From an academic viewpoint classification essay is a rather simple assignment that doesn’t require the author to go deep into detail. For your convenience we have amassed 25 sample classification topics.
What is a classification essay?
This is a type of an essay where the writer tries to arrange objects, people or ideas into different groups or classes of items that share similar characteristics. The essay tries to give meaningful information on how different parts relate to a whole. It explains how different groups share similar characteristics and the differences between them.
The introductory paragraph tries to give an overview of the subject matter that is being classified. This information is mostly descriptive. The body is divided into paragraphs written in an orderly manner, each with a unique group. Grouping will solely dependent on the purpose of the essay.
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What makes a good classification essay?
This type of essay is all about organizing items and still keeping the logical connections in them. At the end of the introductory paragraph you will introduce your thesis statement. The thesis statement is important as it is the one that will be followed in the whole essay. The thesis statement should do the following things:
- Name the general group of items that the essay seeks to classify
- It describes what are the basis of classification
- It also labeled the categories that are developed in the essay
The thesis statement helps readers identify your approach to the analysis. The whole essay should be written in line with the thesis statement. A good classification essay should have an order. The essay should take separate elements and clearly illustrate patterns of connection that are easy for the readers to identify. To show cohesion, it is important that one makes use of comparisons. The comparisons will also ensure a smooth transition from a paragraph to the next one.
The classification and division essay topics can be quite wide. There are several ways that a certain list can be grouped uniquely. It can be according to size, purpose among others. The order that is chosen for grouping will depend on the intended use of the analyzed information. An example is when you are grouping people. You can choose to group them according to their hobbies, their personal relationships or even their wealth. It all depends on the use of the information. Writing an irrelevant piece will not help the readers.
Before continuing to the body, make sure that you have clearly determined the categories. Be thorough in identifying them this way no important category will be left out. Writing a rough copy will also help in including all the categories. The rough copy also ensures that you get the classification essay topic ideas in order. It will be easier arranging them in the rough copy before proceeding to the final copy. For each category, make sure that you support it using relevant examples. Try and give the same number of examples for each this shows equality in each of the categories.
In the conclusion the writer has to draw together the different approaches that they have examined in the body. They should clearly emphasize the purpose for which they were doing the classification. Connect your conclusion to your introduction.
Order of categories
This refers to how the groups are arranged in the body of the essay. There is a way you can arrange the groups, an example is arranging them from the oldest to the most modern or from the shortest to the longest.
Use an ordering system that will fit the kind of information that you are working with and one that will best suit the purpose of the information. An example is if you are writing about gadgets. You can arrange then in a descending order in terms of price. The first category should be the least important category. This helps keep the reader engaged and interested to see what is most important and they end up reading the whole essay.
When writing a classification essay, remember about three principles to maintain consistency in your essay:
- Select a theoretical framework that you are going to use for your classification
- Analyze body of data, determine their differences and/or similarities
- Select classification criterion/criteria and apply the same criteria to all items in your data. On the basis of those criteria divide your items into categories.
Please remember that from an academic viewpoint, classification essay remains a basic assignment. Therefore, you shouldn’t expect a high school level classification essay to go deep into science and provide high-level, sophisticated classification sets.
For your convenience, classification essay topics are sorted by subjects:
Literature
- Provide a classification of Shakespeare’s plays by genres
- Write a classification essay of literary archetypes based on Jungian psychology
- Provide a brief classification of literary works by James Michener
- Group Hemingway’s works by types of conflict
Marketing
- Analyzing marketing strategies of Australia’s top 50 companies, classify them according to the market dominance approach
- Using Porter generic strategies provide give 10 examples for each category: Horizontal integration, vertical integration, diversification, intensification. Substantiate your choice.
- Analyze and provide classification goods and services of Latin America’s top 100 companies working on the industrial market. Group them according to the following categories: selling finished goods; selling raw materials or components, selling services to businesses
- Provide a classification of world markets.
Management
- From your standpoint, classify change management theories into effective and ineffective in a high school setting.
- Classify your teachers by their styles of management.
- Think of ten recent changes you have experienced and classify them as either planned or emergency.
- Take 5 top companies in the US and Australia and classify them based on they are being managed or led.
Linguistics
- Select 10 dictionaries and classify them based on whether they are linguistic or encyclopedic.
- Provide a classification 10 randomly selected Euro-Asian languages based depending on whether they are isolating, agglutinating or fusional.
- Classify speech acts by type in 10 randomly selected short stories by O’Henry.
- Analyzing the first two paragraphs in “A Clockwork orange” by Stanley Kubrick, classify morphemes on the basis of whether they are free or bound. Use a table to organize your results.
History
- Using a list of literature covered in your World literature class, classify it by historical period.
- Classify the following empires according to the period of their existence: Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece, Ottoman Empire, Russian Empire, Korean Empire, Maurya Empire, Persian Empire, Mongol Empire, German Empire and British Empire. Use a table to arrange your results.
- Provide a structural classification of army units in the ancient Rome.
- Provide a classification of the Ottoman military during the classical period.
Computer studies
- Provide a classification of data structures with examples
- Provide a classification of computers on the basis of their functionality (size, form-factor, computational method).
- Provide a classification of Operation systems based on free vs. proprietary
- Choose 20 world’s worst computer viruses and classify them by their working algorithm (parasitic, mutants, replicators, Trojan horse, invisible)
We hope this article gives you some ideas or writing your classification essay. We are happy to facilitate your personal and academic growth with this material. Please remember: whenever you are in need of a professional writing service, need a piece of advice, proofreading services or any other kind of assistance, feel free to contact us any time. We are available and happy to assist you 24/7.
