An essay teaches us to think freely and reason for a given topic. On a blank sheet of paper, any student can express their emotions and thoughts. Skillful use of written language will help not only in school but also in life. It doesn’t matter what profession you work in – a journalist, a builder, a doctor – the ability to reason will come in handy everywhere.
In life, you often have to write essays. They come in three types: essay description, essay reasoning, and essay narration. Today we’ll talk about descriptive essays. You can understand the definition of a descriptive essay and its main purpose in learning more about it.
In a descriptive essay, you are describing something. As in the previous type of essay, here you can unleash your creativity by using certain techniques and creating various illustrative structures. We will tell you what this is and how to write a descriptive essay. Also if you haven’t any time or resources, you have to learn how to buy a descriptive essay.
What is a Descriptive Essay?
Let’s guess what is a descriptive essay. A descriptive essay is a type of essay in which the writer describes a subject, event, or person. The major difference between this type of essay and others is the author’s greater attention to detail. To describe something in such detail, the author must be a witness or participant in what he is describing or have a good understanding of what he is describing.
A descriptive essay can be of two types:
- personal;
- formal.
A personal narrative essay should be written based on personal experience. The author talks about events that he experienced. There is no need to provide scientific facts here. The arguments in such an essay are cases from life. A formal essay describes a phenomenon or subject. Such an essay is similar to an argumentative essay – all the information in it is in the form of specific examples and arguments.
On the one hand, a descriptive essay is easier to write because you need to describe your experience and that’s it. On the other hand, there is a danger that a descriptive essay may turn out to be very drawn out and uninteresting for the reader because it will contain a lot of unnecessary details.
Descriptive Essay Structure
The descriptive essay structure includes three parts – the introduction, the main part and the conclusion. Let’s focus on the content of these elements.
- Introduction. It is necessary to arouse the interest of the reader, to captivate, and to demonstrate that what is important will be discussed next. In the introduction, the author formulates the problem and conveys its essence, reveals his own emotions and convinces the reader of the importance of the issue.
- Main part. The problem is considered from different points of view, in particular from the historical aspect. The author asserts, explains, gives examples, analyses, expresses a final judgment and formulates conclusions. These tasks only conditionally divide the main part into subsections. Of course, they should follow logically, one after the other.
- Conclusion. The concluding part combines all the conclusions into one last thought and helps the reader to reach the logical conclusion of what he has read, to understand the arguments, to form his own opinion – yes or no, and may even encourage him to continue the discussion.
It is important to know what is the purpose of a descriptive essay and its parts. The purpose of the introductory part is to arouse interest. The purpose of the main part is to argue. The purpose of the conclusions is to bring to the value and significance of the problem or question raised and to encourage the author to think and rethink.
Also, let’s highlight the basic rules for writing a descriptive essay:
- Title – clear, comprehensive, exactly corresponding to the topic and content.
- Logical sequence, internal structure.
- Uniqueness and author’s presentation. The essay must be checked for plagiarism.
- Proximity to a light, conversational style.
- Literacy. This applies to all aspects, including accurate factual data and punctuation.
- Layout and formatting according to the requirements of MLA, APA or other citation style.
- Subjective argumentation, numerous arguments, conclusions, examples, and life situations.
- A clear subjective position of the author, his opinion, assessment, and analysis.
- Correspondence to common sense and realities, lack of fantasy and contradictions to axioms.
Extra official details in the essay are useless. It is assumed that it is addressed to an already prepared listener or reader who understands what will be discussed. So, you can safely emphasize the discovery of the new without long introductions and explanations.
How to start a descriptive essay
Writing such work you have to know how to start off a descriptive essay. You should be preceded by the process of choosing a topic and selecting and studying literature. If you are given a general topic, then you need to narrow it down, otherwise, you cannot fit it into a small volume and, at the same time, qualitatively reveal the topic.
Let’s guess how to write a descriptive essay introduction. A good introduction is one of the most important steps to a good descriptive essay. This allows the reader to get an idea of what you will share in the essay. You can start the descriptive essay introduction with interesting trigger words and phrases or questions so readers can find the answers later. However, be sure to include an overview of the body paragraphs. However, do not share the entire idea and purpose of the essay just at the beginning.
