Writing style reveals the personality, thoughts, and voice of a writer in his or her prose. Effective writing style depends upon a combination of the following: audience, type of writing, punctuation, word choice, sentence construction, and overall presentation.

Exposition–a genre of wri

ting in which the purpose of the author is to inform, explain, describe or define his or her subject to the reader. Expository writing is a mode of writing in which the purpose of the author is to inform, explain, describe, or define his or her subject to the reader. Expository text is meant to ‘expose’ information and is the most frequently used type of writing by students in colleges and universities. A well-written exposition remains focused on its topic and provides facts in order to inform its reader. It should be unbiased, accurate, and use a scholarly third person tone. The text needs to encompass all aspects of the subject. Examples of expository writing can be found in magazine and newspaper articles, non-fiction books, travel brochures, business reports, memorandums, professional journal and encyclopedia articles and many other types of informative writing. One of the most familiar and basic forms of expository writing is the five-paragraph essay, which features an introduction with a clear thesis statement, three main body paragraphs and a conclusion.

Narration–storytelling, as found in short stories, novels, drama, and personal accounts. The Narrator is the entity within a story that tells the story to the reader. It is one of three entities responsible for story-telling of any kind. The others are the Author and the Reader (or Audience). The Author and the Reader both inhabit the real world. It is the Author’s function to create the alternate world, people, and events within the story. It is the Reader’s function to understand and interpret the story. The Narrator exists within the world of the story (and only there—although in non-fiction the narrator and the author can share the same persona, since the real world and the world of the story are the same) and presents it in a way the Reader can comprehend. The concept of the unreliable narrator (as opposed to Author) became more important with the rise of the novel in the 19th Century. Until the late 1800s, literary criticism as an academic exercise dealt solely with poetry (including epic poems like The Iliad and Paradise Lost, and poetic drama like Shakespeare). Most poems did not have a narrator distinct from the author. But novels, with their immersive fictional worlds, created a problem, especially when the narrator’s views differed significantly from that of the author.

Argumentation–the writer tries to persuade the reader to agree to a new belief or to take a course of action. Also called persuasive writing.

Description–the writer uses sensory details to show the reader what is being written about. And in the end we wanted to say that we’re hoping that our article helped you.