Different Types of Writing

Book Reports

A book report is a summary of a book. It should outline the plot (the sequence of events in the story--in other words, what happens), and it should also comment on the tone and the theme of the book. The tone is the flavor or attitude of the story. The theme is the general message or overall idea behind the story, such as man versus nature. A good book report uses the discussion of the plot and the tone to comment on the overall theme of the story. Sometimes the theme is not as obvious as man versus nature, but in most cases it shouldn’t be too difficult to figure out what the overall message of the story is (for example, a lot of books for teenagers are about meeting the challenges of growing up, even if the plots of the stories are very different).

The reader’s reactions to and thoughts about the story are an important part of a good book report. But it’s not enough to say that you liked or disliked the story. Give reasons for your judgment of the story--if you didn’t like it because it seemed unrealistic, point out events in the story that you found unrealistic in particular. If you thought that the writing was hard to follow, quote a passage that seemed particularly difficult. If the characters suddenly acted in ways that didn’t make sense because of some detail in the story (John, who is deathly afraid of heights in chapter 1 is suddenly climbing trees for fun in chapter 4), point out the inconsistency. A book report gives you the chance to show your powers of observation and your ability to judge the skill of the writer.

Research Papers

Research papers seek to examine a topic in depth, drawing information from multiple sources. In a research paper, the author’s opinions and viewpoints are secondary, while the facts uncovered through research are stressed. For that reason, research papers are not usually written in the first person (that is, “I"). Whatever the topic, research papers stress the information assembled by several writers on a subject and present the information in a logical structure that makes it easy for the reader to learn about the topic.

The sections on planning your paper (including using outlines and taking and organizing notes) and using citations and bibliographies contain a lot of information to help you write an effective research paper. The following tips may also be helpful in writing a good research paper:

• Choose a topic that’s neither too broad nor too narrow. Remember the example of a preliminary outline discussed in another part of this site? While broad topics are great for preliminary brainstorming and outlines, a topic as general as “The Egyptians” would make for a paper that was either too long or too general. Use a broad preliminary outline to help you decide on a more narrow focus--for example, instead of a research paper on the Egyptians in general, you could write a research paper about Egyptian beliefs about death and afterlife. This topic is broad enough to ensure that you’ll find information easily, but narrow enough that you will be able to dig deeper into your topic.
• Write a topic statement that describe the scope or main focus of your paper. In the Egyptian example above, a topic statement, which usually goes in the first paragraph of your paper, might be “Modern society has an expression: you can’t take it with you. But the Egyptians believed that you could indeed bring all of your worldly goods into the afterlife with you, which is why they were often buried with tools, jewelry, pets, and even servants!” This lets your reader know that your paper is about Egyptian beliefs on the afterlife, without making an awkward statement like “this paper is about Egyptian beliefs on the afterlife.”
• Choose your sources wisely. Remember--just because someone has written a book or created a web site on a topic doesn’t mean that they’re necessarily an expert. (And, by the way, don’t assume that the information on the Egyptians is completely accurate (remember, check your facts if you can’t evaluate the author!) Make sure you’re using reputable sources by considering the qualifications of the author or organization behind the book, article, or site. See the section on evaluating resources on the planning page.
• Don’t get distracted by interesting details that don’t have much to do with your topic. If, in your study of Egyptian beliefs, you come across some interesting facts about Roman engineering, put it in a footnote or save it for another research paper.
• Remember to close your paper with a conclusion. It doesn’t have to be earth shattering, but it should neatly sum up the main points or focus of your paper. In the Egyptian example above, a conclusion might state something such as “Throughout life, the Egyptians planned for death, believing that it was an extension of the physical world. Death, to the Egyptians, was not something to be feared, but anticipated wisely and celebrated.” This not only sums up an important, central point of your topic, it also ends the paper on a final, graceful note.

Essays

In general, an essay presents an author’s views for a variety of purposes: to convince the reader that the author’s opinions and arguments are the right way to look at something; to explain how to do something; to write about an experience the author has had; to describe an experience that the author had; and for other purposes. As you can see, the term “essay” is really just a convenient term to describe a paper that relies more on the author’s views or experience than on the presentation of a lot of different research and opinions within one paper (as we do in a research paper).

The essay categories below include the kinds of essays you are most likely to encounter and write during middle school and high school. There are other kinds of essays as well, many of which are discussed in the pages included in the links section.

