This article will be your complete guide to expository writing so you can understand the basics and start writing your piece.

For the most part, if you do any nonfiction writing, you will need to know what expository writing is and will have to practice it every now and then. It is writing that is entirely based on outlining facts. There’s little creativity and persuasion.

You most likely did a lot of this type of writing throughout your school years, but you might end up doing it as a professional writer as well.

Let’s dive in.

What Is Expository Writing?

The point of expository writing is to be factual and educational. Expository writing is not meant to be persuasive writing or have any type of storytelling elements.

The goal is always to educate the reader and give them the facts so they can understand a topic.

It is the difference between reading an academic book and a novel. One is for entertainment and one is for education. Sure, some written pieces can have a cross between the two, but strictly expository writing is only focused on the facts.

Examples of expository writing include:

• News articles
• Instructions
• Academic textbooks
• Scientific reports
• Academic essays
• Magazine articles
• Encyclopedia articles
• Business writing
• Most kinds of assignments in school

When you are reading expository writing, you always know what the goal of the piece is and everything is presented in a way that makes sense.

Every expository writing piece has a goal in mind. While it never has the goal to be persuasive writing, it can have the goal of informing the reader, giving them a timeline of events, filling the reader in on an interesting story they should know, or something else.

Before you start writing, you will want to think about what you want the reader to walk away from your article now knowing about the subject you are writing about.

Expository writing is always objective and does not contain anyone’s opinion inside the piece.

What Is Not Expository Writing

There are some types of writing that might feel like expository writing but in fact are not.

Some might include advertisements, opinion pieces in a major magazine, blogs, social media posts, and more.

Expository writing is not under any of the other writing categories such as persuasive writing, narrative writing, or descriptive writing.

With every piece of writing, you need to figure out if it is trying to persuade you or not. If it is, it is not expository writing.

Expository writing should not be persuasive or trying to guide you toward a certain conclusions in any way. It simply lays out the facts as they are and then lets you draw your own conclusions along the way.

If you see the author include anything about themselves and their opinion, that is automatically a sign that it’s not expository writing.

Your Complete Guide to Expository Writing And Tips For Success

Let’s go over some ideas and tips for you to use to put our expository piece together.

#1 – Pull out your main points and facts

If you are creating an expository writing piece, you will want to gather your most important facts into one place.

From there, you need to put them in the logical order to work through for the reader to follow and understand.

The main goal for expository writing is to inform and educate the reader. With that in mind, you need to deeply think about how you can best do that and present the facts so they have all the information they need to create their own opinions.

#2 – Double check your facts

Just like with journalism, it is important to know that the fact you are using are accurate.

There is a lot of slanted news and “facts” out there that you can come across while doing research for your writing. The best thing you can do is to double-check every single fact and the source you are pulling it from to make sure it is accurate.

At the very least, deep dive into who did the research or compiled the facts that you are using in your piece. The last thing you want to do is to ruin your own reputation by citing facts that are not true.

If you creating a piece that has expository writing, you are going to spend more time on the research and the organizing stage than in the writing stage.

#3 – Decide how you are going to lay out your facts

Once you have everything together, it is time to start figuring out how you are going to present the facts.

While it is important that you outline your facts in a logical way, you can still present them in a variety of styles.

You will need to figure out what your goal is by writing your piece. That will help you find the style you want to present your facts in. You could compare and contrast various facts, show problems and solutions (like you would see in something such as a case study), provide a timeline of events, and so on.

Even if you are doing something technical like writing out business documentation, you should still have a goal in mind of why you are writing your piece in the first place.

Who are you writing to? What do you want them to know by the end of reading your piece?

#4 – Get feedback

While you might think all of your writing is clear cut and objective, there is still a high chance that you will still have a slight personal slant in your work.

Getting feedback from someone neutral on the topic can help a lot because they will help point out when you are being persuasive.

It can help to get the opinion of multiple people on your written piece, but at least one can help a ton. You want to make sure you keep your writing factual and on point.

#5 – Edit ruthlessly

One thing that makes expository writing interesting is that it often cuts out the fluff. It is only focused on the essential parts that matter and the rest gets cut off.

Before you turn in your final draft of your writing, you will want to make sure you go through it and cut out anything that can be cut.

With each sentence, you should be asking yourself, “Is this essential information? If this was not in the piece, would it change the overall information?”

Need Help With Your Next Article?

You do not want to miss out on the article writing template. It walks you through all of the steps you need to take to make your next article a success.

