Academic writing in school is not limited to only one genre. As a student, you may have to work in a variety of genres, including argumentative essays, research proposals, and peer-reviewed academic journals, but you most likely have the majority of experience in writing expository essays.
The expository essay genre is often assigned in middle school and continues to be assigned in high school. It summarizes and informs the reader about a topic, with a focus on facts and it does not include the writer’s opinions. Because students are more used to writing in this particular genre, they often resort to summary in future genres they work with that may require analyses and opinions, such as argumentative essays.
The conventions of writing in one genre don’t necessarily carry over to writing in another, so how would we go about writing in a different genre?
Argumentative essays are similar to expository essays in the way that a topic is explored; however, argumentative essays involve much more of an analysis than expository essays require.
Argumentative essays aim to open up the reader to a particular discourse of a topic, and for this reason, we need to have a better understanding of our audience.
Because argumentative essays share new perspectives of a topic or convince the audience of a certain view, we need to consider who we’re writing to and what views they may already have about the topic.
For more information about argumentative essays, you can check out the following links!
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