por What is an expository text?
The expository texts They are those whose main objective is to transmit some kind of information in a clear and objective way. Most of the texts we use at school, with the exception of fiction (poetry, short stories, and novels), are expository texts: science, history, and grammar, for example.
In expository texts, ideas are expressed clearly, with objective language and without the author’s opinion appearing. Its intention is to explain certain topics using data, documents, descriptions, graphics and other resources.
We find expository texts in daily life, such as in newspapers and magazines, in manuals and instructions for use, and even on informative billboards.
Characteristics of expository texts
They have a didactic character
The objective of the expository text is to provide information, that is, to teach something.
Use of the present and the indicative mood
Expository texts are often written in the present tense and indicative mode, with the exception of part of the history texts, which use the past tense: «The Mexican war for independence was a war process that took place between 1810 and 1821.»
target language
The texts are generally written in the third person and they avoid, as much as possible, personal opinions of the author or subjective views on the object of study.
Diversity of shapes and structures
Given the great variety of topics and subjects, both in the scientific and humanistic fields, it is natural that expository texts are presented with a great diversity of formal structures.
Structure of expository texts
Although the structure and organization of the discourse may vary depending on the discipline or subject matter, expository texts generally take the following form: an introduction, development, and conclusions.
Introduction
It informs about the content of the text, what it intends to demonstrate, expose or debate, its background and how the topic is going to be developed.
Development
The topic discussed is extensively and deeply exposed, organized into main and secondary ideas. Some academic-type texts usually have numbered chapters and subtitles, to facilitate the location of the different approaches through the index.
conclusions
The main ideas exposed in the development are taken up again and the conclusions derived from these are presented, or the consequences of the subject exposed, depending on the topic dealt with.
Types of expository texts
Expository texts can be broadly of two types: informative and academic.
informative texts
They are those texts intended to transmit information of all kinds to the public not specialized in the exposed subject. Examples of this class of texts are books such as Cosmosby Carl Sagan, or brief history of timeby Stephen Hawking.
They are texts written in a language accessible to all audiences, although they cannot always avoid the use of mathematical formulas or specialized vocabulary. Generally no prior training in the subject is required.
academic texts
They are of various kinds, from academic textbooks to articles or papers that are published in scientific journals and in university centers. They are difficult-to-understand texts, aimed at a professional audience that already has prior knowledge of the subject matter.
Examples of expository texts
encyclopedic texts
Summarized information on various topics, such as that contained in traditional encyclopedias, or in digital ones such as Wikipedia. For example:
The iron. Iron is a common mineral on the earth’s surface, and in turn a chemical element with atomic number 26 located in group 8, period 4 of the periodic table of elements. Its chemical symbol is Fe and it has an atomic mass of 55.847 u.
academic texts
They are those expository texts found in textbooks, monographs, theses, articles, etc. For example:
Evaluation of threatened species in the Venezuelan Amazon basin. This study is part of a rapid ecological evaluation that is being carried out in the Negro River basin, the main tributary of the Amazon in Venezuelan territory, affected in recent years by various anthropogenic impacts, such as mining and deforestation.
abstract or abstract
Academic articles published in scientific journals must have a brief expository text before the development of the article, as an abstract or, in English, abstract. For example:
Latest advances in the development of a vaccine against malaria. Summary: This article evaluates the tests and modifications made to the RTS,S vaccine, recently approved by the World Health Organization, to be applied to children in African countries where infant mortality from this disease is extremely high. The authors evaluate the pros and cons of the vaccine, and its effect on the population in the medium and long term.
Book flaps and back covers
They are the texts that we find in the back of the books, which provide information about the work and the author. They are texts that briefly explain what the book is about. For example:
back cover of one way ticketSilda Cordoliani (compiler). This book collects the testimony of 15 Venezuelan writers who currently make their lives in countries of Asia, Europe and America, and have been part of one of the largest migrations that has ever occurred in a South American country.
biographical review
They are those texts that summarize the life of a historical character or of current importance. For example:
Mario Vargas Llosa. Arequipa, March 28, 1936. Peruvian writer, journalist and politician, Nobel Prize for Literature in 2010. He was a candidate for the presidency of Peru and in 1993 he obtained Spanish nationality (without renouncing Peruvian), the country where he lives and where he continues with his already extensive narrative work. Among his most outstanding novels can be mentioned The city and the Dogs, The War of the End of the World and Conversation in the Cathedral.
history texts
History books include different modalities of texts, descriptive, interpretative and, above all, expository, when presenting the events and the way they occurred. For example:
Battle of Waterloo. On June 18, 1815, Napoleon’s French troops clashed with the united armies of Prussia and Great Britain, in a Belgian village south of Brussels called Waterloo. The victory on the part of the coalition would lead Napoleon to forced and definitive exile.
news text
News items meet all the requirements of an expository text: they convey information objectively in clear and accessible language. For example:
African writer wins Nobel Prize for Literature 2021. The Tanzanian writer Abdulrazak Gurnack has won the Nobel Prize for Literature in its corresponding edition for the year 2021. Gurnack, 72, has lived in England for five decades, where he worked as a professor at the University of Kent.
information brochures
Brochures that provide different types of information, exposing advantages, such as tourist ones, or precautions, such as sanitary ones, as well as instructions, generally contain expository texts. For example:
Acapulco tourist guide. Acapulco is a famous Mexican resort on the Pacific coast, where the intense life of a city is combined with the enjoyment of a bay surrounded by the Sierra Madre mountains.
Legal texts
Legal texts are generally considered normative, as in laws and regulations, but they are usually accompanied by expository texts, which function as an introduction and explanation of the norms. For example:
Part of an occupational emergency decree: Considering that the unemployment rate has increased by 12% during the second quarter of this year, and that in the case of young people it reaches 20%, several percentage points above the percentage rate of the previous year, the executive has agreed take the following steps…
Activity reports
Activity reports are one of the most common texts performed in all jobs, from firefighters and police officers to lawyers, salespeople, or engineers. These reports usually require at least one expository text. For example:
Report of activities carried out in the Public Service Office No. 12. Below are the activities carried out during the month of September at OAP No. 12, with the number of requests attended and a statement of the reasons that prevented the objectives set in August from being met…
References
What is an expository text? (2021) Taken from concept.of.
15 examples of expository text (2021). Taken from examples.co.
Expository text (2021). Taken from es.wikipedia.org.
Expository text (2021). Taken from meaning.com.
Exposition Texts (2021). Taken from assets.readingeggsassets.com.