The document outlines the top 10 popular types of essays that students commonly write, including descriptive, research, and comparative essays. Each type is defined by its unique structure and purpose, such as conveying personal experiences or persuasive arguments. The overview concludes that understanding these essay types is crucial for students to effectively complete their writing assignments.

1. Top 10 Popular
Types of Essays

2. 1. Descriptive Essays
Descriptive essays are written papers, in which students or
pupils have to describe something or somebody. This may be
everything, starting with a simple description of a person or
an event and up to more complicated descriptions, which
require preliminary preparation or extra knowledge.
Descriptive essays may not be limited to a certain structure.
In most cases, they are short and consist of several
paragraphs. However, they have to be written with attention
and awareness of the specific characteristics of this paper
type.

3. 2. Research Essays
This is, probably, the most popular essay type, because most
of these papers are written with the research purpose. Such
essays usually have particular structure and consist of an
introduction, body that may include several paragraphs and a
conclusion. They require more preparation and deeper
awareness of a subject that has to be revealed. Students have
to demonstrate their critical thinking and analysis skills to
complete these papers well.

4. 3. Comparative Essays
In comparative essays, pupils or students have to
demonstrate their understanding of comparing something.
The objects to be compared should not necessarily be real.
These may be abstract ideas or general topics - anything a
professor or a teacher may consider interesting and
important. As a rule, there are two or three things to be
contrasted and compared. To cope with the assignment,
students have to look for additional information in other
sources and use this info to get more knowledge about what
has to be compared in an essay.

5. 4. Book Report
As the name of this essay type suggests, a book report is
written to discuss or review a certain book, play or novel. The
task may be to learn additional information about the author
or the book itself. Students may need to make a report on the
whole book or its separate chapters, discussing the manner of
the author, his/her language, motives as well as the plot,
events or the structure of a book. Variants are numerous
here.

6. 5. Persuasive Essays
Topics may differ a lot here and are generally based on the
subject the paper is written in. Prior to writing an essay,
students have to make a profound research of the topic.
Versatile online and offline sources may be used with this
purpose. Sometimes, there is the necessity to research the
topic from different angles to make the proofs and facts as
persuasive as possible.

7. 6. Personal Experience Essay
When writing personal experience essays, students often
share their experience in a certain event, life situation or
process. Such essays are frequently written after university
practicum projects so that the students could describe what
exactly they have learnt and whether their experience was
positive or negative. These essays involve the summary of
students’ experience and detailed description of it. This
concerns both the practical side of those practicum projects
students had and their personal feelings. This combination
makes such essays unique and not similar to each other.

8. 7. Creative Essays
These are the projects, which perfectly reveal creativity and
unique skills of students. The essays are written in different
subjects and the topics are often not specified in advance.
That is why, pupils and students have to choose the topics on
their own to express their creativity to their advantage. What
matters a lot about this essay type is that it often has to be
presented in the unusual and creative way – the one students
consider the most spectacular, persuasive and… creative.

9. 8. Nonfiction Project Essay
This is also a kind of a report that is written after the students
have read nonfiction books and stories. The major difference
between this essay type and traditional book report is that it
is written on the nonfiction literature only. These books are
reviewed from the critical point of view, comparing and
contrasting the content to that provided in other sources.

10. 9. Scientific Activity Report
Essays
Activity reports are often assigned after the completion of
experiments and projects in laboratories, science courses or
even history, geography or chemistry courses. In these essays
or reports, students describe the projects they have worked
on, the results they have achieved, the problems they have
faced and their personal experience. These reports are
needed to summarize the results of the projects.

11. 10. Dissertations
We have ranked this type of an academic written paper last
on this list, just because this is the most serious, responsible,
time taking and complicated project as compared to those
described above. Dissertations are written to qualify for
master's and Ph.D. education degrees. They are generally
written during several years, because they imply hard work,
high level of expertise and persistence. When it comes to
writing scientific dissertations, real experiments and projects
have to be conducted, analyzed and then described along with
the conclusions. Dissertations have to be defended before the
experts qualified in the niche.

12. Bottom Line
Listed above are the most popular and widespread types of
essays and reports students often have to write. Awareness
of their characteristics will help you avoid the mistakes
regarding the type of a project you have to complete.