All posts by Lesley Vos

How to Write a Thesis Statement for an Informative Essay

July 8, 2022

Decide on your essay’s main topic
Write down the subtopics you want to cover
Combine in one sentence to get a thesis

You know that essays don’t exist without thesis statements, right? It’s the first thing a teacher checks when grading your paper, and it’s among the top factors determining the grade you’ll get.

With tons of practical guides on thesis statement writing, most students still run into trouble when it comes to specific essay types: They wonder if a thesis structure of argumentative, persuasive, critical, and other essays look the same; they doubt if their essay statement is compelling enough to get an A for their work.

In this short guide, we’ll reveal the secrets of writing thesis statements for informative essays. The structure, actionable tips, and extra details are all covered.

What is a Thesis in Informative Essays?

A thesis is the heart of every essay, and you can’t write a worth-reading paper without stating a thesis at the beginning of your work. (Well, okay: It’s possible to write something with no thesis in it, but the quality of such work will suffer.)

A thesis statement refers to 1-2 sentences in the middle or end of an essay introduction. It summarizes the points you’re going to cover in your informative essay.

It’s super critical to understand the difference between a thesis statement and an essay introduction:

A thesis is an element of your introduction, not an intro itself.

Look:

First, you need to grab a reader’s attention (hook), then introduce your topic with some background on it, and finally, state a thesis for the audience to know what you’ll explain in the essay’s body.

Psst! For more info on how to write hooks and introductions for an informative essay, we’ve created corresponding guides on the blog. Don’t hesitate to check via the above link (see this article’s intro.)

Further reading: How to Write a Strong Thesis Statement (It’s our detailed guide unrelated to informative essays but college papers in general.)

The Purpose of Thesis Statements in Essays

“Why complicate things?” you ask. “Informative essays are like blog posts, no? Why all these rules, structure, theses, and so on?”

We feel your pain, we really do. And that’s why all our professional writers are here to help you with essay writing. However, a thesis statement is a must for academic papers to have; there are at least three reasons for it:

Essay theses determine the final grade a student gets for writing assignments.
A thesis makes an essay logical, which means a less challenging writing process for you: Once you come up with the main idea for your informative paper, all the following paragraphs become easier to craft.
It’s your instrument to tell the reader what your essay will be about, helping them understand if they want to keep reading to learn more.

And now, to business:

Thesis Statement for an Informative Essay

A thesis statement of an informative essay tells the reader the main ideas of your next paragraphs, which follow your introduction. It can be a little tricky to write, so we’ve turned it into a kinda math problem to make it easier if you’ve never written thesis statements before:

A thesis statement is basically your main topic + your subtopic 1 + your subtopic 2 + your subtopic 3.

If you checked our guides on how to start an informative essay, how to write a hook, or how to outline informative essays, you could notice that we used the panda example everywhere. 😉 (Thanks again to Mr. S from YouTube!) So, let’s continue with pandas if you don’t mind!

For more examples, feel free to check the video from our friends Study.com.

Here goes a worksheet to use when trying to come up with subtopics for your informative essay:

First, you choose the main topic — giant pandas — and start with that.

Then, you decide on subtopics you’d like to cover about giant pandas, write them down, and then just polish all three into a thesis statement:

Giant pandas + have special characteristics + live in certain areas of China + eat food besides just bamboo

Finally, fix some grammar things, if any, for your thesis statement to turn into a well-sound sentence. And now you have it!

Giant pandas have special characteristics, live in certain areas of China, and eat food besides just bamboo!

That flows much better, and it tells your readers what they are about to read in the next paragraphs of your informative essay. And that’s exactly what a thesis statement should do.

Practical Tips on Making Your Essay Thesis Stronger

First and foremost, let’s reveal what makes a strong thesis statement.

1) Direction:

A strong thesis limits what you’ll need to describe in your essay. Informative topics are usually too broad to cover in one college paper, so you’ll need to decide on a few subtopics and limit your work to them.

