How to Write a Process Essay: Guide & 20 Sample Topics
A process essay is among various essays you might be assigned in the course of your high school and college-level studies. However, these types of essays greatly differ from standard essays and may thus prove a challenging task for students to maneuver.
Read on to discover the parts of a process essay and various tips to help you quickly manage a process essay.
What is a Process Essay?
A process essay is an instructional composition that outlines the steps on how to act or the steps of a certain process. As such, a process essay is purposed to offer readers guidance and directions on performing various tasks.
Owing to its instructional nature, a process essay requires good analytical skills, a straightforward narration of the steps, and a mastery of the order of occurrence. It is also crucial that you master transitional words to guide your reader on executing the steps in the right manner for a specific result.
Types of Process Essays
Like other types of essays, process essays are divided into categories that determine the nature of your essay. The three types of broad essays are directional, informative, and process analysis essays.
- Directional Essays. These essays are also called how-to essays as they describe the process required to complete a certain task. These types of essays are short and precise as they do not dive into the consequences of various steps of the process.
- Informative essays. These essays describe the procedure for completing a task and do not necessarily follow a step-by-step order. E.g., How to enroll for a college sports scholarship.
- Process analysis essay. Process analysis essays critically analyze each step and the consequences of each action to the final achievement. As such, these essays are more complex and require ample research to determine the cause-effect relationship of each action in the process.
Process Essay Outline
Writing a process essay requires mastery of the structure and the organization of ideas within your paper. Like other types of essays, the process essay is divided into an introduction, a body, and a conclusion section.
- The introduction. This section comprises the hook, a brief introduction describing the importance of the process or highlighting various shortcomings faced by people undertaking the process. Finally, the introduction should cover the thesis statement showing what you intend to tackle within the paper.
- The body paragraph. The body carries the key ideas of your paper and may be divided into three or more paragraphs depending on the word count. Body paragraphs should start with a supporting statement, followed by an explanation of the statement and the evidence of the supporting statement.
You may also start by defining the expected outcome of a process and define how the steps can be tweaked to achieve this action. When dealing with mechanical topics, you may offer various approaches with different tools and sort the different approaches to different paragraphs.
- Conclusion. This section should highlight the expected outcome of the process and what the reader should have achieved if they have successfully followed the steps you’ve defined.
How to Write a Process Essay
Here are some tips to guide you in writing a process essay.
- Research the essay thoroughly and find alternative approaches to completing the process.
- Always assume that the reader does not know anything regarding the topic and cover all the nitty-gritty elements of completing the task you’re writing about.
- Logically organize your steps to avoid any confusion. Show the relevance of each step to enable the reader to understand how it fits in the larger view of the process essay.
- Use transition words e.g., next, afterward, etc.
Process Essay Topic Ideas
Examples of Process Analysis Essay Topics
- How to start your own business
- How to prepare a great resume
- How to learn a new language
- How to avoid plagiarism in your work
- How to successfully manage a YouTube channel
Process Analysis Essay Topics
- How to find a good roommate for campus
- How to overcome mental burnout
- How to survive an economic recession
- How to manage your time on campus
- How solar panels work
Process Essay Topics
- How to create a website
- How to start a career from home
- How to make money online
- How to organize a successful diner party
- How to write a successful play
Process Essay Topics for College Students
- How to choose a college major
- How to start a photo shooting business
- Explain the steps for constructing a skyscraper
- How to create a perfume
- How to build a bicycle