Expository Writing

In this chapter, we will be discussing the below-mentioned topics in detail:

• What is an expository essay?
• The TIACKO Framework
• Sample article 
  • Driving teen egos—and buying—through 'branding'
• Developing a PEEL paragraph 
  • Take a look at a sample PEEL paragraph

What is an Expository essay?

Also known as a discursive or discussion essay, an expository essay presents and discusses issues surrounding a particular topic. 

A good expository essay must include a thorough discussion of both sides of the topic, as well as address possible grey areas that lie in between two extremes.

Expository essays do not require a stand to be taken. However, students may still take a stronger view of one side of the argument over the other.

The TIACKO Framework

Using TIACKO in the planning process:

• Topic: The broad theme(s) of the question.
• Issue: The Central problem that the question poses.
• Assumption: Point(s) that the question takes for granted to be true or real.
• Comment: The complications i.e. the grey areas of the question that must be addressed to pass this essay.
• Keywords: The definition of all significant keywords in the question.
• Opinion: The general stand on this essay question. 

Let’s understand this with the help of a topic:

“Advertising has become too great an influence on young people”. Discuss.

• Topic - Advertising (Media), youths
• Issue - Degree / Extent / Seriousness of influence of advertising on youths; Consequently, the harms and benefits that arise from it.
• Assumption - Advertising extensively influences youths and is therefore harmful.
• Comment: The period from the 20th to the 21st century witnessed the rapid development of information technology. This new digital age facilitated the proliferation of information and ideas. Due to the sheer volume of information, it is difficult to censor or regulate. The lack of filters on the Internet allows advertising to have a greater propensity to proliferate negative ideas, including but not limited to advertising about tobacco, and alcohol. Whilst individuals now can either be passive or active members in seeking information, often the most passive actors are the most vulnerable ones. Unlike information-seekers, they usually take information at face value and lack media literacy due to the lack of will in seeking information. (Children and youths are a sub-set of that group.)
• Keywords:
  • ‘advertising’: a form of marketing or communication used to encourage, persuade or manipulate an audience often to consume a product or service. This form of marketing is primarily done through either the mass media such as newspapers, magazines, television commercials, radio advertisements, outdoor advertising or direct mail or new media such as weblogs/blogs, websites or text messages.
  • ‘influence’: to drive behaviour in a particular manner, in this case, it is for the purpose of directing consumption. Often, advertising attempts to shape consumer culture by influencing the perception of the product.
  • ‘too great’: whilst influence in moderation is fine, ‘too great’ suggests that the influenceofy advertising has tipped this healthy balance in recent times (the onus I, therefore,e to describe what has empowered advertising) or manipulate an audience often to consume a product or service.
  • ‘young people’: the nature of young people is that they are usually not considered rational moral agents, incapable of making good decisions on their own because they tend to lack experience, knowledge and self-control.
• Opinion: Advertising is a good influence when used to inform consumers or spread good values, but it is more often than not highly deceptive, spreading social ills and giving impressionable youths a distorted sense of reality.

Let’s understand this with the help of some questions:

Practice Questions

Question 1:

America has seen a sharp upswing in marketing geared to teens since the 1980s, when research documented their significant buying power, thanks to after-school and summer jobs, not to mention increasing sway over parents.

Moreover, notes psychologist Susan Linn of the Harvard Medical School, in her book, Consuming Kids, companies market to adolescents and children with an annual budget of over $15 billion, or about two and a half times more than was spent in 1992. They now influence over $600 billion worth of spending.

Is the segment in bold a negative consequence of advertising?

1. Yes
2. No

Answer:

Yes, it is a negative consequence of advertising because they spent so much money on advertising and they have targeted the children instead of targeting the elder people or the general public they have started to use all the money to try to grab all the attention of children. 

So, it is definitely a negative consequence of advertising. Hence, the correct answer is Option No (A).

Question 2:

As a result, teens are inundated with so much marketing about the importance of brands to identity and image, it has changed the way they socialise with each other, interact with adults and themselves and view the world, says child psychologist Allen Kanner.

Is the segment in bold a consequence of advertising?

1. Yes
2. No

Answer:

The correct answer is Yes, i.e. it is a consequence of advertising because they socialise with each other, they interact with adults, and they change their views of themselves.

Question 3:

"It's the meta-message that you can solve all of life's problems by purchasing the right products that’s having the most profound effect," Kanner explains.

Is the segment in bold a negative consequence of advertising?

1. Yes
2. No

Answer:

The correct answer is Option No (A) i.e. Yes.

Question 4:

Seeking teen cash

By the time children reach their teens, a developmental stage when they're naturally insecure and searching for personal identity, they've been taught that material possessions are what matter, Kanner says. Advertisers understand the teen's desire to be "cool", and manipulate it to sell their wares, a concept that's been offered to marketers by psychologists including James McNeal.

