battle of Thermopylae, informative essay

The informative essay is an essay that informs the reader about a topic. The writer essentially
becomes an expert on a topic and educates the reader. Its purpose is not to persuade the reader to
an opinion, but to just explain about a topic. Consult College Grammar and Composition
Handbook, sect. 45, for an explanation of a basic essay. The objectives of this composition are
for you to learn the five-paragraph essay format and to learn to effectively incorporate support
material into an essay.
Planning and Writing an Informative Essay
1. Decide on a topic. The topic for this paper will be a place such as a large city, a state, or a
country.
• Choose a place from the list of approved topics. This list will be on Canvas. If there is
a place that you would like to write about that is not on the approved topic list, you
must get approval from your instructor before researching and writing the paper.
• The paper is not meant to persuade your audience into believing something
argumentative about the place; rather, it is meant to inform the audience about
different aspects of the location.
Submit your topic on Canvas. You must get your topic approved by your teacher.
2. Brainstorm your topic. List 25 details or ideas about your topic. Write down aspects
about the place that you may already be familiar with and write down aspects that you
may want to learn more about.
• When brainstorming, try to categorize your ideas together. This will help when you
prepare the outline later.
• Writing out questions on your brainstorm can also help guide you.
• When writing a brainstorm, writing down phrases, clauses, or questions is the best
way to spur thinking about what you will need to research.
• Use the following prompt to provoke some ideas for the brainstorm: Before my
paper, my audience may know X. After reading my paper, they will know Y.
• Identify your audience in the brainstorm. For this paper, your audience is your peers.
3. Write the thesis. Use a simple sentence (see Handbook, sect. 7.2). The thesis sentence
lets your reader know the topic of your paper. For this paper, your thesis will include
your three main points. Use the following structure for your thesis:
Three aspects ________ is known for are its typography, culture, and industry.
4. Outline the topic. Because the body of your paper will have three main points, your
outline will also have three points. For example, if you were writing a composition about
Georgia, your outline might look like the following:
Example: I. First, Georgia is known for its typography.
A. Appalachian Mountains
B. Coastal Plains

II. Second, Georgia is known for its culture.
A. Literature
B. Food
III. Third, Georgia is known for its industry.
A. Farming
B. Manufacturing
6. Write the topic sentences. While writing the outline, begin writing your topic sentences.
These topic sentences should be used as the main points of your outline.
• Like the thesis, each topic sentence should be a simple (or complex) sentence. A
topic sentence begins with the topic of the composition. The second half of each
topic sentence (verb/complement) states the one characteristic that will be developed
in the paragraph.
Topic Sentence Examples:
First, Georgia is known for its typography.
Topic Sentence Examples Continued:
Second, Georgia is known for its culture.
Finally, Georgia is known for its industry.
Note—The topic sentence also includes a transitional word to show the progression of
ideas (e.g, another, final; first, second, third). See Handbook, sect. 44.6c, for other
transitions that could be used.
• Using the topic sentences in your outline will help as you begin writing your final
draft.
7. Research your topic to find specific details to support the topic. You should find at least
one library resource to use in your paper. These resources may include reference books,
books from the general stacks, periodicals and magazines, or the library online resources
such as EBSCOhost, electronic periodicals (see list on library website), and Gale Access
Program.
• Since the composition will focus on three aspects of the chosen location, you will
look through your selected resource(s) for facts, interesting details, statistics, and
examples that will support the three aspects that you have chosen to focus on in the
composition.
• Record the bibliography information for each source at the top of separate sheets of
paper. See the Turabian Quick Guide found on Canvas for the correct formatting of
the different bibliographies. You will need a minimum of ten notes from your
research. Below is a sample bibliography format for a book. The information you
will need can be found on the title and copyright pages of the book. (Since this
composition is using parenthetical notes, you will use the reference list style of
bibliographies. See Kate L. Turabian’s A Manual for Writers of Research Papers,
Theses, and Dissertations, 8th ed., sect. 18–19.)

Examples:
Last name, first name. Copyright date. Title of Book. City of publication: Publisher.
Florence, Gene. 1988. Elegant Glassware of the Depression Era. 3rd ed. Paducah, KY:
Collector Books.
Stokes, Donald, and Lillian Stokes. 1996. Stokes Field Guide to Birds: Eastern Region.
Boston: Little, Brown, and Company.
o If there is more than one author, follow the Stokes example above.
o For the title of the book, capitalize the first and last words and important
words. (Unimportant words are prepositions and coordinating conjunctions.)
If there is a subtitle, place a colon between the title and subtitle. (See the
Florence example above.) Italicize the title of the book.
o If the book is an edition other than the first edition, add its edition number (see
the Florence example). Do not superscript any part of the edition number,
e.g., 2nd, 3rd, 4th.
o For the city of publication, use only the first one if there are multiple cities
listed. If the city is not well known, add the state using its two-letter postal
abbreviation (see the Florence example).
o The publisher’s name is typed exactly as it appears on the title page. It may
be shortened by dropping the initial The, Inc., Ltd., Company, and Publishing
Co. If you shorten one publisher’s name, you must shorten all the books’
using the same guidelines.
o The copyright date is the most recent one listed. Do not use printing dates.
• Record the information that you find on the sheet(s) of paper on which you recorded
each bibliography.
Be careful to avoid plagiarism as you take notes. Plagiarism is claiming another’s
words, ideas, sentence structure, or organization as one’s own work. It is a type of
stealing. To avoid plagiarism, follow three basic principles:
o Use quotation marks around exact words from any source.
Example: According to Michael R. Lowman (1983, 87) in United States History in
Christian Perspective, “The Great Awakening was a major cause of
America’s becoming an independent nation, and subsequent revivals kept
America from slipping away from the foundation of righteousness.”
1
o When paraphrasing an author’s ideas, use your own words and sentence
structure. You may retain one or two key words from a passage to maintain the
accuracy of the author’s ideas.
Example: According to Michael R. Lowman (1983, 87) in United States History in
Christian Perspective, the Great Awakening greatly influenced Colonial
America toward declaring her independence from Britain because the
Awakening indirectly emphasized that all men are equal before God.
1
Reprinted by permission from United States History in Christian Perspective, A Beka Book, copyright ©
1983 Pensacola Christian College.

