What Is a Classification Essay

Publication Date: 02 Mar 2018
Author: Kelly Higgins

How to Write a Classification Essay?

A classification essay is not the most widely used format of academic writing. Yet, it is useful to deepen the knowledge of classification techniques as it develops critical and analytical thinking abilities and may come in handy at any field of study.

The main target of the classification essay is to sort out and organize whatever you need into categories. Once the data is categorized it is easy to analyze and assess it.

Valid Steps to Begin with

It takes three bullet points to start the classification from. The same principles you apply in everyday life when dealing with your businesses:

• Create “useful” categories
• Develop a single organization feature for all the categories
• Provide illustrations and examples for each category

Before We Proceed

Before we start writing, let’s deal with the topic for the essay. Usually, you are giving one in the class but it worth mentioning some of classification essay topics:

• Winter outdoor sport in Norway
• Most popular movie genres in America
• States classification ( population, welfare, etc)
• Racing cars

Determine Categories

It resembles the clerk’s work a lot. Imagine you have tons of paper for your boss. He doesn’t have time to go through all of them right now but some documents need to be signed at that very moment. So, as an accurate and responsible clerk, you prioritize the paper and make the stacks of categories: the most urgent, paper to pass co-workers, documents to file, the ones to read and the last one to throw away.  The same trick you use to establish a pattern for your classification essay categories.

Thesis Sentence

It should include the topic and the patter for classification. You may as well name the categories. Have an example:

Americans the most enjoy watching four TV show genres in the last decade: sitcom, criminal, historical drama, and fantasy.

Closer Look at the Structure

• Create categories. For my classification essay, I decided to divide all most popular TV shows by genre. So, here are four groups forming the categories. Yet, do not create too many categories. A wide range of data can blurry the topic and confuse both you and the reader.
• Develop a single organization feature. Within each category of the TV shows I am going to establish the same pattern of ranking shows. For instance, the historical drama section gives a background on the historical shows and presents the rank of these shows from the top popular to the least watched ones. It’s better to avoid unnecessary information about the budget or popularity in other countries as it may disorientate the reader. It is not relevant to the topic.
• Provide illustrations and examples. Each category should have the same amount of illustration. Pick an optimum number, let’s say five, and rank the shows within each section by name.

You may develop your own classification system, of course. You’re limited only by your imagination. The main goal is to make the essay, clear, logic and with distinct categorization pattern.