How to Write an Expository Essay in Family and Consumer Science: The Guide for You

An expository essay and family and consumer science is a really perfect match. This science lies in the realm of real life, so you do not need to invent anything new or dig too deeply. All the data that you need to complete this task is already on the surface, and your life experience will be good support for your paper. Do not hesitate, it will be interesting because family and consumer science are one of the most practical and vital disciplines. Writing an expository essay will be easier than ever – in this guide we have collected all the tips you need.

How to Write an Expository Essay in Family and Consumer Science: Understanding Your Main Task

So, before you start writing, you need to clearly make sure that you understand your task correctly. And we immediately have good news for you – it is much easier to write an expository essay than any other type of paper.

The thing is that this type of academic task does not require anything new from you. Here you do not need to prove scientific novelty, give arguments, offer new ways to solve an old problem or justify your personal opinion. Everything is much simpler.
The task of an expository essay is to tell, describe, explain and show logical relationships. You do not need to reinvent the wheel again. All you need is to choose a good topic and do your best to bring clarity to the minds of your readers.

If we talk about this task from the point of view of Family and Consumer Science, then everything is even better and easier. As you already know, this is the most practical and vital science of all possible. And you already have enough of your life experience not to get lost in most of the topics within this discipline.

Next, we will offer you a list of topics that you can choose for your essay or which you can use as a guide for your further research.

Topics That May Help You

First of all, it is worth mentioning the specifics of topics for an expository essay. Since your task is to explain certain things, most of the topics within this and other disciplines will look like ‘Why’, ‘What’, ‘How’ questions. You will need to give the most detailed answers to these questions, observing the standard structure of writing an essay, supporting your statements by scientific research and following the generally accepted logic of academic writing. So, here are a few topics that you can choose for yourself or reuse.

• How Students May Lead A Healthy Lifestyle on a Limited Budget?
• What to Do if You Are Always Late?
• How to Choose Your Future Profession if You Don’t Have any Special Talents?
• Why Breakfast is Important for Kids?
• How Parents’ Buying Habits Influence Their Formation in Kids?
• Is There a Way to Make Customers More Conscious When Buying Clothes?

Look again at these topics. Don’t you think you’ve seen something like this somewhere? Yes, you’re right, these topics are similar to the blog posts we read every day. Of course, this does not mean that you can take any blog post and use it as an example, however you can always read different posts and compare styles of different bloggers to find your own. Just do not forget that when writing an academic paper you need to be more formal and not allow first-person narration, if this is not a personal opinion essay, of course.

How Not to Get Confused in the Types of Essays and Make Your Expository Essay Really Expository

An expository essay is really an easy task to perform, however, you need to clearly understand what is the difference between it and other essay types so as not to accidentally start writing in the other direction. Therefore, let’s bring a little more clarity.

Expository vs argumentative essay

When you write an argumentative essay, you immediately choose a specific position and then collect the arguments of other researchers to support your opinion. The task of an expository essay is not to provide arguments and prove that somebody is right or wrong but just to tell a story and presents facts as they are.

Expository vs personal statement

In most cases, a personal opinion essay does not require you to study too deeply. In this case, you are welcome to state and explain your opinion and say everything you want to say. But when you are writing an expository paper, there is no necessity in personal evaluations -you should stay formal and let the readers develop their personal views in the end.

Expository vs compare and contrast paper

Writing a compare and contrast paper, you are choosing two objects and events that are similar and different in some ways. By the way, you may use this technic as well in your expository paper to disclose the topic in full. But it should not be the main writing strategy for this type of paper.

Expository vs definition essay

In a case of definition essay, you are analyzing the concept and find the pros and cons in its definition provided by a scientist you choose. You may also provide a definition in your expository paper, but here this is done in order to make sure that the reader understands everything you are talking about. Employ this strategy if the concept that maybe not known to everyone is at the core of your paper.

Expository vs persuasive speech

As we have already said, the goal of an expository essay is not to persuade but to let the readers find out the main facts and clear explanation of a problem you are talking about.
So, now you understand your main goal and you will definitely not be confused with other types of essays, so let’s begin our study and writing of the paper.

