Welcome to our complete guide to writing an explanation text. This guide is intended for both teachers and students to make the process of writing fun and straightforward.
This page has plenty of great content, and downloadable resources such as graphic organizer prompts and much more. If you like what you see here, check out all our other writing genre guides.
An explanation text tells your audience how something works or why something happens.
Explanations detail and logically describe the stages in a process, such as the water cycle or how a steam engine works. Other examples could be how a law is made or why we blink when we sneeze.
Explanation texts are frequently incorporated into other texts, used to provide information which answers questions of interest on that topic.
Not all explanation texts are created equal, and they vary in complexity to research and construct. As such, we have listed them from easiest to most challenging.
An explanatory text has some similarities to a procedural text, and these can often be confused; however, an explanation text explains the how and why behind a process, such as
A procedural text is about writing logical and efficient instructions to complete a task. It is all about the ‘how,’ whereas an explanation focuses more on the ‘why.’ So as we can see, although they are similar, both text types are very different in purpose.
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TITLES Which identify the topic of your explanation. You may pose this as a question at the beginning with how? or why?
STRONG OPENING STATEMENT Identifying the process to be explained. Emphasize the process rather than the particular thing involved in the process.
SEQUENCING Use sequential paragraphs or statements describing how or why something happens. Show connections such as cause and effect or temporal sequence.
WRAPPING IT UP A strong concluding paragraph or sentence that draws everything together will add more validity to your explanation.
GENERALIZE Talk about your topics in groups or as a collective rather than as individuals.
CONNECTIVE LANGUAGE Use language which link cause and effect.
GET TECHNICAL & DETAILED Use technical language and terms specific to your subject. Use technical descriptions to crate richer meaning.
TENSE AND VOICE Explanations are written in the passive voice and in timeless present tense
VISUALS Use graphic organizers, labelled diagrams and even videos you are constructing a digital text to illustrate your understanding.
Using your writing time effectively is really crucial. When writing an explanation, you should aim to spend about one-fifth of your time researching your topic to ensure you know what you are talking about.
Next, take an equal amount of time to structure your writing using a graphic organizer or mind map, which can be found below. If you follow this model, you only need to spend under half your time writing. Your ideas and structure will already be formed.
This will leave you a reasonable window to edit and revise your essay for meaning, spelling and grammar and structure. Using graphic organizers, planning tools, and writing checklists will greatly assist the planning and editing time.
Introduction: Because you are explaining a process, your audience will require some context about your topic. Firstly, ensure you provide some facts and insights so that it makes sense to your audience.
Secondly, You have obviously found this subject interesting enough to write an essay about it, so ensure what piqued your interest is translated to your audience by creating a hook that leaves your audience wanting to read on.
Body: Keep everything in chronological order here to ensure your explanation follows a sequence.
In this section, you want your paragraphs to really emphasise what happens in the opening of each paragraph and then lead into how and, or why things occur using relevant technical terms and action verbs.
Use the bulk of your paragraph to focus on the how and why that will both fill your reader with wonder, and lead them to ask questions about your subject area.
Use connective terms and transitional language that is not repetitive when linking paragraphs. Be sure to read our complete guide to writing perfect paragraphs for further details.
Make sure that you have entirely covered the explanation before moving on to your conclusion.
Conclusion: Use the conclusion to pose and or answer any apparent questions the audience may have on your topic.
Also, feel free to share a very personal opinion or insight about your topic to build a connection with the audience to ensure your explanation text is worthy of their time.
