When thinking about descriptive essay writing, remember that a structured paper outline is your golden ticket. Not only does it help you organize thoughts, but it will also help your essays flow better.
The definition of a descriptive essay is a type of composition or paper which describes an object, person, process, or event. The writer’s goal is to create a vivid reading experience, or to show instead of tell (metaphorically).
Descriptive writing usually appeals to the five senses: taste, touch, smell, hearing, and sight. (Ex: Jack’s coffee mug exploded into tiny shards of glass, catching the attention of everyone at the office.) Always appealing to the senses is key to writing a good descriptive essay.
Remember the most sincere emotion you’ve experienced and turn it into a descriptive essay writing. You may choose a strong feeling like anger, happiness, loss, desire, or rage. It doesn’t have to be a personal emotion, it could be an observed one.
Descriptive Essay Topics & Ideas
Try to incorporate the following into your conclusion:
There are usually three body paragraphs in a paper. They cover three different points or arguments. How many body paragraphs to include in your descriptive essay is entirely up to you—or your professor. Sometimes it only takes a paragraph to tell a story, while other times it takes books.
- The first thing to do at the end is to reflect on the initial purpose of the work. Spill the beans on why you decided to write about this subject, and how this subject has affected your life.
- Signify the Importance of the Details: Go over some key moments of the paper. Give a summary of what you have covered, and prepare the audience for the clincher statement.
- Clincher Statement: The clincher is the final sentence that reinforces your paper’s overall purpose or leaves your audience with an intriguing thought, question, or quote. You’ve probably spent a lot of time thinking of a hook to pull the audience in. Do not allow the paper to escape your audience’s thoughts right after they have finish reading it.
First of all, think of what you’d like to write about and pick a topic from descriptive speech topics, social issues topics or process essay topics that will match the theme. Have some inspiration from the essays of other people. Search around for descriptive writing topics and prompts if you can’t think of something unique for yourself. Expository essays are easy to write if you have enough inspiration on the chosen descriptive topic.
If you ask a college student to name the easiest type of paper, he would probably recall a descriptive essay. But what is a descriptive essay and why is it so simple to write? We’re here to help you out on that question and give you additional descriptive essay topics to make your college life easier. And if you want a descriptive essay writer to help you, you are very welcome to click the "Hire writer" button at the top of this page.
Assignments and descriptive essays are issues every student faces during studying period. Even if it's extremely hard to complete everything your professor gave you, you still have to learn how to write in different styles, meet all the requirements, including all the essentials you need to have in your text. We all have our own tips and tricks to carry through the assignment period, and we all are professionals in our own type of paper.
- places,
- people,
- animals,
- behavior,
- favorite trip and so on.
How to Write a Descriptive Essay?
Before you check your descriptive essays for mistakes by rereading it, make sure to use online grammar checking tools to have your back covered in case your eyes miss something. You are also free to order paper at online email writing service in case you want someone else to check it before you do it by yourself.
It's okay if you have limited vocabulary because this step will add more value to your expository writing. Add everything you want and describe it properly so your reader will be interested in what you wrote. Create an image in their head with the sensory words you can find in online dictionaries like Oxford, Cambridge or Macmillan ones. Make sure that they will touch on your descriptive topic and prolong the body paragraphs.
Before you start editing your paper, take a long break. You can always go out with your friends, take a walk, and have a nap or a night of good sleep. Your mind should be fresh before you come back and reread your essay. Take all the time you need, read it out loud, add or remove sentences, check if you have placed everything correctly. It’s useful to double-check grammar in case online tools missed something. Would your paper make sense if you were the reader? Maybe you’ll have to rewrite whole paragraphs so they would make more sense and convey the descriptive topic better.
This is the moment that I had been working towards, not just to emerge the best but I was sure my project would have an impact on the environment. I wanted that recognition because I believed it would propel my ideas further and into the world. I had wandered off, pondering on what could have been or might be, but I was not about to throw the towel in just yet. There was not much that I could do at that moment except hold on to the hope and belief that I had done a fantastic job.
The Cambridge English Dictionary defines the word describe as “to say or write what someone or something is like.” It is primarily using illustrative language to give a detailed account of something or someone. Descriptive writing is one of the most popular forms of essay writing and which students often encounter. This type of paper requires students to engage all the five senses of the reader, that is, sight, sound, smell, touch, and taste using literal tools, which we will discuss in detail in this article. Descriptive writing enables the audience to get a clear mental picture of the ideas that the author is trying to convey.
