Argumentative and Expository Essays
Argumentative and expository essays are two types of essays that explain, expand upon and persuade the reader about a given topic. Prompts for expository essays follow the format you most often see in school assignments and standardized tests like the CLEP. This type of essay will ask you to explain why one thing leads to another. Alternately, it may ask you to compare and contrast two or more elements, explain how they interact with each other and have you take a position on that interaction.
Argumentative essays are similar but are more likely to be long-form, are more complex, include in-depth research and may include the writer's own thorough research and observations. Argumentative essays are more often the essay assignments you'll have several weeks or even a semester to write, while expository essays are shorter and better suited to an in-class assignment or time-limited exam. Both usually have a strong, defining thesis up front, probably in the first paragraph.
Here's an example of an expository essay prompt:
'Everything is funny as long as it is happening to somebody else,' actor Will Rogers is often quoted as having said. Do you agree or disagree? Using specific examples, write an essay explaining your position, drawing on your personal experience, observations or books you might have read for support.
A prompt like this will have a thesis that answers the main question first and foremost, agreeing or disagreeing with Rogers' quote and hinting as to the reasons why. Such a thesis might read:
Despite Rogers's claim, everything is not necessarily funny as long as it's happening to somebody else, but the spirit of his statement is true: Namely, that that which others find funny about you is rarely funny to yourself.
Narrative Essays
Remember how I said not all essays need a thesis statement? Narrative essays are the primary example of an essay that may not require a thesis statement. This is because in a narrative essay, the writer is using a story or stories to illustrate whatever greater point he or she wants to make. Take the example that follows, from a narrative essay by writer A.A. Milne (who you might know as the creator of Winnie the Pooh):
Sometimes when the printer is waiting for an article which really should have been sent to him the day before, I sit at my desk and wonder if there is any possible subject in the whole world upon which I can possibly find anything to say. On one such occasion I left it to Fate, which decided, by means of a dictionary opened at random, that I should deliver myself of a few thoughts about goldfish. (You will find this article later on in the book.) But to-day I do not need to bother about a subject. To-day I am without a care. Nothing less has happened than that I have a new nib in my pen.
Where is the thesis? What is this essay going to be about? You can't tell from the opening paragraph, except that we know it's not going to be about goldfish (that comes later, the writer tells us). We know he has a 'new nib' in his pen (a nib is the pointy part at the end of a fountain pen for those of you who have no idea what he's talking about).
The essay is called 'The Pleasure of Writing,' and it's a pleasant, rambling narrative full of little anecdotes and stories about what makes writing a happy experience for the writer that ends with his conclusion about what the true pleasure of writing is (the act of writing is its own pleasure, he believes). But you'll understand more about the 'thesis' of the essay from the title than by looking for a simple thesis statement. And that's okay!