The following information is fairly complicated and you might want to work through it with your parents. You'll be able to figure out what it all means after you've read through it two or three times. Don't expect to understand all of it on your first reading. You might try writing the pieces of an explanatory essay one at a time before you attempt to write a whole paper.

1. Before you begin expository writing, you must have an experience. This can be an assigned reading, an observation, a field trip, the examination of any material or any experience that you might have prior to writing about it.
2. Come to a conclusion about that experience. Put this conclusion into one sentence.
3. Write this sentence as a contending idea for your paper.
4. Break the explanation of the basic idea of your contention into its constituent parts.
5. Select key words to describe those parts.
6. Write the process sentence using those key words in the order in which they will introduce the material in the body of your paper.
7. Based on your reader selection, write a background. (Unless otherwise assigned, high school and college writing is always semi-formal in tone and written for an educated adult.)

Expository Structure
Most of your writing for high school and college will be the type called expository; both argumentative and explanatory. The other few papers you will be asked to write will be your reactions to pieces you have been assigned in magazines or journals. Unless you are given instructions for the structuring of your writing assignments, the following outline will serve for your expository papers.

Introduction

1. Background: is information that the reader will find necessary for the understanding of the contention. This can be a history of the subject or some personal experience and/or observation.
2. Contention: is a one-sentence statement of position or belief. This is what some teachers will call the thesis statement. This is the point of the paper and is what the body will demonstrate or prove to be true or valid. In argumentative papers, it is always assumed that the reader will not agree with your contention. If you expected your reader to agree, there would be no point in writing.
3. Process: is generally a one-sentence statement indicating the order in which the body parts will support the contention. As exposition is essentially statement and support; everything in the body must be related to the contention in a supportive way and must appear in the same order as indicated in the process. The key words in the breakdown of the contending idea will serve as the process (of explanation).

Body
The body, which does nothing but support the contention, contains material (in as many paragraphs or sections as there are key words in the process) presented in the same order as are the points in the process. This is so that the parts of the body, each of which may be composed of a number of paragraphs, will be recognized by the reader as supporting the contending idea in the introduced order.

Conclusion
The conclusion has three parts; four for argumentative exposition.

#1 is a restatement of the contending idea but does not use the same words to describe it as are used in the introduction;

#2 is a reintroduction of the organizational aspects of the process but does not use the key words used in the process in the introduction;

#3 is a connection made between the background, contention and body parts of the paper; and

#4 is for argumentative exposition only and is a final statement relating to some action or thought process that the writer and/or the reader should go through because of the conclusions drawn from this experience.

Schematic of an Expository Paper
Introduction
1. Background
2. Contention
3. Process

Body
The body should have as many sections as there are key words in the process.

1. Restatement of contending idea (not the same words) Conclusion
2. Mention of organization (do not use key words)
3. A connection made between the body, contention and the background
4. Request for agreement (argumentative exposition only)