So, your thesis statement should give direction to your paper and inform readers of what you’ll discuss in the body. Your essay’s every paragraph needs to explain your thesis.

2) Proof:

A strong thesis requires proof. It’s not merely a fact but also supporting evidence that will be interesting for readers to check and motivate them to keep investigating your paper.

Sometimes it’s okay to mention supporting points in a thesis and then write 1-2 essay body paragraphs about each supporting idea. Such a structure can help keep control of your ideas while writing.

3) Place:

In academic writing, it’s not a deadly sin to place a thesis at the beginning of introductory paragraphs. Yet, such structure can confuse a reader and make them get lost in the main idea by the end of an intro.

That is why a good practice would be to put a thesis statement at the end of informative essay introductions. Thus, it logically leads to the paper body and makes the whole intro sound conceptual.

With that in mind, here go a few practical tips on how to write a thesis statement for an informative essay:

Choose a topic you know or consider interesting to learn. If a teacher doesn’t assign any particular topic for your informative essay, focus on something you are excited to learn: Personal experience or reflection will help with research and thesis statement greatly! Just make a list of topics that excite you (see our above worksheet) and focus on the one of your most interest.
Brainstorm. Take a sheet of paper and write down everything that comes to your mind about the chosen topic. All those generated ideas will later help you shape a thesis statement: You’ll choose 3-4 subtopics to cover in your informative essay.
Focus on three subtopics. It will help if they relate to a specific area of your main topic, so you could later craft a logical flow in your essay body.
Tailor your statement. Limit it to 1-2 sentences in length, proofread it, and be ready to tweak it if necessary: After you’ll finish the first draft of your informative essay, you may see that a thesis requires some slight changes.

Or, you can change the perspective and do the following:

Write your informative essay body first, and craft your introduction (with a thesis) afterward. Once you cover three chosen subtopics in your essay, it will be easier to combine 1-2 sentences to introduce what you want to tell in your paper to the reader.

Or, we have an alternative option: A free online thesis statement generator! Write down your main topics and subtopics there — and you’ll get a strong thesis statement for your informative essay.

Magic, huh?

How to Write a Hook For an Informative Essay

July 4, 2022

Think of a rare fact related to your topic
Start with a question
Consider “wha-a-at?” statistics

Do you know that a person needs 5 seconds to decide whether or not they want to continue reading your essay? This fact justifies the critical role of an introductory paragraph and its first sentence in particular:

It grabs readers’ attention and provides them with something engaging, so they would like to stay and keep investigating your work.

In the academic world, we know such attention-grabbers as essay hooks. In this post, we reveal the secrets of how to write a hook for an informative essay.

how-to-write-a-hook-for-an-informative-essay

What is a Hook for Essay?

A hook in essays is an opening statement (the first sentence) aimed at grabbing readers’ attention and making them want to continue reading and learn more.

Why a hook?

It serves as a lure to “catch” a reader. As an author, you appeal to their curiosity, emotions, or FOMO (fear of missing out) to encourage them to take the desired action (i.e., continue reading your paper).

Please note that an essay hook doesn’t equal an essay introduction!

A hook opens your intro, and then you introduce a topic/background and write a thesis — all these are elements of an essay’s first paragraph:

start-informative-essay-example

If you’re a long-time reader of our blog here at Bid4Papers, you could see our super-duper popular post about writing a good hook for an essay, with a long list of strategies to try and examples to follow.

Here’s a quick recap of essay hook ideas (You’ll use different ones, depending on the essay type):

Question
Quote (from literature or famous people)
Anecdote/Joke
Fact/Misconception
Statistic
Thesis statement
Definition
Strong statement
Story
Metaphor

That’s all fine, but which of them do work for writing hooks for an informative essay?

3 Essay Hook Types to Use in Informative Papers

Think of your teacher or anyone reading your essay: They have tons and tons of papers to check, so you need to make yours stand out. If you make a good first impression in your introductory paragraph, then your teacher is more likely to read the rest of your essay positively.

