Skill Spotlight: Informational Text Elements

Defined

An informational text presents readers with information or ideas about real people, places, things, and events. Writers of informational texts provide facts and details related to historical, scientific, and cultural topics. Some writers might also try to persuade you to accept a specific point of view about a subject.
 
The many types of informational texts include biography, diary, interview, article, report, advertisement, letter, editorial, essay, proposal, and speech. The main elements of the text will vary depending on which type of informational text a writer chooses. For example, consider the different elements found in a news article and a travel essay. A news article may aim to present strictly accurate facts and details about a specific event. It may include eyewitness accounts of what happened, but the writer might omit his or her own ideas and opinions. A travel essay, by contrast, provides the writer’s impressions of landscapes, people, and events encountered during the course of traveling. 

Identification and Application:

• Look for key details in the text that describe or explain important ideas, events, or individuals.
• Analyze how an author unfolds an analysis of a topic or presents a series of ideas or events, including the order in which the points are made.
• Compare and contrast facts and opinions to determine the similarities and differences of types of information in a text.
• Note how specific points about ideas and events in the text are introduced and developed, and the connections the author makes between them.