What does your writing style say about you?
Your writing style reflects your personality. It connects you to your audience and readers by merging your personality and your message. Choosing the style(s) best suited for you and your audience strengthens the tone and voice of your writing. Let’s learn about the “Big Four” writing styles and how to use them.
Expository:
The Expos(e)itory writing style relays strict information and uncovers facts and descriptions. As the most common writing style, it focuses on a subject-oriented approach. The order of writing presents a logical flow and usually lacks personal opinions.
Where can you find it?
- How-to articles
- Recipes
- Text-book journalism
- Technical instructions
Example:
Many people associate the month of December with the holidays. In December, many businesses put up Christmas decorations in their business. This is how to set-up a Christmas tree. First, you need to open the box. Next, you…
Descriptive
As its name implies, the descriptive writing style typically describes people or activities like a character, an event, or a place. This style delivers a more poetic arrangement of words and allows you to utilize the five senses in your writing. It provides a greater deal of artistic freedom than the expository style.
Where can you find it?
- Poetry
- Fiction
- Advertising
- Journals and diaries
Example:
The chicken my mom made yesterday was well-cooked and it smelled delicious. I can tell that she used garlic from the taste. The skin looked crunchy.
Persuasive
The persuasive writing style seeks to persuade. When using the persuasive writing style, your writing focuses on convincing others of your opinion and point of view. This style utilizes justifications and reasons, usually with a call to action, and asks your readers to do something about the situation. Unlike the expository style, writing in a persuasive style encourages the use of personal opinions and views.
Where can you find persuasive writing?
- Opinion and editorial journalism
- Advertisements and marketing campaigns
- Letters of recommendation/complaint
- Reviews
Example:
Are you trying to write a paper, but you can’t figure out if you’ve used proper grammar? At bested.it, our great authors and native speakers provide feedback on your manuscript’s weaknesses and strengths and highlight areas for its improvement. Best Edit offers proofreading and additional services to meet your needs. What are you waiting for? Send us your paper!
Narrative
The narrative writing style narrates a story, whether it is real or not. Narrative styles usually share some similarities with the descriptive writing style as the narrative style includes characters and places to describe. Aspects of the narrative form also include dialogues, situations, beginnings, intervals, and endings.
Where can you find persuasive writing?
- Novels
- Poetry
- Autobiographies
- Short stories
- Oral histories
- Human interest stories
Example
As I walked down the street, I saw some kids playing soccer. There was a relatively younger boy wearing an FC Barcelona t-shirt. I called him Eric. Eric was dribbling with the soccer balls when his friend tackled him, and he fell on the floor.
“Foul!” Screamed Eric.
“I got the ball not your foot!” his friend argued.
Summary
Best Edit describes the four different distinctive types of writing as the “Big Four”. You will find that the “Big Four” also includes many sub-types at your disposal as well. You can remember the four types with this helpful acronym: “PEND”
- Persuasive aims at swaying your reader’s opinion towards your point of view.
- Expository sets forth facts.
- Narrative simply tells a story.
- Descriptive creates an image within your mind.
It’s important for you as a writer to know which style you should use, so you can identify the purpose of your writing and make sure it aligns with what your readers expect. Best Edit thrives at helping and developing this diverse generation of writers. Contact us to get a quote on our customized editing packages.