o In the composition, you will give credit for an author’s words, ideas, opinions,
research findings, and precise factual information with a parenthetical note (see
the above examples). If the information can be found in multiple sources and all
the authorities agree about it, then it does not need citing as long as it is
paraphrased. For your composition, you will probably cite precise factual
information, statistics, and quotations.
• You will need a minimum of ten notes from your source(s).
7. Write the rough draft (600-750 words). This is a five-paragraph essay.
• Begin the introduction with general information about your topic in order to capture
the reader’s attention. For the English professor topic, you might give some statistics
showing how many people major in English education in college. The information
should lead to the thesis statement at the end of the introduction. The thesis should
be the last sentence of the paragraph. (See step 3, p. 21, for how to write the
thesis.)
• Include in the body of the composition three paragraphs. Each paragraph develops
one characteristic of the topic.
o Begin each paragraph with a topic sentence that you wrote in your outline.
o Continue each paragraph with specific details about the paragraph’s main point.
Follow the outline to know what to discuss about the main point. In the English
professor example, one body paragraph would discuss the different degrees
required to become a college English professor. The other main points will follow
also follow the outline.
Support the information that you provide with research. There should be one
citation per body paragraph. These citations could be quotations or
paraphrased information from books.
There is a four-step process for smoothly incorporating support material into a
paragraph: introduce it, state it, note it, explain it.
1. Introduce the source of the citation by using the author’s full name the
first time that you cite a source; then use the last name only for subsequent
citations from that source. When you introduce a source for the first time,
include the author’s credentials so that the reader accepts him as an authority.
His credentials might be his profession (e.g., a professor at Harvard), his years
of experience in the field, or his accomplishments (e.g., awards, author of a
well-respected publication).
Examples:
According to Donald and Lillian Stokes, bird and wildlife experts with over twenty
years’ experience,
Donald and Lillian Stokes in their Field Guide to Birds state
Donald and Lillian Stokes, authors of acclaimed wildlife field guides, describe
Generally use a present tense action verb in the introduction: e.g., write
explain, describe, state.

2. Note the source with a parenthetical citation. The parenthetical citation is
placed immediately after the author’s name in the introduction to the source.
If the author’s name is stated before the citation (which is how yours will
be), only include date and page number. If you use two books with authors
having the same last name, include the authors’ first names in the
parenthetical citation. The period for the sentence goes after the citation,
except with a block quotation which places the period before the citation.
(See Turabian, sect. 18, for fuller details.)
Examples:
(1996, 148) This is the format that you will use in your paper.
3. State the information or use a short quotation from the source. When
summarizing or paraphrasing, be sure to avoid plagiarism by using your own
words and sentence structure. Generally keep quotations shorter than five
lines. (If a quotation is five or more lines, it must be formatted as a block
quotation. See Turabian, sect. 25.2.2).
4. Explain the significance of the information in the citation. Do not just
summarize a quotation here. Show how the documented information
develops or adds to the discussion of the topic. This step is vital to the
coherence of the paragraph. If the explanation follows a cited paraphrase, as
in the first example below, begin the explanation with some type of transitions
that show you are adding your own thoughts (e.g., thus, in other words, in
application, consequently, therefore, as a result).
Examples:
According to Donald and Lillian Stokes (1996, 148), authors of field guides with twenty years’
experience, the snowy plover experienced a 70 to 80 percent decrease in population in California
during the 1980s. Thus, this decrease in the snowy plover’s population has caused the bird to
become a threaten species that is now protected under the Endangered Species Act.
After being nearly hunted to extinction for its beautiful plumage, the snowy egret has made a
comeback. Stokes and Stokes (1996, 35) record increases of at least 2 percent per year in the
snowy egret’s population numbers recorded during Christmas Bird Counts, conducted by the
National Audubon Society. The Christmas Bird Count, according to Stokes and Stokes (1996,
xiv), “is the largest survey of birds in the world, with more than 45,000 volunteer participants.”
The increase in numbers is because of a ban on hunting and the use of DDT, a pesticide that
caused the birds’ eggs to be too fragile to survive the incubation period.
o End each body paragraph with a concluding (clincher) sentence. Emphasize the
significance of the paragraph—its key ideas. Avoid introducing the next
paragraph’s topic in the clincher.
• The conclusion of the composition should begin with the thesis statement reworded to
avoid monotony. Continue the conclusion with general information that helps to
make the composition sound finished. Do not continue describing characteristics of
the topic or summarize the information within the body of the composition. You can
emphasize the significance of the topic or use a quotation.

• Write the reference list (bibliography) page. See step 5 (p. 20) for how to write the
bibliography for a book.
o Title the page “References.”
o Add two blank single spaces after the title.
o The books are arranged alphabetically by the authors’ last names. If a book does
not have an author, alphabetize by the title (ignoring initial articles).
o Single space the bibliographies. Use a hanging indention (first line is not
indented; the succeeding lines are indented ½ inch).
o If you used multiple books, add one blank single-spaced line between the
bibliography entries.
Revising an Informative Essay
8. Revise and edit the rough draft. All aspects of the composition should be revised (for
general guidelines on revising, see Handbook, sect. 43.3–43.4, 45.5–45.6; and page 3 in
supplement).
9. Complete the final draft.

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