Why Is 90% of Expository Writing Wrongfully Structured?

How-to guides are the number one article format for driving interest and bringing clicks to your personal blog or site.

More than 40% of the people are writing such articles when they try to advertise their writing or themselves as individuals, explain a particular concept, or provide the information they deem necessary.

However, if I told you, more than 20% of these articles are written and structured in the wrong way. Crazy right?

But why? What’s wrong with expressing your personal opinion as an expert guide?

Let me tell you; everything!

OK, maybe not everything.

But for most of the part, you are violating structural writing norms, and unless you have a super-viral profile and your articles are widely known, I wouldn’t advise keeping breaking the rules.

I will advise you, however, to start searching for common ground. Expository writing is one of the most common and useful formats for a simple article and analysis.

This type of format isn’t limited to How-to articles, but it also encompasses recipes, news stories, business, technical writing, and textbooks. From these particular writings, it’s pretty clear that an expository essay aims to explain the concept and provide information to the reader.

It is not a persuasive style of writing, neither a narration and nor a description.

But the lack of a strict guideline won’t help you separate these terms when you write the article.

When one states that expository writing wants to present a concept and some information to the weather audience, please be reminded that it’s not about the author’s opinion.

In other words, information has to be based on accepted facts, analysis of theories, or presentation of quantitative and qualitative data.

The majority of writers are structuring How-to articles solely based on their own experience. And this is wrong.

Don’t get me wrong; I’m not saying that you shouldn’t present your experience and personal opinion.

This is your article, and you can do whatever you want, as a matter of fact.

Nonetheless, the most correct way of format is by including statistical analysis or theoretical approaches that show whether your statement, originating from your experience, is complying with the general norm or it’s something new.

And at the end of the day, I don’t think that you want to be a writer with useful articles but using the wrong structure.

When you construct your own personal guide, you make it more reliable by not solely focusing on your experiences because, after all, you might be the exception of the rule or the one-in-a-thousand case.

And the reader should be fully aware of the reality.

Following the previous statement, let’s examine one of the most common examples. The most popular type of expository writing for how-to articles is about getting rich.

Let’s take into account blogging since this is what most successful writers are analyzing.

The first title that comes to mind is ‘How to make a living by a personal blog,’ right?

And don’t get me wrong, I am more than happy to see successful individuals giving average writers advice.

But this is the only thing that they can give you; advice. That’s because, 9 times out of 10, the statistical analysis doesn’t ‘comply’ with their experience.

Quantitative research shows that 1/4 bloggers won’t make more than 100$ monthly, 14% of all bloggers will live by the writing salary, and the vast majority will probably make less than $3.50 per day.

The case of a problematic expository format for this article comes down to the author presenting his personal experiences without considering the ordinary reality.

An excellent piece for the same theme understands the market’s tendency and the shared reality while expressing his personal opinion and giving lessons of how he made it out of getting 50 dollars per month.

Although, in reality, expository writing should be the home of no personal opinion and only statistical analysis, in these types of articles every one has a different take since everyone has a diverse background experience.

In other words, this is where the theoretical approach of writing comes across the odds of success, and the personal tone in How-to articles is something needed.

However, statistical analysis and objective approach are mandatory as well and the combination of the two is more likely to give you a structurally correct and well-rounded guide.

References

Nordquist, Richard. “What Is Expository Writing?” ThoughtCo. https://www.thoughtco.com/expository-writing-composition-1690624 (accessed February 6, 2021).

Nardi, Bonnie & Schiano, Diane & Gumbrecht, Michelle. (2004). Blogging as social activity, or, would you let 900 million people read your diary?. 222–231. 10.1145/1031607.1031643.

Pinola, Melanie. “Can I Really Make a Living by Blogging?” Lifehacker. Lifehacker, March 6, 2014. https://lifehacker.com/can-i-really-make-a-living-by-blogging-1537783554.