The hook of your informative essay should be of 1-2 sentences; think of quality over quantity.

Given the nature of informative essays, which are formal and based on proven research, you can’t use hooks like anecdotes or personal stories. The top three hooks for this type of academic writing are as follows:

A fact
A question
A statistic

Now, for more details on each one:

1) Interesting Facts

Start your essay with a rare or unexpected fact about your topic: Try to find something that might surprise a reader, and avoid dull information everyone heard thousands of times already.

What you need is an intriguing fact related to your topic to grab attention and evoke curiosity.

For example:

“Female ferrets die if they don’t mate once they go into heat. Too much estrogen production which does not stop until they mate will eventually cause death.”
“Almost two-thirds of American adults at some point in their life lived in a home with at least one gun.”
“The human body is comprised of 10 times more bacteria than cells.”

2) Questions

You can start an informative essay with a question that relates to your topic.

This hook helps you evoke a reader’s interest in your essay and encourage them to continue reading it. Please do your best to avoid general questions.

Feel free to use these sentence starters for your questions:

Have you ever…?
What would you do…?
How would you feel…?

Here go a few examples:

“Which superhero is the greatest in the DC universe?”
“Have you ever watched the high-flying, jump shooting, slam-dunking, ankle-breaking players that play in the NBA?”
“How would you feel if you knew you can lose 40 pounds in a month without any fad diet?”
“What is the difference between successful college students and unsuccessful college students?”

3) Statistics

Use statistical data to hook readers with new facts, but be sure to include the source: Cite studies to build credibility.

Examples:

“People lie in 1 out of 5 conversations lasting more than 10 minutes, according to Allison Komet from Psychology Today magazine.”
“Just 0.00545% of the 550,000 boys playing high school basketball each year in the United States become a first-round draft pick — 1 in 18,333.”
“The average iceberg weighs over 100,000 metric tons.”

Writing Tips for Crafting a Good Hook for Essays

Now that you know how to write a hook for an informative essay, the below writing tips can help you craft that first sentence for an even better impression:

1) Never start your essay with “I”

First, the phrases like “I want to tell you..,” “My essay will be about..,” and others of that kind are signals of poor writing. They are super common, telling a teacher about your lack of creativity, vocabulary, and ability to express your thoughts on paper.

And second, it’s against the rules of informative writing. You can the second- (“you”) and third-person (“it,” “she,” “he,” “they”) pronouns when writing informative essays, not the first-person ones (“I”, “we”).

2) Imagine your ideal reader

It stands to reason that your teacher assigns an informative essay, so you know that this teacher will be the one to read and estimate it. But this fact won’t help you write a nice starter for your paper; instead, you can get stuck and won’t understand what to write to impress your teacher.

Try to change a perspective:

Imagine you write this essay for a popular magazine or some top-notch blog. Who’d be your reader? What fact or question could hook them and engage them to keep reading? What words and tone to use to encourage them?

3) Review, revise, and edit your hook

With three types of hooks available for informative essays, ask yourself which one would fit your work best. Don’t overwhelm a reader with too much information: Keep your first sentence simple but engaging.

A PRO TIP: Write a hook after your whole essay is ready.

It’s simple:

You can’t know what will hook a reader before you research, investigate the topic, and write about it. Once you finish the draft, you’ll see what hook would help you clarify a thesis and fit your work better.

Don’t be afraid of revising and editing your hook. It’s okay to craft a few variants and then choose the best one, that connects the beginning of your informative essay to its conclusion.

Ready to Write the Best Hook for Your Informative Essay Now?

So, here’s a recap:

An essay hook is the first 1-2 sentences of your paper’s introduction, aimed at grabbing readers’ attention and engaging them to keep reading the rest of your work. Hooks are many, but only three of them fit informative: a fact, a question, and a statistic. You are welcome to come up with all three and then decide which one would introduce your essay best.

