It’s Monday afternoon, your informative five-paragraph essay on your favorite animal is due Friday, and you haven’t even started. Don’t worry, I’m here to help! Follow these simple steps to draft the first version of your essay. Once you finish your draft read over it and make any needed changes. Don’t stop there! Have a parent, relative, or friend read over your work. This is an important step because your writing must make sense to others. While your essay may “sound” right to you, it may not be the best way to word it for someone else. Finally, make any edits suggested by your reviewer. BAM you have an informative essay ready to be turned in!
Where do I start?
First, you will have to be familiar with what style your essay needs to be written in: informative, persuasive, or argumentative. Your teacher will determine which essay style is required. For the sake of this example we will focus on informative writing.
So, what is an informative essay? It is an academic paper that’s written with the main purpose of informing the audience about an object, person, event, or phenomenon. Meaning, this type of essay requires you to gather information about your topic. Your goal is to answer the prompt question by explaining the topic in detail.
Second, you must be familiar with your writing prompt. For today’s example the prompt is as follows: Of all the animals wild or domesticated, write about your favorite. Include interesting facts about this animal in your essay.
Ask yourself, what is your favorite animal. I know that seems simple but the point is that you want to write about something that is interesting to YOU. It will make writing your paper less of a chore. For today’s example I’ll be writing about the platypus. If you’re a Disney lover you may be familiar with Perry the Platypus from Phineas and Ferb!
Next, you must determine three reasons why this is your favorite animal. This step may require you to do some research on your animal. During your research ask yourself, what are 3 interesting facts about this animal that some people may not know? Remember, this is an informative essay, so your goal is to teach your reader about your topic.
But how do I “research”?
The research step is fun and can be easy if you know where to look! This is the part that helps you to learn things about your topic—things that you might not have known before. As you find your information be sure to copy the links to where you found the information online or the title and page number of the book that holds the information that you will be using in your paper.
How do I know if I can trust this source?
This first rule in research is to never use wikipedia.com because it can be edited by any person on the internet. So, if you are using the internet to search for information use the library’s very own information databases by going to mytpl.org/reference. Once you are on the library’s reference page select “database by
