Classification Essay
An Introduction

An easy way to think about ''classification'' is to think about a school putting students into classes (groups of students). There are many students, but only a few classes (maybe 3-5). As you know from your many years of experience as students,

(1) all students must be put in a class and
(2) no student should be put in two classes (no overlapping).

You might also imagine that when schools divide students into classes they like to avoid unbalanced classes sizes, particularly classes of only one or two students. If possible, they would move such students into one of the other classes.

A Classification Essay is a piece of writing that presents a way of dividing things (items rather than students) into classes. These things might be

physical items: musical instruments, alcoholic drinks, or countries;
things that are not physical: power, ways of studying, emotions; OR
a combination of both--desires (things that people want).

The first two steps in writing a Classification Essay are to figure out (1) the topic--what kind of items to divide up and (2) how to divide the items.

2a. brainstorm many items
2b. group items that are very similar (no interesting differences)
2c. brainstorm many objective differences between dissimilar items
2d. decide which differences are interesting enough to write about

(a) original, (b) useful, and/or (c) intellectually interesting.

Only after deciding the topic and how to divide the items are we ready to start writing process (outline, rough draft, etc.). It would be nice to start off with an Introduction--a short paragraph that will introduce the topic and inform the readers how many classes we are going to divide the items into.

The bulk of the essay then will explain the principle we are using to divide the items. Usually there will be at least one paragraph (with at least 3 sentences in each) for each of the classes. Remember we are explaining the division of items--its complexity--the connections and, perhaps, interaction between the classes. This is NOT a personal essay. You should leave out all personal material and also any irrelevent details about the items themselves--details that have nothing to do with the division of items into classes.

Finally we'll want to end the essay smoothly by putting some final remarks into a short paragraph--a Conclusion.