And if in doubt, you can always ask for professional advice from Bid4Papers writers. Oh, and please don’t be afraid to consult with a teacher assigning the task: It’s a common practice, and it’s your chance to demonstrate your interest and desire to deal with that informative essay the best you can!

How to Write an Informative Essay Outline

July 1, 2022

Define a topic
Write down the subtopics you’ll cover
Structure an essay by parts
Fill in the info on every part:
State a thesis in the introduction
Specify a subtopic and evidence for every body paragraph
Summarize everything in the conclusion

First, the question: Why do you need to know how to write an informative essay outline? Some students claim they can craft an A-worthy paper without outlining it. But you know what?

They lie.

While it’s possible to write an informative essay without outlining it, such an essay will hardly appear an A-worthy one. Outlining is an essential part of the writing process, and the below guidelines on how to do it are here to help you organize this process right.

What is an Essay Outline?

It’s a short plan of your essay, where you organize its main points into logical paragraphs so it would be faster and easier to write a draft.

When outlining your informative essay, you write down its topic (main idea) and structurize subtopics to understand what you’ll cover in each paragraph of your future paper.

Please note that you’ll need an outline regardless of whether or not your essay is informative. Whatever the type — argumentative, synthesis, hypothesis, etc. — you’ll need to craft a proper structure (outline) before writing an essay draft itself.

Why do you need an outline?

First, it helps you organize ideas and thoughts while researching as you will check tons of resources, and it will be challenging to remember where you saw a point and where to use it in an essay.
Second, it allows you to see an information flow and structurize all the points logically.
Third, it serves to help you write faster. With your essay plan at hand, you won’t miss anything while writing: You’ll craft each paragraph step by step, with no fear of wrong formatting or poor argumentation.

How to Write an Outline for Informative Essays

As well as any other essay type, informative ones consist of three core parts:

an introduction (one paragraph)
a body (it depends, but usually it’s three paragraphs)
a conclusion (one paragraph)

Each part includes several elements you’ll need to mention when writing an essay outline.

Here they go:

Introduction

It’s the first paragraph of your informative essay, aimed at grabbing a reader’s attention, introducing your topic, and previewing what subtopics you’ll reveal in your paper. This paragraph should include three elements:

Hook — one sentence to grab attention
Background information — 2-3 sentences about your topic and its relevance
Thesis statement — one sentence about the topic issues you’ll cover

When outlining the introduction of your informative essay, remember there should be a connection between all three parts. Ensure your hook is relevant to your thesis; think logically.

Body

As a rule, informative essays are 5-paragraph ones, which means you’ll have three paragraphs in your essay’s body. Each of them also consists of three elements:

Claim — a topic sentence about the idea you’ll present and explain in the paragraph
Evidence — data, facts, examples, and other proofs to support the claim for readers to see it’s true
Explanation — how this claim relates to your thesis statement and how the evidence supports the claim

When outlining the body, place the strongest claim in the first body paragraph of your essay. Also, remember about transition words you’ll use at the end of each paragraph for a smooth information flow.

Conclusion

The last paragraph of your informative essay wraps up all the claims, reminds a reader about the purpose of your paper, and provides some final thoughts on the topic.

As well as intros and body paragraphs, conclusions include three elements:

Summary — one sentence to grab all the main ideas together
Thesis restatement — 2-3 sentences relating your closing statement to the opening one
Final thoughts — your concluding remark about the topic to leave a reader with a positive impression

When outlining the conclusion, ensure you don’t introduce any new ideas but restate those you covered in the body. Highlight the key points again, but think about how to paraphrase them with other words; don’t simply copy them from the introduction of your informative essay.

Informative Essay Outline: Template

NB! Essay outlines are NOT about writing complete sentences and whole paragraphs. They are about highlighting core ideas and evidence you’ll use and organizing them into logical sections for further writing.

That said, feel free to format your essay outline how it’s more comfortable for you to understand what and where to mention. The only rule here:

Your outline should have a structure. It will help you see if some ideas are repetitive to avoid duplications and if some claims miss evidence and explanation to organize your essay the way it should be to grade higher.

