Types of text: literary, informative, argumentative, explanatory ...

Types of texts

A text It is a set of statements that convey an orderly and coherent message, the length of which can vary. There are different types of texts according to its structure and communicative function: literary texts, scientific texts, explanatory texts, persuasive texts, argumentative texts.

Texts are composed of a set of signs that make up a language and that transmit a message whose meaning is acquired according to the context in which it is produced and received.

Literary texts

The literary texts they have an aesthetic purpose, not a practical one; and for this, the author uses expressive resources such as rhetorical and literary figures. To capture the reader's attention, the author has total freedom: each writer prints his own style to his work. The content of these texts may or may not be based on a real event. For example: story, novel.

Informative texts

The informative texts They provide descriptions and data of reality to transmit information or knowledge. Its content is concrete, real and objective. They lack subjectivisms, arguments, points of view and judgments of the author.

These texts use informative or technical language, according to the public to whom they are directed. Its ultimate goal is to facilitate understanding for the recipient. They may be:

Appellate texts

The appellative texts They seek to persuade the recipient to carry out a specific action. The author can use argumentative resources, such as giving direct orders (through the imperative or infinitives), suggestions or data that support the request. They may be:

Descriptive texts

The descriptive texts They seek to characterize events, situations, objects, animals or people. They can emphasize different edges of an element. They can also be limited to giving details about the physical or psychological aspect of a person or combine both.

Expository texts

The expository texts (or explanatory) are intended to disseminate information about concepts and facts understandable to the recipient. To do this, they use resources such as comparison, reformulation, exemplification or description. They are formal texts written in the third person, which do not contain subjective opinions or statements. Depending on the target audience, they can use technical language.

Objectively and deeply delve into a specific topic to inform or make known a series of concepts, data or specific facts. They provide and transmit clear and direct knowledge and are developed in various fields, such as scientific, educational, legal, social or journalistic. For example: Encyclopedic texts, definitions, educational manuals, theses, monographs, laws, decrees.

Argumentative texts

The argumentative texts are those texts that aspire to their receiver to acquire a certain position on a certain topic. To persuade his reader, the author uses rhetorical, narrative and expository resources. Some elements of these texts are textual quotes, illustrations and examples, stories, textual references to an authority on the subject and abstractions, among others. For example: reader's letter, editorial, essay, criticism.

Examples of each type of text

Examples of literary texts

Stories

1. The Alephby Jorge Luis Borges.
2. Taken houseby Julio Cortázar.

Novels

1. 100 years of Solitudeby Gabriel García Márquez.
2. The Unbearable Lightness of Beingby Milan Kundera.
3. The navel of the limbsby Antonin Artaud.
4. One hundred sonnets of loveby Pablo Neruda.

Legends

1. Legend of the bad light.
2. The legend of the Headless Horseman.

Theater plays

1. Trees die standing upby Alejandro Casona.
2. The dream of a nigth of summerby William Shakespeare.

Examples of informational texts

Scientific texts

1. Nanotechnology: The Revolution of New Materials (presentations and conferences)
2. Molecular bases of flowering (Article)
3. Malvinas, a chronology of five centuries (monograph)
4. God's neurons, by Diego Golombek (informative text)

Journalistic texts

1. Volkswagen signs a millionaire agreement for having collaborated with the dictatorship in Brazil, El País (news)
2. Government responds to Santos and denies aid to Trump's re-election campaign, El Espectador (news)
3. Brave New World: Direct Selling, Leila Guerriero (chronicle)
4. Havana, the arrested city, Martín Caparrós (chronicle)

1. TikTok, Trump and China: an unsolved chaos, El Espectador (editorial)
2. 75 years of the United Nations, La Nación (editorial)

Examples of expository or explanatory texts

1. Mitosis concept (encyclopedic text)
2. Charles Darwin (biographical note)
3. Geostrategic value of the Falkland Islands in the definition of power at the beginning of the 21st century (thesis)
4. Law 24,156 - Financial administration and control systems of the national public sector
5. Decree DNU 522/2020
6. Cellulose (definition of a concept in a dictionary)
7. The bourgeois revolutions of the 18th century (the content of a history manual)
8. The technologies that have transformed our society (scientific article)

Appellate texts

Instructive texts

1. Chocolate cake recipe
2. How to use the voice recorder
3. Ibuprofen leaflet

Persuasive texts

1. Hope. Obama's presidential campaign that seeks to convey hope. In addition, the image resembles the poster of Che Guevara, who, like Obama, received the support of young people during his campaign.
2. Recycling is everyone's business. Recycling campaign of the Association of Municipalities of the Sierra de Cádiz and Ecoembes.
3. Denialism kills. Campaign that urges Argentine citizens to wear chinstraps to avoid spreading the Covid-19 virus

Advertising texts

Argumentative texts

1. Legal text. Unboxing of the Bertuzzi ruling, Gustavo Arballo.
2. Test. Essay on global warming, Orlando Ramirez.
3. Opinion. Ideologies that wrought the ruin of Latin America, Mario Vargas Llosa.

Descriptive texts

1. Little snowball. This is the name of our kitten, who has already lived with us for five years. He is white, fat and very hairy. Hence his name. He spends practically all day sleeping. He barely gets up from his spoon to eat, "go to the bathroom" or if he hears a pigeon visiting us on the balcony.
2. Living in Russia during the Stalin regime meant being afraid all the time. In Moscow, people practically did not communicate with each other and, when they did, it was to make some very superficial comment, in passing, as if by obligation ("What a nice day!" "Will it rain?"). For fear that a neighbor would listen, the families got used to speaking very softly: to whispering. Writing in an intimate journal was, for many, the only activity that allowed them to capture what they really thought. Any comment, even the most banal, could be used as sufficient evidence to be denounced, go to prison, end up in a forced labor camp or, perhaps, on the wall.
3. I never knew his name, nor did I ever hear his voice. He always wore a brown beret, jean pants and a worn sweater, except in summer, when he wore plaid shirts. Assisted by his cane, he would pull his chair up to the sidewalk and sit there for hours watching people go by. His skin was practically papyrus, his thick-rimmed glasses slid down his nose and his eyes, blue and glassy, ​​kept moving back and forth.

Text properties