Like other forms of essay writing, there are dos and don’ts which act as a guide.
The speeches were finally over, every judge commending us for the excellent work done while at the same time encouraging us to pursue more exciting concepts and projects that would positively impact humanity. The second and first runners-up were called out, the roar of claps and congratulatory messages thundered throughout the room. But just as quickly the place went silent as we waited for the victor to be called out.
Here is a List of Dos to Create an Excellent Descriptive Essay
The silk came from ancient China, in exchange for rare commodities from the known world. The Silk Road revolutionized the globe spreading both good and societal evils. Although it helped transform civilizations by offering them goods they lacked, they were those that took advantage and used it to spread evil. The route snaked through the valleys of the Tibetan plateau, the highest point on earth, the Himalayan mountain ranges, Indian subcontinent, the hot Arabian deserts to the Mediterranean Sea and the rest of Europe. It also ran on the Asian coastline connecting to the African coasts.
Approximately 2200 years ago, the Silk Road was established. It was about 4000 miles long or more, connecting the East and West using both the land and sea. It was a trade route that connected the known world at that point in history. Well, today we boast of the internet, airplanes, ships, and electric trains as a means of connecting the world. The Silk Road got its name from silk, a rare but highly demanded commodity. This route encouraged interactions between civilizations through monetary and cultural exchanges.
There is no denying that the Silk Road had a significant impact on the world. It brought an era of progress and prosperity for civilizations. For example, areas, where there were issues of food insecurity, would trade other goods for foodstuff. Other exchanges included religion, culture, and art. It is thanks to the Silk Road that the world was introduced to the pen, paper, and printers. Evils spread too in the form of Genghis Khan, a Mongolian dedicated to unleashing his wrath onto the world. However, the world was more focused on mutual co-existence and righteousness which outweighed the evils.
You should choose a topic that sparks your creativity and this will come in handy as you paint a picture in the reader’s mind. As you introduce the topic, incorporate the right words which will set the tone and direction of the essay. Convey all your main ideas in your introductory paragraph in an engaging manner
It should have a strong finishing and it should recap your thesis statement.
Similes and metaphors are also linguistic tools used to describe something thus should be complemented with adjectives
Descriptive essays tend to take an open and relaxed writing approach and as such, the flow of thoughts can be incoherent making it hard for the reader to follow and visualize your object of description
Steps to writing descriptive essay examples
Review your work and proofread it for any grammar, punctuation, and spelling mistakes before you submit it
There are common mistakes often overlooked while writing that can lower your grade. It’s important you avoid them if you intend to produce an exceptional piece of writing. They include:
Common mistakes you should avoid while writing a descriptive essay
However, I think it’s safe to say that technology has spoiled us. Thanks to photos and videos, we’ve become increasingly visual, which means it’s getting harder to use words to describe something, especially if it only exists in our imaginations.
Compare the elaborate descriptions in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy with the descriptions in J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series (aff links). Both series relied on description to help readers visualize an imagined, fantastical world, but Rowling did not use her precious writing space to describe standard settings whereas Tolkien frequently paused all action and spent pages describing a single landscape.
Here are some descriptive writing activities that will inspire you while providing opportunities to practice writing description. If you don’t have much experience with descriptive writing, you may find that your first few attempts are flat and boring. If you can’t keep readers engaged, they’ll wander off. Work at crafting descriptions that are compelling and mesmerizing.
If you have any descriptive writing practices to add to this list, feel free to share them in the comments.
What is Descriptive Writing?
Nowadays, we all know what a tropical island looks like, thanks to the wide availability of media. Even if you’ve never been to such an island, surely you’ve seen one on TV. This might explain why few books on the craft of writing address descriptive writing. The focus is usually on other elements, like language, character, plot, theme, and structure.
I’ve encountered descriptive writing so smooth and seamless that I easily visualized what was happening without even noticing that I was reading description. Some authors craft descriptions that are so lovely, I do notice — but in a good way. Some of them are so compelling that I pause to read them again.
If you’ve ever encountered a story that paused to provide head-to-toe descriptions along with detailed backstories of every character upon their introduction into the narrative, you know just how grating description can be when executed poorly.