Below you’ll find a template to use for outlining informative essays. There’s a list of sections for you to fill in with your topic, claims, evidence, and other notes that will help you write an essay draft:

Informative Essay Outline: Example

It’s better to see once than hear a hundred times, agree?

For you to better understand how to write an informative essay outline, our writers shared an example of what your outline might look if you wrote about giant pandas. Please check below and don’t hesitate to ask for more details!

Example:

In a Word

You need an essay outline to organize the information for further writing. With a structured plan, you’ll know what claims, evidence, and transitions to use in each paragraph. It’s an integral part of the writing process:

You organize ideas and thoughts.
You don’t miss any essay components while writing.
You get a higher grade for an informative and well-structured essay.

Seems like a plan, huh?

How to Start an Informative Essay

June 30, 2022

Grab attention.
Introduce and explain a topic.
State a thesis.

With so many articles and blog posts about essay introductions, most students still want to see detailed guides on writing intros for specific essay types. We’ve got them covered:

Here’s the step-by-step guide on how to start an informative essay. (For other intro types, feel free to check the instructions from our professional writers on how to start persuasive and personal essays. The ultimate guide on writing essay intros is also available: Here it is.)

So, How to Start an Informative Essay

We hope you’ve already checked our ultimate guide on informative essays and learned the purpose of this writing:

It educates the reader. An author provides terms, facts, and data about a particular topic/issue, thus explaining it to the audience. When writing an informative paper, you don’t argue or persuade but share the facts, compare them, explain how something works, etc.

The introduction of such essays is essential: It helps the audience understand whether they want to continue reading and learn more about the topic.

The Role of Intros in Essays

The essay introduction is the first paragraph of your paper, aimed at presenting and explaining the issue so that people would like to continue reading and learn more.

Below are three main jobs informative essay introductions do:

Introduce the topic and explain why it’s critical.
Highlight the essay’s main ideas.
State a thesis.

To get people interested in reading your essay, it’s critical to introduce the topic so they would understand why it’s worth learning more about it. For that, you’ll need to capture their interest, state the issue with some background information, and explain (briefly!) what you’re going to cover in the essay.

No matter how brilliant your informative essay is, its poor introduction may prevent the audience from reading it. A teacher grading your essay may underestimate your work if it starts with a weak first paragraph.

The Elements of Informative Essay Introduction

Now that you know why essay intros are so critical, it’s time to learn the essential components you’ll need to include in the first paragraph of your informative essay to make it do the job:

Your essay introduction will need a hook, background information, and a thesis statement.

Hook: the first sentence that grabs your reader’s attention
Background: 2-3 sentences readers need to know about your topic before reading on
Thesis: the sentence about the main ideas you’ll cover in the essay

Make all three elements concise and clear. Remember that it’s just the first paragraph of your essay: 4-5 sentences will be enough to fulfill the task.

And now, for more details on each element in your informative essay introduction:

Hook

A hook for essays is the first sentence that grabs attention and motivates the audience to keep reading. Hook types are many, and the most relevant ones for informative writing are an interesting fact, a question, or a statistic.

Let’s say, you write an informative essay about pandas. That’s what your hook sentence could be:

An interesting fact: “A newborn panda is 1/900th the size of its mother.”
A question: “Pandas are among the most beloved animals in China, but do people really know these wonderful creatures?”
A statistic: “In 1970, there were only about 1,000 giant pandas left on earth.”

Once your hook is ready, use some linking words to make a natural transition to the topic. It will make your writing sound logical for readers to follow.

Background Information

The background information comes after your hook sentence: It should relate to the topic of your informative essay and naturally flow into your thesis.

Let’s continue with pandas. The background information in your introduction could sound like that:

“Most people probably know pandas are black and white, and some people may think they can do Kung-fu. It’s worth learning more facts about these famous animals.”

Thesis Statement

This element is a must-have for all essay types. It comes at the end of your introductory paragraph, explaining and summarizing the issue you’ll explain in the essay body.