I’ve been writing for a long time – for a living and for pleasure. Looking back into the recesses of time I can just about pinpoint the first pen pal letters I wrote. A teacher at my primary school had been approached by another at a different school and asked if anyone would volunteer to be a pen pal. My hand shot up. As it did when Jeremy asked his Twitter followers if anyone would like to write an essay on how pen pal letters help craft writing skills. My first thought was that any writing does – emails, social media posts, reports, formal letters. They’re all a way of honing our skills. But the intimacy of writing to pen pals gives you much more freedom of expression — one of the fundamentals of good writing.

A Few Early Experiences With Pen Pals

After that early introduction to pen pal writing, it was a few years before another opportunity arose. I’d done a personal assistant’s course at a local tech college and one of the students was Malaysian – Chooi-Ping. Forgive me if I’ve spelt her name wrong after all these years, but we conversed for some time; her airmail envelopes, with their foreign stamps always gave me a thrill of anticipation when they landed on the door mat. I learnt a lot about a different culture through the letters and, also, that people have fundamental similarities. The same fears, hopes, and pleasures.

A few years later I started up a correspondence with a Bulgarian called Maya who’d been my translator on a journalism assignment. The letters eventually petered out, as they often do, but a connection was made – and she recently contacted me on social media.

Those early experiences were a good exercise in formal, restrained correspondence – you rarely open up completely to people you haven’t shared life experiences with. But the letters certainly contributed to my writing skills; I had to choose what words and expressions to use when writing to a friend who had English as a second language. And, of course, I learnt a huge amount about different countries and the associated styles of writing.

Current Pen Pals, and How My Writing Has Benefitted

That said, one of the most rewarding forms of pen pal writing is when you can let rip. I have been blessed with several exceptional pen pals over the years – two good friends who moved away and the third someone who you could categorise as a pure pen pal. I’d never met her “in the real.”  

I am still writing via email, text, and FB messaging to two of these people, one for nearly 40 years! Let’s start with Ben – as I will call him, to spare his blushes if he happens to read this article. 

Ben is one of the funniest men I’ve had the pleasure of knowing and his letters would have me in stitches. I’ve kept some of his beautifully hand-written letters in my special tin suitcase (yes, I am that soppy) and his inventiveness and wit undoubtedly inspired me to write better. Most of our correspondence was light and entertaining, but occasionally it would touch on some matter or other that was concerning either one of us and the tone would change, the words and sentence structure reflecting this.

These are skills that all writers need and the beauty of writing to a pen pal is that you can write with little fear of recrimination or judgement. You can write about the weather, or the places you’ve visited, themselves fantastic exercises in description and observation, and then you can reveal those other experiences, the ones that search your soul and enrich your life and writing.

My other great pen pal is a woman I’ll call Vicky. I can only describe her as the ultimate pen pal. First off, we started writing to each other without ever meeting – in true pen pal fashion. We had been part of an online writers’ community and I only knew her by her pen name. However, the site was a hotbed of cracking writers and characters and her personality, like many others, shone through her online contributions. She was fun and competitive – the site had a unique competition structure, and she was always in there with an entry jostling for the top story/poem spot of the day. When the site shut down after a few years Vicky sought me out via Facebook and our relationship flourished. We exchanged lengthy messages, covering many key aspects of our lives. I learnt about her family, and she mine. Our children were of similar ages, so we wrote about the travails of education. We went through a truly difficult period together, with our mothers both ailing and dying at the same time. I also went through a difficult separation and, years later, ventured onto the dating scene – sharing the experiences was cathartic and a wonderful way to express powerful emotions in words. On a practical level, Vicky advised me and encouraged me with my writing. She read chapters of my new book, Fairest Creatures, and made helpful suggestions.

Writers do not write in a vacuum. we write from experience and the creative process of relating our lives to a pen pal hones our communication skills.

There has never been a more pleasurable interactive writing experience. It can be spontaneous and stress-free – no one is going to edit those gems. You might even decide to store some away for that future novel. Never forget, you are writing to a pal. Someone who wants to hear from you and loves to respond and encourage. Like all good conversations, listen and learn, as well as relate and emote. Express yourself and be entertained, take advice and give it if asked and don’t be afraid to be moved by your confidences. This is part and parcel of great literature. 

Let me end with a spooky thing about my pen pals – often when I think it’s time to contact them, or something significant happens in my life, they make contact. It used to be a welcome plop on the door mat; now it’s more likely to be a ping on my phone. Pen pal lines of communication can be downright magical.

Karen Taylor is an author and journalist. Her serial killer thriller Fairest Creatures is being published by Leamington Books on October 15. Available on Amazon and in Waterstones in paperback and digital.