Kinds of Essays

Persuasive Essay

• Goal: to present the reader with a new, original way of looking at a concept, whether it is a book, a historical event, or a scientific theory.

• Focuses mostly on a primary source. Primary sources include works of literature, historical documents, psychological studies, and sociological experiments.

  • Compare and contrast. This type of persuasive essay involves identifying similarities and differences between two arguments, events, ideas, or objects. However, simply pointing out similarities and differences is not enough. A good compare-and-contrast essay shows how the similarities and differences point to an interesting idea.

  • Cause and effect. In this type of persuasive essay, you should identify possible causes or effects of an event. However, these causes and effects must serve as evidence for a broader argument if your essay is to be persuasive. As you think about causes and effects, look for patterns and try to identify causes or effects that other writers or researchers have overlooked.

Research Paper

• Goal: to present the reader with a new, original way of looking at a concept, but with a broader scope than a persuasive essay offers.

• In addition to analyzing primary sources, a research paper provides context for its argument by summarizing and commenting on secondary sources, which are other people’s analyses of primary sources.

• Not a summary of many people’s ideas. Instead, a research paper should evaluate those ideas and either propose a new argument or develop an existing one.

Personal Essay

• Goal: to persuade the reader of the validity of a single main idea through the discussion of personal experience. Often, the main idea is the experience of a realization or decision.

• Like the other types of essays, a personal essay contains an argument. Explain how your experiences relate to your main idea, just as you explain how your evidence relates to your thesis in a persuasive essay or research paper.