The Persuasive Essay

In the persuasive essay (also called the position essay or position piece), the author expresses his or her opinion and stance, or position, on an issue. It can be viewed as taking one side of a debate and using facts and strong reasoning skills to convince your audience that you have the stronger argument. Most persuasive essays are going to be based on the author’s belief in a “should.” Examples of topics for persuasive essays include:

• The school should have (should not have) a dress code. (If this is your stance, you would explain the reasons that the school should or should not do this.)
• The driving age should be 15 instead of 16. (Again, you would back up your opinion with arguments and facts that support it.)
• Everyone should be vegetarians. (To back up your opinion in this case, you could argue that it is cruel to kill animals for food when we can survive on plant-based foods; vegetarian diets have been shown to be healthier than meat-based diets; etc.) You would have to cite research that shows this and give the source in a bibliography or “Works Cited” section.

The Expository Essay

Unlike the persuasive essay, in an expository essay, you are merely explaining about your topic to the reader. This essay is more heavily supported with fact and evidence, rather than oppinion (although opinion is still included).

The How-To Essay

The how-to essay does exactly what you might think: it explains how to do something! The how-to essay might explain how to build a kite or make a recipe or just about anything else you can explain to a reader. How-to essays are often supplemented with diagrams to help the reader follow the discussion more easily. Usually, you will detail the different steps involved in a process by using words like “first . . . next. . . then” or “first, second, third.” Another option is to use numbered paragraphs to describe each step of a process. A good way to make sure that you aren’t skipping steps in the process is to “walk through it” as you are writing down the steps--for example, if you are describing how to make a cake, actually make the cake as you write down the steps. That way, you won’t forget important details!

The Narrative Essay

You probably know that a narrator is someone who tells (i.e., narrates) a story. In a narrative essay, you are telling a true story about something that you have experienced. A classic example is the “what I did on my summer vacation” essay. Narrative essays are almost always written from the first person ("I") perspective.

In the narrative essay, you’re not trying to convince your reader of anything except that your story is worth reading to the end. To that end, narrative essays are usually very rich in details and, as with fiction, the writer attempts to tell the story in a manner that will keep the reader interested. Writers achieve this in a variety of ways: through the use of humor, if appropriate; by using creative word choices and sentence structures, as they would in a fictional story; by making sure that the story is unusual or interesting enough to make people want to read it.

Often the type of story you are telling will determining what approach you should use; if you are going to write about the time you spent eight hours cleaning the attic, you probably will want to focus on the interesting things you found and use descriptive words to “paint a picture” of the experience. If you are writing about the time that your dog knocked you off the dock into the lake while you were fishing, and it’s a funny memory for you, you will probably try to use words and details that will make your reader laugh along with you.

Fiction

Fiction differs from nonfiction writing only in that fictional stories occurred in the mind of the author. People often think that fiction involves writing techniques that are somehow more “creative” than nonfiction, but this isn’t so! The narrative essay, for example, may use the same writing techniques as a short story such as the deliberate choice of words that create strong images and atmosphere, the use of dialog (i.e., conversations between people), and the expression of the narrator’s thoughts and feelings.

There are certain tricks to writing fiction, but they’re not difficult to learn and remember. Most of the “rules of thumb” apply regardless of whether you’re writing a short story or a book. Here are some guidelines to help you get started:

• Start “in medias res” or “in the midst of things.” This is especially true in short fiction, because books give you more space to explore the background and history of your characters. But even in books, you wouldn’t start with the birth of your characters unless it was relevant to the story. Starting in the middle of things usually means starting your story with some event that moves the story forward toward some event that will make your character begin to change in some way. Something has to happen to get the characters to move toward some greater realization or change in their life or viewpoint.
• Keep tension throughout most of your story. You can think of story structures like a slide: the story begins and the tension moves toward a midpoint (like climbing up a ladder); something happens at the climax (also called the “midpoint turning point") that changes the course of the story or the protagonist (the main character of your story); then there is a gradual “slide” down toward the resolution of the story.
• Have a main occurrence that changes the course of the story in some way. This is usually called the climax of the story. The climax can be some big event that the story has been building to (James Bond meets his nemesis in the hollow mountain and has to disarm the space ray aimed at the earth) or it can be something more subtle (the new girl on the track team wins the big race).
• In order to have a story, the character has to go through some experience that changes them in some way, even if the change isn’t all that dramatic. Simply learning a lesson about themselves and about life is a big change, after all. (In the example above, the girl that won the race might realize that she can do anything that boys can do, even though her grandfather has always told her that girls weren’t as good as boys.) In other words, something has to happen in a story, and that “happening” has to affect the characters. If you write about a character’s trip to the grocery store and nothing happens except that they buy milk and eggs (they don’t learn anything or change from the experience), then you don’t really have a story. This doesn’t mean that during the trip to the grocery store, aliens have to invade the dairy aisle and make everyone switch from whole milk to skim milk. The “change” can be as simple as the protagonist seeing something that makes him or her decide to change in some way.
• Have an ending. Again, it doesn’t have to be dramatic, but it should give the reader the message that there has been a change in the character(s), even if it’s not at all clear that this change will make the character’s life any better or different. But the reader should get the message that the story has come to an end, whether it’s a happy ending or not.

