured approach for analyzing and evaluating a specific topic. Instructors use essays as course assignments to understand a student's academic opinion and assess a student's ability to reiterate, apply or manipulate information learned in a course.

Please explore the defining characteristics of an essay by taking the following steps:

Read a definition of "Essay" at the Purdue OWL website: https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/685/01/ (Links to an external site.) . At the bottom of the page are links to explanations of the four kinds or “genres” of essays. You may want to briefly review each of these.
Pay particular attention to the definition of an "expository essay:" https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/685/02/ (Links to an external site.). Most of your writing assignments will be expository essays.
Consider the role of "academic opinion" in an essay when reading the University of Caberra's definition of an essay: http://learnonline.canberra.edu.au/mod/book/view.php?id=178430&chapterid=266 (Links to an external site.)
Familiarize yourself with the structure of an expository essay by reading through the University of Canberra's explanation of typical essay structure: http://learnonline.canberra.edu.au/mod/book/view.php?id=178430&chapterid=278 (Links to an external site.) .

Once you've read through the above definitions, see the images below. You can click on the image to see it larger in a new tab. The first image depicts the three sections within an expository essay and explains the purpose of each section. The second image depicts a five-paragraph essay, a common type of expository essay. We will explore the five-paragraph essay in greater detail later in this module.