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How to write an informative essay in 7 steps.
Use this step-by-step guide to ace your next informative essay.
What is an informative essay?
An informative essay answers a question by thoroughly explaining a selected topic. Unlike reflective essays, reaction essays, or argumentative essays, an informative essay stays objective. Its goal isn’t to persuade a reader to feel or believe one way or another. Instead, it teaches the reader something factual.
The informative essay format is broad. These essays can compare subjects, walk readers through a system or step-by-step process, analyze data, or summarize significant events. The topics can be complex or simple. One essay could answer the question, “What is the National Football League?” while another could answer, “Why did the National Football League institute the dynamic kickoff rule?”
You may be asked to write an informative essay to report findings to your professor. Or, you may use this format to present useful facts to your class for an upcoming exam. Other times, you may use an informative essay as a clear way to communicate deeper information on a person, place, or event for an end-of-semester project.
As you move into higher education, you’ll be asked to write at a higher level and think about subjects in new ways. Informative essays will likely be a large part of your chosen curriculum because they will help you synthesize information and ideas.
If you’re preparing to enter college, you may also want to study how to write a college essay and cover letter and take stock of what to include in your college resume. With some step-by-step guidance, you’ll be on your way to informing your readers in no time.
Here are the seven steps for writing an informative essay.
1. Choose a topic.
For some informative essays, you’ll be assigned a topic from your department or professor. Other times, you may be given a general subject and asked to choose your own topic related to it. When given the option to choose for yourself, pick something you are excited to learn more about, which will make the research process much more enjoyable.
2. Research.
It’s time to dive deep into your chosen topic. The best way to become an expert is to learn from the experts. Seek out credible sources and keep track of where you find your information. You’ll need the source details when you create your citations.
If you aren’t sure where to begin, visit your campus library and ask a librarian for help. They can connect you with online archives as well as physical books and articles and generally point you in the right direction. If you come across digital works that seem intimidating to tackle, try using a tool like the Adobe Acrobat AI Assistant, and use AI in education to summarize long documents or generate key takeaways.
3. Develop your outline.
When you develop an outline, you give yourself a chance to organize your facts and sources in a logical way. Think of your outline as the skeleton of your essay. You can easily move ideas around until they make sense before getting lost in the meat of your writing.
Exactly how you organize your informative essay outline will depend on the topic you chose. Writing chronologically may make sense when you are focused on an event or a person. If you’re explaining a system or process, you can present information one step at a time. You could compare and contrast two topics or share information on multiple items in order of importance.
Your outline can be formatted in a bulleted list or using Roman numerals to denote sections and subsections.
4. Write your essay.
With your outline in hand, you’re ready to write your essay. Don’t be intimidated by the blank page. If you follow your outline, you’ll do great. Expand on each point in your outline, drawing from the sources you selected. Your first draft doesn’t have to be perfect. Focus on getting the words on the page. You’ll have the time to make changes later. Once you finish writing, you may want to memorize key points so you feel prepared when presenting. An AI flashcard maker can help you feel confident sharing the essay’s main points.
5. Edit and proofread.
Once you have finished your draft, take a break. Step away from your writing and come back to it with fresh eyes. Start by editing the content. Check your work for clarity, tone, and flow. Rework any areas that don’t seem to make sense or sound right as you read them. This is also a good time to ask a friend, family member, or mentor to review your essay and give feedback. Remember that they can use Acrobat online to edit a PDF version of your essay by adding sticky notes, leaving comments, and more.
When you’re happy with the structure of your essay, it’s time to proofread for grammar. Read it through once again out loud, which will help you catch mistakes better than reading along in your head.
6. Create your citations.
Most informative essays will require a citations page of some kind. The exact format of the citations will vary depending on the style your professor asks you to follow. Some of the most common styles in academia are Chicago, APA, and MLA.
7. Prepare your document for sharing and viewing.
The last step in the informative essay process is making sure everyone can access it. When you convert your document to PDF, you prevent readers from accidentally making changes and preserve your formatting no matter what device they are using to view the document.
Informative essay FAQs.
How do you start an informative essay?
Sometimes, the most difficult part of an informative essay is knowing how to start an informative essay. If you’re having trouble choosing a topic, try a brainstorming technique:
- Mind mapping. Write the main or broad topic idea in the center of the page. Draw connecting lines out to other topics and keywords, with more lines connecting those topics and ideas to new ideas and each other. Do this for five minutes.
- Starbursting. At the top of the page, write the main topic. Then, answer who, what, when, where, why, and how.
- Stream of consciousness. Set a timer for one minute. Write as many topics as you can before the time runs out. No topic is off-limits.
What are the three parts of an informative essay?
Like most essays, informative essays have three main parts: the introduction, the body, and the conclusion.
The introduction should hook the reader and make them want to learn more. The most important part of your introduction is the thesis statement. In an informative essay, the thesis is the question you are going to answer for the reader.
The body of your essay dives into your topic in detail. It introduces relative subtopics in a logical way. Each paragraph of the body should start with a topic sentence, present research on that topic, and then give any further explanation necessary to tie the paragraph back to the thesis or flow into the next paragraph.
The conclusion reiterates the thesis and the points you made in your essay.
What is an example of an informative essay?
Since informative essays can be any topic and length, you won’t find a one-size-fits-all example. However, a basic example follows the basic five-paragraph essay structure. Here is what an informative essay on PDFs might look like.
Introduction
This paragraph tells the reader that you’ll be answering the question: What is a PDF?
Body paragraph
This paragraph defines what a PDF is.
Body paragraph
This paragraph shares the history of the PDF — the who, what, when, where, why, and how of its invention.
Body paragraph
This paragraph shares the unique features and benefits of PDF documents.
Conclusion
This paragraph summarizes the answer to the question in the introduction by highlighting key facts from the body paragraphs. It may share a brief statement of how PDFs are used today or another relevant fact to tie the piece together.
Can AI help me write an informative essay?
While most classes won’t allow AI to completely write your essay for you, you can use AI to assist you in many phases of the writing process.
AI can help you brainstorm topic ideas. It can also be a helpful tool as you research for your informative essay. AI assistants can quickly provide summaries of lengthy documents, saving you the time and effort of reading them unnecessarily and making it easier to choose the best sources to support your thesis. AI writing assistants can make suggestions during the editing process by identifying areas where you can improve your word choice or sentence structure.
Outside of essay writing, there are many other ways that AI tools can help you in school. Acrobat AI Assistant, for example, can generate AI quiz questions and create AI study guides from your class notes and materials.
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