Is the segment in bold a negative consequence of advertising?

1. Yes
2. No

Answer:

The correct answer is No i.e. it is not a negative effect of advertising because this is just an observation of what students are right now.

Question 5:

"Teens want to identify with their peer group and in a certain sense, that is a vulnerability," Kanner says. Indeed, teens and tweens, children between the ages of 12 and 14, are attracted to the prestige they believe brand-name clothing provides them. The attraction to prestige brands develops in adolescent years because it's a time when peer pressure and fitting in are very important, she notes.

Is the segment in bold a negative consequence of advertising?

1. Yes                      
2. No

Answer:

The correct answer is Option No (A) i.e. Yes. It is due to advertising that they believe that the brand name gives them prestige and a sense of importance.

Question 6:

The problem, says Kanner, is that marketers manipulate that attraction, encouraging teens to use materialistic values to define who they are and aren't. In doing that, marketers distort the organic process of developing an identity by hooking self-value to brands, he adds. "More naturally, you might develop your identity around, for example, doing good in the world or building a career out of an interest," he explains.

Is the segment in bold a negative consequence of advertising?

1. Yesnbsp;
2. No

Answer:

The correct answer is No i.e. it is not a negative consequence of advertising.

Question 7:

Targeting teen girls

Who you are includes how you fulfil your gender role, which with the intensity of marketing to teens, can't help but be defined by products and images, Linn says. Although damaging to both sexes—men often encounter pressure to look and behave in hyper-masculine ways that influence identity—teen- age girls bear a particularly high burden of intense advertising, according to Linn.  

Is the segment in bold a negative consequence of advertising?

1. Yesnbsp;
2. No

Answer:

The correct answer is Option No. (A) i.e. Yes, it is a negative consequence of advertising because it causes men to be highly influenced and then they act in hyper-masculine ways. 

Hyper-masculine ways are like they show increased aggression, increased level of violence, chauvinism and anti-social behaviour.

Question 8:

Targeting teen girls

Constant exposure to commercials promising the world—beauty, popularity, peace-of-mind, self- confidence, great relationships—turns many young girls into insatiable consumers, agrees psychologist Margo Maine, who treats eating disorders and founded the Eating Disorder Coalition for Research. Teenage girls spend over $9 billion on makeup and skin products alone, an example of advertisers successfully selling the "quick fix," she says. “But that kind of purchase robs them of self-awareness, self-determination and self-esteem,” Maine believes.

Is the segment in bold a negative consequence of advertising?

1. Yesnbsp;
2. No

Solution:

The correct answer is Option No (A) i.e. Yes because if we are exposed to too much  of these advertisements, these advertisements promise many things leaving young girls dissatisfied. 

The word Rob in bold is a very strong negative word. The more we buy, the lower the confidence gets, the lower the self-esteem gets, and the lower the self-awareness gets.

Question 9:

“Encouraged to look outside of themselves for comfort, values and direction, girls become easy prey to addictive behaviours and unrealistic images that ads promote, ”she says. “ The diet, tobacco and alcohol industries target girls, capitalising on the body image, weight concerns and beauty ideals.”

Is the segment in bold a negative consequence of advertising?

1. Yes
2. No

Answer:

The correct answer is Option No. (A) i.e. Yes, it is a negative consequence because these industries target girls and they use things that can harm them the most like body image, weight and their ideals of beauty. They target their vulnerability. 

Question 10:

Psychology's role

Many teens are feeling the pressure, Kanner says. Some who he sees have trouble distinguishing between what they truly like and what marketers have told them to like. And many teens believe that they are impervious to marketing manipulation, a topic that is very difficult to address in the therapy room. Instead, suggests Kanner, "the bulk of psychologist effort needs to be focused on the source of the problem—corporate advertising—rather than going along with the industry's cynical attempts to shift the responsibility primarily onto teens and their parents.

Is the segment in bold a negative consequence of advertising?

1. Yesnbsp;
2. No

Answer:

The correct answer is Option No (B) i.e. No, which means it is not negative advertising. It is not a negative consequence because the segment in bold represents the belief of the teens. So, it is not the fault of advertising, it is what teens believe themselves.

PEEL Structure

Paragraph Development

One common way to develop a paragraph is using the following structure:

• Topic Sentence (Point) – the key discussion point of the paragraph
• Elaboration – explain in greater detail your understanding of the topic
• Example/ Evidence – supports your point as exemplified or justified
• Link – sums up the paragraph by linking it to the previous paragraph and overall topic

Question 11:

Write one PEEL paragraph on “Advertising has become too great an influence on young people.” Discuss.