Looking for informative essay topics? Below you will find the list of 30 informative topics and some tips on avoiding bad topics and choosing a good one. You may also check our tips on how to write an informative essay and informative essay examples.
Poor Informative Essay Topics
Introductory informative essay topics, such as “How to Play the Piano,” can lead to disaster. There’s so much basic definition and terminology, it is very hard to write an interesting paper. You might do better to focus on “How to Handle Your First Piano Recital” or “What Makes Jazz Piano Sound Different.” Another problem with introductory topics is that most educated people will be familiar with the basic information. Picking topics such as “Techniques of Safe Driving” or “Basics of Gardening” will bog you down saying the obvious. Pick an aspect of the topic that promises more surprise value: “Why Truck Drivers Are the Safest Drivers” or “Garden Health Hazards.”
Broad topics such as “What Is a Good Marriage?” can also doom your paper. You’ll only be able to say the most general and superficial things about this topic because you promised more than you can fulfill in sharp, gutsy detail. Better choices: “How to Handle a Family Argument over Money” or “Six Questions to Ask Your Fiancé Before Walking Down the Aisle.” Notice that in both of the narrower topics, the opportunity exists for a definition of a good marriage to emerge.
Good Informative Essay Topics
Lurking inside all poor topics are potential good topics, and keeping two things in mind will help you recognize which kind you have. First, has it been limited to an aspect you can cover in depth in your allotted pages? Can you really tell us something fresh and fill the essay with vivid details? Second, do you have a specific slant or message to convey—a thesis? To help you arrive at a thesis, let me explain a half-dozen time-tested ways of structuring informative writing. This illustrates an important point that sometimes gets lost: The steps in writing an essay are really interdependent—the thesis helps determine structure; the structure helps create ideas. The four steps of the writing process described in this book—Getting Ideas, Order, Draft, and Revision—in actual practice constantly play back and forth to each other.
The best topics for these types of essays should be interesting and should not be difficult to explain. The best subjects, however, are those that the writer or writers are passionate about and interested in. What are your hobbies and interests? Are you an expert in some kind of subject? Make sure to write about something you are excited about. Here are some examples:
- Your favorite hobby
- Your favorite academic subject
- A personal life lesson that you have learned
- The rules of your favorite game
- Some facts about your favorite sport
- How to prepare your favorite food
- How your favorite toy from childhood is made
- Your favorite fairytale from childhood
- A biography of someone in your family
- The rules of your favorite sport
- How you perfected a certain skill
- A biography of your favorite actor or actress
- Your favorite book
- Your least favorite book
- Your favorite movie
- Your least favorite movie
- Something that reminds you of a good memory
- Something that reminds you of a bad memory
- A biography of your favorite singer or musician
- The merits of your favorite soda
- Your chosen career path
- What you believe about UFOs
- Your religious beliefs
- Something you were scared of as a child
- Something you are scared of now
- Your favorite TV show
- Your least favorite TV show
- Your favorite news outlet
- Your political beliefs
- Something that inspires you
Informative essays can be very interesting and fun to write. Picking just one topic, however, is not so easy. There are so many subjects that you can explore as topics that can make for wonderful informative writing that it is hard to narrow it down to just one. Here is a list of subjects that would make great topics for informative essays.