Here goes our “panda” thesis:

“Giant pandas have special characteristics, live in certain areas of China, and eat food besides just bamboo!”

It’s the heart of your essay, providing a reason to read it. A strong thesis statement should specify the topic (pandas) and the main points (sub-topics) you’ll describe in your essay to support it (characteristics, areas in China, and food).

Let’s see the complete essay introduction we’d get if we wrote about pandas:

A giant panda thank goes to Mr. S and his YouTube channel!

Writing Essay Intros, Step by Step

The below tips will help you write informative essay introductions faster. Since you already know the elements to include there, try the following tactics to ease the process:

1) Know your topic

Sometimes it’s a teacher assigning a specific topic for your informative essay. However, the common practice today is to let students choose topics for their academic papers themselves. In this case, it would help if you wrote about something you love, understand, and enjoy investigating.

Don’t hurry up to introduce your topic. It’s okay to write an essay outline and body first, and then come back to writing the first paragraph with a proper introduction of what you’ve covered in the text.

2) Grab attention

When you have an informative essay assigned in school or college, you imagine a teacher as its one and only reader. You understand they will keep reading your work anyway because they have to give you a grade. Why not change the perspective?

Try to imagine you write for a broader audience. What hook would you try to grab their attention from the first sentence and engage them to keep reading?

Start your essay introduction with a sentence that gets the reader interested in the topic. As already mentioned, it can be some unexpected fact, catchy question, or surprising statistic.

3) Present your topic

You need to tie a hook with a thesis statement of your essay so the whole introduction would look and sound logical. A few sentences between these two elements, where you present the topic, serve for that.

Try drawing on the point you made in the hook and connect it to the scope of your essay.

4) Explain or clarify the topic

Providing readers with a little bit of background on the topic allows them to better understand the issue. You don’t need to go into extreme detail, just give a short explanation of the topic.

Your background information here should be concise and clear.

Avoid sweeping generalizations or dictionary definitions, don’t write anything like, “All people know that…” or “According to the dictionary.”
Say no to direct statements like, “In this essay, I will write about..,” “I’m going to tell you about,” “My essay is about,” etc.
Never suggest you’re not familiar or certain with the topic. Avoid phrases like, “I can’t be certain, but…”

“I think” is also wrong to use in an informative essay. Its purpose is to inform, not share your opinion.

5) Conclude by stating your thesis

The thesis statement is the central idea of your whole essay: It tells readers what to expect and compels them to keep reading.

State three main claims you’re going to make in your paper — they will be subtopics for each of your three body paragraphs. Remember the thesis statement in the above example with pandas?

“Giant pandas have special characteristics, live in certain areas of China, and eat food besides just bamboo!”

Three subtopics here are:

#1 paragraph: What special characteristics describe a giant panda?

#2 paragraph: Where do giant pandas live?

#3 paragraph: What do giant pandas eat?

And please don’t include any supporting evidence or quotes in essay introductions: You’ll add them later throughout the body.

In a Word

So now that you have a step-by-step instruction on how to start an informative essay, we hope the writing process will go faster. Everything is easy:

Grab a reader’s attention with a hook.
Introduce a topic and provide a little background on it.
State a thesis, telling about what you’ll cover in the essay.

Still in doubt? Don’t hesitate to ask Bid4Papers for help with essays!

How to Write an Informative Essay: Topics, Structure, and Examples

June 28, 2022

An informative essay is a type of academic writing where you educate the reader, providing the info based on facts and reliable sources.

Yeah, we know. Essays. Again.

We’ve already covered many essay types: persuasive, critical, narrative, you name it! The time has come for informative essays to appear on this blog.

What to do if a teacher assigns this type of academic writing? How to write an informative essay so it would be worth getting A+?

Here you’ll find the ultimate guide on writing informative essays, including the tips on choosing a topic, writing an outline, structuring it step by step, and examples to check for better essay writing.
Continue reading →