Thesis Statement for a Descriptive Essay
Apart from this, you should also add a thesis statement for a descriptive essay at the end of the introduction. While writing this, you must keep in mind that this is intended to serve as a guide for readers to know what to expect ahead. In it, you should determine the scope of your writing and try to eliminate cliché words.
During such work, make sure to write down quotations and sources carefully so that you do not have to search for the same literature again when preparing an essay. It is best to study the rules for formatting essay citations in advance – this will significantly save you time in future work.
How to Write a Descriptive Essay Conclusion
In the last part of the essay, it is recommended to summarize the basic ideas and conclude the work with a specific statement, calling the reader to some action or identifying a new question. For example, encourage the reader to think about ways to form a political culture.
If you find it difficult to keep a lot of ideas and evidence for them in your head, we recommend making a rough outline. The conclusion for descriptive essay should note what you are going to cover in the essay’s introduction, body, and conclusion.
Where to Find the Descriptive Essay Ideas
Finding the right theme is a common problem. It is important to choose one that will suit the author individually. Writers often pay attention to things that are inconspicuous at first glance, but surprising. If the author is interested in the problem, then the essay will be the most successful. The topic should be written down so that descriptive essay ideas are noticed. Examples of current topics:
- Events that happen around the author can be subtle or major. When involved in an event, the writer can open up the issue and express his opinion.
- Situations with emotional overtones or familiar ones, illuminated by the author from a new perspective, supplemented by his point of view.
- Impressions fresh or from memory that have left some trace.
- The author’s experiences correspond to a certain topic that can be taken as a basis when writing an essay.
- People nearby or strangers. Relationships, actions, life history, and achievements of people can be illuminated in a work from a personal point of view.
- Items that contain an idea or theme are revealed with the help of the imagination and imagination of the author.
To search for ideas, you can not only download art books but also visit a lot of sites, forums and other online communities that function on the “question and answer” principle. Here, people can ask questions and ask for answers – within a few minutes, a brilliant idea for an essay may come to mind. Users will share information about psychological problems, forcing them to concentrate on a specific topic, which will result in the successful discovery of an idea.
How to Write a Descriptive Essay About a Person
A descriptive essay about a person describes the features and characteristics of people, objects, events, and feelings in intricate detail. What is described will be carefully studied. For example, if you were describing roses, you might want to go into detail:
- their origin;
- their appearance;
- their color;
- their aroma.
When you write a narrative essay, you want to engage the reader’s feelings and emotions. For example, you could say, “I fell asleep.” Or you could write, “As I waited for Santa, my eyelids became heavy, the lights on the tree began to blur, and my head began to droop.” The second passage provides vivid details, allowing readers to feel like they are there.
Descriptive Essay About a Place
A descriptive essay about a place means a description of any place where a person lives: a village, town, city, street, yard, or square. The basis of the description is a listing of objects characteristic of a given place and a description of these objects. When describing a location, you need to find a “starting point of view.” For example, you look down at the city and its surroundings from a hillock.
To write a good descriptive essay about a place, it is important to note the vivid details that are characteristic of your object when describing it. Just make sure that the details are harmoniously combined and do not look disjointed. Your goal is to create a descriptive essay in which the reader will see the complete picture. As a rule, the composition of a descriptive essay consists of three parts: introduction, main part and conclusion.
Ideas for Descriptive Essay About Nature
An essay describes any of the seasons or days. It is important to create a fascinating text that reveals in you a sensitive person who is not indifferent to the beauties of nature. Understand from what person you want to make a descriptive essay about nature. Maybe you will have a desire to look at the world through the eyes of one object of living nature. This way you can convey your impressions and ideas more originally.
Remember your impressions of being in the forest, in the field, in the mountains. Recapture the sounds and smells of nature. Try to convey your observations and associations using comparisons, personifications, metaphors and other means of artistic expression to fill the description with special meaning and convey the author’s vision.