Essay-writing[edit]
According to Frederick Crews, it is traditional and useful to think of essays as falling into four types, corresponding to four basic functions of prose: description, or picturing; narration, or telling; exposition, or explaining; and argument, or convincing.[14] Susan Anker distinguishes between nine different modes of essay writing: narration, or writing that tells stories; illustration, or writing that gives examples; description, or writing that creates pictures in words; process analysis, or writing that explains how things happen; classification, or writing that sorts things into groups; definition, or writing that tells what something means; comparison and contrast, or writing that shows similarities and differences; cause and effect, or writing that explains reasons or results; and argument, or writing that persuades.[15]