Let’s look at the Wizard of Oz (the movie, in particular) as an example of a story that includes all of the features discussed above. The story begins with an event that changes Dorothy’s life and that moves the story forward--the tornado. Once in Oz, the tension of the story is maintained by subjecting Dorothy and her friends to a series of challenges as they move toward the climax: getting to Oz and asking the Wizard for help. (In this story, one can argue that there are actually a couple of climaxes or “turning points”: meeting the Wizard and getting the ruby slippers.) After the witch is killed, the “slide” to a resolution or ending begins--Dorothy clicks her heels together and is transported back to Kansas. But she’s learned something: as the Good Witch tells her, she could have gone home at any time, because home was with her all the time. Remember, at the end of the movie, she realizes that all the people she loved and who loved her were really with her all the time, in her heart. She has changed and learned that “home” means more than a physical house.

Where to Publish Your Work

Did you think you had to wait until you were grown up and out of school to become a published writer? Not true! There are plenty of opportunities for teen writers, and there’s nothing like seeing your name in print to make you want to write more. If you think you have something to say that others will enjoy, react to, or benefit from, then by all means put your words out there in the wide world! Some places to publish your work include:

• School newspapers
• Local newspapers--letters to the editor, feature stories focusing on interesting local places and people.
• ‘zines and web ‘zines--’zines (short for magazines) can be popular, “glossy” magazines with a lot of readers or smaller, self-published newsletters. ‘zines often deal with pop culture: music, movies, arts, clothing, television, etc. Contribute your writing to an existing ‘zine or start your own!
• Web pages--most ISPs (Internet Service Providers), such as AOL, permit you to publish a personal home page on their servers. What better place to publish your own writing? There are also many, many writing sites that publish stories and essays by teen writers. Another idea is to work with your teachers and fellow students to create class web sites on which to post your stories and essays.
• Listservers and bulletin boards--mailing lists and discussion boards on the Web devoted to specific topics. Share your thoughts on favorite topics by subscribing to and contributing to a listserver. Other, “bulletin board” style web sites, such as Yahoo Groups (which can also be set to act as a listserv) offer discussion boards on just about any topic you can think of!
• Writing contests--many popular magazines have writing contests for teen readers. Contests are also sometimes hosted by local organizations--particularly for scholarships for college. Schools sometimes have writing contests. The Internet is also a source of many contests--many writing sites and sites for popular authors regularly have contests, most often in exchange for prizes such as books and merchandise, but also occasionally for cash prizes. Be careful, though, especially on the Internet--NEVER NEVER send money to a contest (they should be free), don’t give out personal information without checking with a parent or teacher first, and if you have any doubts about a particular contest, show the guidelines to a parent or teacher.

Links

Writing Research Papers: A Step-by-Step Procedure from Purdue University’s Online Writing Lab page includes a comprehensive checklist of steps from choosing a topic through writing the paper.

Guide to Writing a Basic Essay covers the basic steps involved in writing an essay and includes a sample essay and links to other essay sites.  Basic and easy to follow.

Writing Den’s Essay Builder includes description of the structure of an essay, writing tips, and a discussion of different kinds of and approaches to essays.

Teen Ink Magazine is by and for teens, and accepts submissions of writing, artwork, and photographs.  Not only is there a web site, but also a print magazine that goes to thousands of classrooms across the country!  Be sure to check out the submission guidelines and go get published!

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