An Expository Essay explains, describes, and informs the reader. It is the type of writing that most of us encounter in our daily lives. For example, when we read non-fiction books, magazines, or newspaper articles, the authors use expository writing to inform readers about the topic. And at work, people are required to produce business reports to inform their superiors and co-workers about progress and occurrences that take place at other levels of the company.
In addition to providing clarity and exercising good organizational skills in a written text, the writer of an expository text cannot assume that the reader has prior knowledge or prior understanding of the topic that is being discussed.Also, the writer’s purpose in an expository essay is not to persuade or influence, but to present information clearly, logically, and in most cases, chronologically.
For purposes of this writing assignment, please choose one of the three organizational patterns listed below:
*Explain a process- (i.e. how to bake a birthday cake, how to play soccer)
*Compare or contrast two items (i.e. college students in the United States vs. college students in Canada or another industrialized country)
*Identify a cause-effect relationship (i.e. what lead to the Revolutionary or Gulf War, or the many causes of asthma)
You may choose your own topic for this assignment, but you must use only ONE of the organizational patterns listed above. A minimum of 5 sources must be included on your Works Cited Page. All of your sources must come from BCCC’s (Baltimore City Community College) Database of Articles. Two of the sources must be articles from Academic Journals.The other three must be Newspaper or Magazine articles from the database.
The Library’s database articles can be accessed by clicking on the Library link/icon which is located in the far left column on your Canvas page.
It is just under the Help link. Once you have clicked on the Library link, you will arrive to the Library’s webpage. On the webpage click on the link for Databases. After clicking on the link for Databases, a list of Databases will appear.
For purposes of this assignment, I suggest that you click on Academic Onefile. However, you can use any of the other databases as well. A search box will appear after clicking on Academic One File. Use key words from your research topic to conduct a search for related articles. Search results will appear.
Academic Journals will appear in the first listing of results
To see article results for Newspaper and Magazine articles, click on the links next to Academic Journals
All of your articles cannot be older than 2019 (you may use the publication date filter to make sure that your articles fall within the time period)
Once you have located a source that you would like to use, click on EMAILwhich is also a link on the side of, or at the top of the page of the article that you select. Once you email the article to yourself, you will always be able to reference it as your write your Rough Draft and Final Paper.
Then, click on the word CITE, which will be featured as a link at the top of or on the side of the article that you clicked on to use. Then, cut and paste the source to a Microsoft Word document (which will become your Works Cited Page). Please do this for all five of your entries.
All of your entries on your Works Cited Page must be in alphabetical orderaccording to the author’s last name. If an author is not listed, please use the first letter of the title of the article. All the sources have to come from the Battimore City Community College Library database
