The 4 Most Common Types of College Essays

College classes typically require students to submit a diverse mixture of essays. Not only will you need to submit essays for English and literature classes, but you will also likely write essays for other classes in the social sciences, business courses, and even some science classes. Since being able to write a fully formed essay from scratch is something that you will need to employ in almost every college course, here are some common essay types to familiarize yourself with:

1. The Argumentative Essay

An argumentative essay requires that the writer has a stance on a particular topic and spends the majority of the paper using evidence, logic, and emotion to support his or her stance on that topic. Common argumentative essays explain why an author wrote a character in a certain way, or why certain policies are in effect.

One potential setback of writing an argumentative essay is not knowing where you personally stand on the essay topic. However, you can still write this paper even if you are unsure of your personal feelings. Simply pick the argument that you feel you can best explain and complete the most research on, as evidence is important when writing term papers and a strong argumentative essay.

The goal is to have your reader walk away from your essay knowing why your stance or written opinion is correct, even in the face of adversity.

2. The Personal Essay

Personal essays require that you delve deeply into your psyche to discover how you feel and think about a particular topic. For example, an introduction to college writing class might ask you to write a paper on how you feel about entering college at this point in your life.

Feel free to use personal stories, honest thoughts, and unique anecdotes to convey your feelings and reflections about the assigned essay topic. Most teachers grade these essays based on effort and authenticity. You may feel that you find clarity through writing about personal experiences, and many teachers require personal essays so that you feel more connected to your work.

3. The Expository Essay

Unlike personal essays, expository essays require that you do not add any personal thoughts or opinions on the essay topic. You should not use "I" to describe anything that research has produced or any qualms about your discoveries.

Expository essays are completely based on facts and research, and they typically require statistics and hard facts that you either discover through your own personal research or that another researcher or scientist has already discovered.

Expository essays can be difficult because you need to rely on hard facts to prove a point - that is why the research component is so strong here. In order to write the best expository essay that you can, it is helpful to many students to write a detailed outline.

To start, you can compile all of the research necessary for your paper, and list each paragraph where you will include your research. In your outline, you should also include what you are attempting to convey to the reader - the goal of each paragraph.

The more preparatory work you do for an expository essay before sitting down to write it, the easier it will be to finish.

4. The Narrative Essay

Narrative essays are assigned in many classes. These essays require that you vividly explain a scene or story to your reader to convey an even larger picture. This could mean describing a recent event in the news, or even what you ate for dinner the night before. The goal of a narrative essay is to place your reader in a scene so much so that he or she feels like he or she was actually there witnessing it.

Ramona Mills is a creative writer with a Master's Degree in Social Sciences. Creates blog content for different SMBs and writes essays, CVs, dissertations for writing services, including PayToWritePaper. In free time enjoys playing piano and reading.