Four main types of writing are persuasive, argumentative, narrative and expository writing. They can be seen in academic writing and research paper. Different types of writing are written in different ways. This article will help you identify characteristics of different types of writing in detail.
Persuasive writing
The main purpose of persuasive writing is to convince or persuade readers to agree with the authors’ point of view. Sometimes, this type of writing aims to achieve a certain outcome by persuading readers to agree or taking particular actions. Therefore, it is normally subjective, opinionated, passionate, emotional and personal-based writing. In order for
The authors tend to have specific audience or readers in mind, so they use words and examples that are specifically relevant to their readers. The authors like to use subject pronoun “You” in their writing to make the readers feel more related. Using second person pronoun develops an appeal to the readers and make them feel more understood. Sometimes, with exaggeration, authors use data, direct speech, the superlative adjectives to make their writing more convincing as well.
Argumentative Writing
Similar to persuasive writing, authors write argumentative essay to develop positions in certain situations, topics, events and so on. However, they provides reasons why they develop the ideas or why they support certain stance with fact, data and scientific-proven knowledge.
In argumentative writing, authors tend to do more research to find logical evidence to support their viewpoints. They like to use data number, historical events, theories, quotes from well-known people to show how they form their ideas. They use critical thinking and analytical skills to weigh different viewpoints and then provide logical reasons why they think one outweighs another. Hence, argumentative essay is more objective comparing to persuasive writing.
Narrative Writing
Another types of writing is narrative writing. It can be either the authors’ personal stories or someone else’s stories. It can be any part of their lows and highs throughout their life history. It tends to focus on short time period or certain memorable events. Writing narrative writing increases creativity and art of story telling and ability of writing report. Also, when it comes to personal narrative writing, authors can craft it to personal statement or job application.
Authors use pronouns I and We for personal narrative writing, whereas they use pronoun He, She, It, They for retelling actual events. Most of them, it is written in chronological order. It ought to be in past tense. It is a piece of creative writing because authors can use imaginary and any adjectives and adverbs they think help generate bigger pictures’ in the mind of readers. In other words, a good narrative writing helps readers able to empathize and feel like they are in the stories as well. It includes emotions like sadness and happiness to grab the emphasis of readers.
Unlike other types of writing, narrative writing can be written in various styles. It does not have to follow the structure of formal writing like having introduction, body and conclusion. Below is how narrative writing can be organized. Authors can structure their writing in paragraphs or chapters depending on the length of the stories they want to write.

Expository Writing
Among all types of writing, expository writing intends to describe or give detail explanation of certain topics ranging from theories, process to sets of ideas. This type of writing can be in many forms such as textbooks, newsletters, manuals, research paper and so on. Information in expository writing is typically objective. It is written in formal format and with logical explanation and factual information.
There is no authors’ viewpoint included in the writing. Unlike argumentative and persuasive writing, authors have no intention to change readers’ viewpoints nor present their own viewpoints on certain topics. They basically produce a piece of comprehensive writing so that readers can obtain deeper understanding on the topics.
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