15 Examples of Explanatory Text

Explanatory texts provide information on specific facts and concepts. Their main objective is to disseminate content that is understandable to the recipient. For example, the definition of a concept in a dictionary, the content of study manuals, or a science article published in a magazine.

To fulfill their function, these texts, which are also called expository, use resources such as exemplification, description, opposition of concepts, comparison and reformulation.

Characteristics of the explanatory texts

• They are written in the third person.
• They use a formal registry.
• They do not include subjective statements or opinions.
• The content is presented as real and verified.
• They may or may not use technical terminology. It will depend on the audience to which the content is directed and the needs of the issuer.

Resources and structure

• They are organized into three main parts: introduction (the main idea is presented), development (the main topic is explained), and conclusion (detailed information is synthesized in the development).
• They propose one or more questions that an attempt is made to answer using verifiable data and information.
• Describes, presents, and organizes the facts and events hierarchically. Also, the information becomes more complex as the text progresses.

Examples of excerpts from explanatory texts

1. Photosynthesis is a chemical process through which inorganic matter is transformed into organic matter from the energy of light. In this process, glucose molecules are generated from carbon dioxide and water on the one hand, and oxygen is released as a by-product on the other.
2. Gabriel Garcia Marquez was a Colombian journalist, editor, screenwriter, novelist, and short story writer. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1982. He was born in Aracataca, Colombia, on March 6, 1927, and died on April 17, 2014. He is one of the greatest exponents of the Hispanic American Literature Boom. His works include 100 Years of Solitude, The Litter, The Colonel Has No One to Write to him, Chronicle of a Foretold Death, Story of a Castaway, and News of a Kidnapping.
3. Staff: From the Greek penta, five, and grama to write. It is where the musical notes and signs are written. It consists of five horizontal lines, equidistant and straight, and four spaces numbered from bottom to top.
4. Quorum is the minimum and necessary requirement of the number of members present in a plural organization to begin to debate or make decisions.
5. Poetry is a literary genre that expresses feelings, stories, and ideas beautifully and aesthetically. Its sentences are called verses, and the groups of verses are known as stanzas.
6. A natural satellite is a celestial body that orbits around a planet. Satellites are usually smaller than the planet they accompany in their orbit around their parent star.
7. Jazz is a musical genre that originated toward the end of the 19th century in the United States. To a large extent, its songs are instrumental. Its distinct feature is that it is based on free interpretation and improvisation.
8. The giraffe is a species of mammal from Africa. It is the highest terrestrial species. It can reach almost six meters in height and up to 1.6 tons. It inhabits open forests, grasslands, and savannas. It feeds mainly on tree branches, herbs, fruits, and shrubs. Per day, it eats about 35 kilos of foliage.
9. Silence is the absence of sound. In the context of human communication, it implies abstention from speech.
10. Impressionism is an artistic movement that is limited to the field of painting. It emerged in the middle of the 19th century. It is characterized by the search to capture light and the moment. Its artists, among whom Monet, Renoir, and Manet stand out, painted the visual impression so that the elements are not defined in their works and become a unitary whole. The colors, which together with the light are the works’ protagonists, are pure (they do not mix). The brushstrokes are not hidden, and the shapes are diluted imprecisely according to the light that illuminates them.
11. Ford Motor Company is a multinational company specializing in the automotive industry. It was founded in 1903, with an initial capital of US $28,000, to which 11 partners, including Henry Ford, contributed. The factory was located in Detroit, Michigan, United States. 1913, the firm created the world’s first registered mobile production line. This reduced the chassis assembly time from a dozen hours to 100 minutes.
12. Aldous Huxley was a British writer, philosopher, and poet from a family of biologists and intellectuals. He was born in England in 1894. During his youth, he suffered from visual problems that delayed his education at the University of Oxford. After completing his studies, he dedicated himself to traveling through Europe, and it was at that stage he wrote stories, poetry, and the first of his novels. It was in 1932 that he wrote his most recognized work, A Happy World.
13. Cinematography is about the technique and art of creating and projecting footage. Its origins lie in France, when in 1895, the Lumière brothers planned for the first time the departure of workers from a factory in Lyon, the arrival of a train, a ship leaving a port, and the demolition of a wall.
14. Parliament is the political body whose primary function is developing, reforming, and enacting laws. It can comprise one or two chambers, and its members are elected by vote.
15. A vertebrate is an animal that has a skeleton, skull, and vertebral column. Also, its central nervous system comprises its brain and spinal cord. These animals are opposed to invertebrates, which do not have bones.