The expository writer: an introduction

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Welcome to "The Expository Writer," a series of posts dedicated to the process of writing expository essays

Over the next weeks, we will be thinking aloud in this space about every granular step of writing an expository essay, as well as different writing strategies that work for different people. While an expository essay has to hew to certain rules (which I will detail over the course of this blog), it also offers the potential for significant creative license.  The push and pull of a rigid structure and the creative expression of each writer is actually what makes expository writing really interesting! 

What is expository writing?

According to Stanford University, “Exposition is a type of oral or written discourse that is used to explain, describe, give information or inform.”

This definition is a pretty broad, more or less encompassing any act of communication that conveys informational content!  I encountered something similarly broad on a number of university writing program websites. 

But I'm more interested in the how of writing an expository essay than the what.  Every definition was going to be too broad, too general, or too verbose. These posts are less about what an expository essay was and more about how to get one written and done, and handed in to a teacher or an admissions committee.  Less theory, more practice.

In writing this introduction, though, I have broken one of the central rules of expository writing: outline before you start! 

If you don’t outline, you have no idea where you want to end up! In further posts on expository writing, we'll be discussing structure.

Sophie holds an MPA in Public Administration from NYU and a BA in Comparative Literature from Dartmouth College. Outside of teaching, Sophie has spent her career working at the intersection of the public, private and nonprofit sectors to promote access to healthcare, education and employment.

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