Wednesday, March 25, 2009

What is an exposition?

An exposition is a literary technique used to inform, explain, analyze, or define. The technique is used in the writing of texts such as textbooks, how-to essays, recipes, cook books, business letters, personal letters, news stories, press releases, research reports, scientific reports, term papers, wills, and encyclopedias. There are several types of expositional writing, and they are as follows:

-Sequence writing lists events or steps in chronological order.

-Descriptive essays use the senses of sight, smell, touch, hearing, and taste to provide the reader with a mental image or feeling about the subject.

-Classification writing uses an organizational strategy to arrange groups of objects or ideas according to a common theme.

-Comparison writing shows the similarities and differences between two or more subjects.

-Cause-and-effect writing, also known as analysis, identifies the reasons for an event or situation.

The technique of exposition writing is used in both fictional and non-fictional works.