Expository Writing


What is an expository text?

Apart from papers in which you have to argue in favour or against a topic, during your university studies you will also have to show how much you know about an issue.  This is the expository paper.  The aim of expository writing is to explain something to your reader-tutor, but also to inform, describe, define and instruct about a subject or an idea.

When writing an expository academic paper,  the most common techniques used to develop the issue are analogy, analysis, cause and effect, classification, comparison, definition examples and process analysis.

For more information about expository writing please visit:

Purdue University https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/685/02

Stanford University https://www.stanford.edu/~arnetha/expowrite/info.html