Types of Essays Every Student Need To Know

by | May 13, 2024 | Academic Writing, Essay Writing

Do you want to know the different types of essays in academic writing?

In college or university, students have to write different types of essays throughout their education. These essays are meant to develop specific skills that students need to be successful in their practical lives once they finish their education. Each essay could be written using multiple skills.

In this article, you will learn about essay writing and the types of essay writing in Academic English.

Types of Essays

  • Personal essays
  • Political essays
  • compare and contrast essays
  • College application essays
  • Analytical essays
  • Argumentative essays
  • Humorous essays

1. Personal Essays

A personal essay is a type of essay in which a student has to write about his or her personal experience.

Personal essays are mostly written in description or narrative form. In this type of essay, we explain something that we have faced in the past. It could be a personal experience, an event, or something that has impacted your life, and you would like to share your thoughts.

2. Political Essays

A political essay describes the situation and then provides a solution in society.

Compare and Contrast Essays

Compare-and-contrast essays are designed to test students’ skills in comparing and contrasting different facts to reach a particular conclusion. The facts are presented in a way that contrasts them with other relevant facts.

Most of the time, a student is asked to write a compare-and-contrast essay on two subjects. These subjects can include theories, ideas, experiences, situations, or policies. A student has to highlight the differences between the two and then highlight the similarities.

These types of essays include the task of analyzing facts and then concluding based on those facts and statistics.

In compare-and-contrast essays, the author uses persuasive writing to convince the readers about the position that the author favors.

It could also be written in expository writing because the author exposes the key differences and similarities between two subjects to the reader and

College Application Essays

College application essays are a type of personal essay in which students describe why they want to pursue their education in college and what makes them an ideal fit for the college. In this type of essay, students have to mention reasons, important things, and what they have studied so far to go in that particular subject at the college level.

A college essay is a personal statement in which a student describes why he or she should be admitted to the college. The essay is written and submitted to the college along with transcripts, and it is evaluated along with the transcript to give a student admission to the college.

Analytical Essays

Analytical essays develop skills in analyzing facts, statements, and data. In an Analytical essay, an author examines the work and presents their perspective at the end of the essay.

Students don’t have to persuade the readers in this type of essay. Instead, they write this essay to analyze a piece of work by in-depth analysis.

Argumentative Essays

As the name suggests, an argumentative essay is a type of essay in which a student has to make arguments in favor and in contrast to the subject of the essay. It is not a compare-and-contrast essay, but it presents arguments on both sides: in opposition to and in favor of the essay statement.

Argumentative essays are written in a persuasive style, in which you argue to convince your readers with facts, logic, and statistics.

Common examples of argumentative essays are assignments written in law school in which a student has to make an argument again and again in favor of a particular case, law, or policy.

Humorous Essays

This type of essay is written in a narrative style, like descriptive writing. In the humorous essay, the author presents a situation faced by society in a funny way.

Authors used metaphor, hyperbole, and satire to grab the attention of their readers and tell the situation in a more humorous way.

A humorous essay could be a personal essay describing personal experiences, past events, or others related to personal life.

On the other hand, it could be a humorous essay, too, in which current situations are explained to the readers in a humorous way and then the solution is presented. The main purpose of writing a humorous essay is to raise the problem with satire, fun, and entertainment.

Final Thoughts

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