The definition of nonfiction:
Positively informative writing

The standard definition of nonfiction prose is that it is NOT or non fiction. It lacks fictive (invented, feigned, imagined) elements.

What does the genre have?

Information.

Nonfiction writing is always informative writing. It communicates knowledge about facts, situations, or events.

Reader discretion urged

The knowledge may be

• Biased

• Based on incorrect data, or

• Totally incorrect,

but the writer presents it as true and believes it to be true.

If I write that I put my library book on the shelf by the back door and believe that’s what I did, my writing is nonfiction — even if the book turns up later in the bedroom.

Writer discretion urged

Readers are at the mercy of writers’ memories, perceptivity, and honesty. Readers have to develop skill at sifting information to find the least biased, most accurate, and most reliable sources.

As readers become writers and have to seek information to support their written opinions, they have to learn to evaluate information sources. I’ll open that can of worms later on this website.

Just to be perfectly clear, you need to note how I’m using the term writing. The writing I mean is writing in paragraphs, not things like a grocery list or even a list of sentences using vocabulary words.

3 ways to structure nonfiction

Writing texts devote gallons of ink to explaining ways of organizing nonfiction material. They list so many options that students' heads spin.

Students don't need to know all that up front. I prefer to tell students there are three major ways of structuring nonfiction material (strings, the inverted pyramid, and the persuasive or essay pattern) and that they will have to learn just one of them.

Bolstered by that comforting thought and a basic definition of nonfiction, they are ready to be plunged into prose.