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The Division and Classification Essay – You Won’t Be Sorting Rocks

Content the division and classification essay   you won t be sorting rocks

The Division and Classification Essay – You Won’t Be Sorting Rocks

When you were a kid, you were introduced to a thinking skill known as classification. You were probably given a box of something – coins, rocks, or buttons perhaps – and were asked to sort them by some criterion – size, shape, color, etc. As you moved through school, you were given other classification activities or were introduced to real world examples of classification. In biology, you learned how animals are classified into phyla, classes, and species. In chemistry, the periodic table of elements which are grouped according to their characteristics. You also write classification essays in English class as a part of an essay writing unit. Classification essays usually fall within the genres of expository or definition.

Division and Classification Essay Writing in College – They Can be Fun

If you have not written one in a while, you may be asking, what is a classification essay? If so, go back to elementary school and think about those buttons. It really is as simple as that. You are going to identify a large group of something as a topic and then break them down into smaller groups based upon common characteristics of some sort.

Step by Step Process for Writing a Classification Essay

  1. Choose your large subject category. It can be something humorous like drivers or partyers, something more serious like types of mental illnesses or terrorist organizations, or something relative neutral such as types of courses or religions. Choose something that you know plenty about and in which you have an interest – unless, that is, your instructor has given you a topic.
  2. Decide on the sub-groups within your large category. You’ll have to do some good thinking here so that you do not leave any sub-group out. For example, if you are going to write an essay about drivers, how many different types can you list? The aggressive, angry ones who are in a hurry and weave in and out of traffic, etc., the slow casual driver who doesn’t mind that s/he is going below the speed limit and holding everyone else up, the distracted driver who is looking all around or, worse, texting, the new driver who is a bundle of nerves and driving so cautiously that s/he is a road hazard, etc.
  3. Make detailed lists. Now, make a heading for each sub-group and list all of the specific details about that group. These are the items that will be included when you write your paragraphs about each group. If, for example, you have 4 different types of drivers, you will have 4 body paragraphs. See how simple this is?

Writing the Essay

  1. The Introduction

In the case of a classification essay, you can go against traditional advice that says to write your body paragraphs before your introduction. You have all of the information on your topic and the details of the sub-groups, and that is all you need. Suppose you are writing a classification essay about friends. You might begin with a statement such as, “Not all of my friends are created equal.” You would then state something like, you have 4 different types of friends and you hang out with them for different purposes or you share different levels of yourself with each group.

  1. Body Paragraphs

Each type of friend you have will be given one paragraph. There might be the friend who is really just an acquaintance with whom you share some information about yourself, but not much; there might be the friend with whom you study, and both of you occasionally talk of your personal lives; there might be the type of friend with whom you work and socialize a bit. S/he may know a bit more about you; then there is the friend who is really close and with whom you share everything, good and bad.

  1. The Conclusion

This final paragraph may speak to the fact that all four types of friends are important because they represent the types of friendship you will have as an adult – it is good to be able to relate to all types well.

Classification essays are really easy to organize once you have your sub-groups identified. Even if you have to conduct research to get the details, they are easily found.