Let’s Start With a Research

As usual, you can use different sources in order to collect the maximum necessary information.

Books

Use books in case you work with a rather complicated topic. For example, as we have already said, if you start your essay with a complex definition within the framework of family and consumer science, then it makes sense to read how different authors define this concept in order to highlight the best features and give your readers the opportunity to understand a certain term completely, excluding any ambiguities.
Books will also come in handy if the topic of your essay has a How-to format. You will not believe it, but before all the instructions and guides that we now find in blogs were contained in books, so in a number of cases it still makes sense to refer to the original sources.

Articles

Scientific articles will be an excellent source for collecting facts and statistics. Feel free to quote other authors. Your essay will become even more complete if you find a specific study and interpret its results in your paper.
But be careful – the old rule that your scientific articles should be fresh is still valid. And here is another clue! As we have already said, family and consumer science is a multifaceted discipline, so do not be surprised if the scientific articles that you find for your essay are from the field of psychology, sociology, pediatry, medicine, and other sciences. Moreover, the more specific research you dig, the better you can explain the topic you are talking about.

Real-life Experience

It is not forbidden to refer to your personal experience when you are writing an expository essay. The most important requirement is to follow the formal academic style – so do not use ‘I’ in your paper. Replace this pronoun with more formal statements like ‘Most scientists agree’, ‘It is accepted’, ‘There is a stereotype/misconception/belief/tradition’ and so on.
And of course, use your life experience. For example, do you still remember the topic that we cited in the list of ideas? If we talk about the last topic, namely, conscious consumption, you can recall your buying habits, analyze your buying behavior, and use this as a starting point.

Social Media and Forums

Here is one more reason why an expository essay and family and consumer science love each other. This is a real-life discipline, so it always makes sense to find interesting insights from the real-life itself. Social media and forums are an integral part of the lives of 50% of the planet population, so you may find a lot there. Find out and discuss trends, popular and controversial topics. You may even employ an opinion of an influencer from a specific industry if it fits into the framework of the topic you are talking about and the family and consumer science in general.

Writing the First Draft

We recommend starting writing a draft right along the way of your research. Write down all the ideas that come to your mind. Highlight important facts and statistics as soon as you read this information, and be sure to indicate the source, page, and author so that you can easily return to the desired fact, easily quote and also easily draw up a reference list after your work is ready.
Yes, perhaps your first draft will look like a chaotic stream of thoughts, but there is the main advantage – all these thoughts will directly concern your topic. You will get the most important ideas and milestones so it will be easier for you to put every insight into its right place, support and explain it.

Let’s Proceed to The Structure

Once the draft is ready, you can start writing. Fortunately, structure and other academic requirements are standard for an expository essay as well.

Inro

These few sentences will determine the success or failure of your work in the eyes of the reader. That is why we recommend writing an introduction last. When you fully work out your topic, the most involving, significant and important thoughts will come to your head themselves and you can put them in this part of the essay.

Thesis

Look again at your draft and try to formulate the most important idea. For example, if we return to our topic of conscious shopping, then your thesis may be as follows.
Modern consumers tend to buy too much clothing because they are influenced by trends in social networks and targeted advertising.

Body Paragraphs

Your main paragraphs should justify and explain the problem you are talking about. Be sure to use statistics and facts, look for underlying causes, identify anomalies and explain how this relates to the theme of your paper. As a rule, the structure of their three main sections is enough to reveal the topic. However, if your topic is quite extensive and complex, you may need more space. And if in this case, the professor has limited you in the number of pages, then you need to try to highlight the most important thing – without which your explanation simply cannot exist.

Conclusion

There are no pitfalls here – you need to briefly repeat your most important statements. You can also give a recommendation, and finish your essay in a positive way.

Reference List

Be sure to return to the academic style that the professor told you to use and make the list of literature correctly. By the way, you can use useful applications like EasyBib to automate this task and not make a mistake.

Wrapping It All Up

Well, now do you agree that this task was not difficult, but even fascinating? So this guide has completed its task. In fact, all academic tasks are feasible – otherwise, they would not be included in the educational program. Feel free to use our pieces of advice and impress your professor with A-descent paper!