Nonfiction writing is divided into four categories: entertaining, informative, persuasive, and instructional. Entertaining articles can range from simple to complex and can be found in hobby, home, and travel magazines. Informative articles range from basic to specialized and include biography, history, and science. Persuasive articles offer a position on a controversial topic and provide evidence. Instructional articles, like recipes, give readers steps to achieve a specific result and can be found in popular culture magazines.
There are different types of nonfiction writing. In contrast to fictional writing, nonfiction articles deal with events, experiences, and individuals that are real rather than imagined. Experts divide nonfiction into four broad categories: writing designed to entertain, inform the reader, persuade or convince the reader, and educate the reader. Within these categories are myriad variations.
Entertaining nonfiction tries to give the reader something interesting that is easy to absorb and understand. Non-fiction articles that fall into this category can range from very simple and straightforward writing to complex, literary works. Often, these pieces can be found in hobby, home, and travel magazines as well as magazines and Sunday paper editorials. For example, an airline-designed magazine that features articles about restaurants and activities that can be found in some of their destinations would fall into this category, as would an article about antique weapons in a hobbyist magazine. Even a piece of creative non-fiction prose in the pages of a literary magazine may fall into this category.
Informative nonfiction articles also range from the most basic and transparently understandable to the much more complex, even specialized, and assume that the reader arrives at the text with some degree of understanding of the subject. An article examining the differences between alligators and crocodiles in a children’s magazine is one example, as is an article explaining DNA mapping. This non-fiction article category includes biography and autobiography; writing that takes as its subject an aspect of history, sociology, or the natural sciences; and writing that addresses a political position.
A persuasive nonfiction article offers readers a position on a topic that may be controversial and provides evidence in the form of statistics, quotes, and graphs. This category includes political speeches, editorials, and sermons. Marketing pieces can also be considered persuasive essay since their purpose is to help a potential customer see the benefits of a particular product or service.
An example of a non-fiction article that offers instruction is a recipe. Recipes give the reader a list of ingredients along with the steps they must take to achieve a specific result. This type of writing is often found alongside articles meant to entertain in popular culture magazines. A travel magazine, for example, might have an article about little-known sites outside of Athens, Greece, and pair it with another article about visiting Athens on a budget.
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