How to write a descriptive essay
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Osman Sirin - January 17, 2023
A descriptive essay gives a clear and detailed definition of a topic. Similar to narrative essays, a descriptive essay needs to be vivid and creative.
This type of essay tests your ability to write and paint the topic with your own words. Generally, you’ll be asked to write descriptive essays in high school or university.
About descriptive essays
A descriptive paper may describe a person, event, process, or object. The author should give a clear and vivid description of the topic instead of a metaphorical approachDescriptive essay example
In this article, we provide you with an overview of how to write a descriptive essay. Although some tips are included, it is always better to analyze an example paper.
Descriptive essay example
On weekend afternoons, I love to play League of Legends in my study room. The game is online, addictive, and enjoyable, but I usually have a good time when I play with my friends. Introductory sentences: Introduce the thing you’ll describe in a subtle way by including it in your introductory sentence. I am in my own space without work and daily stress. I feel the competitive environment resulted from this game’s nature. Impression: Include a personal opinion or experience to add a personal touch.
Usually, we play a 5v5 ranked game, and we always start with a rush to enemy resources. As usual, I follow my support player as my champion is an attack damage carrier and extremely vulnerable. The rest of the team positions themselves to get kills and, of course, enemy resources. Description: Expand on the description of the subject by detailing the scene in the introduction. Meanwhile, I need to position myself to damage enemy tanks, which are hard to combat. I save my leap for their engagement and press it when they rush on me. While my support tries to protect me, I damage enemy champions and try not to die soon. Because without me, my team wouldn’t be able to win the fight. But, whenever I use my leap, I have no choice but to die. Analogy: Define and tell your feelings and experiences when you do the thing you’re describing in your essay. Waiting in the base to respawn, I feel hopeless and pray for my friends to win the fight without me. However, I still have high hopes of winning the game as there are many combats to fight. After all, I lost the first fight, but why not try another? Conclusion: Conclude your essay by highlighting the author’s feelings and insights on the subject.Descriptive essay topics
Your instructor may give you a topic in instructions when writing a descriptive paper. These prompts will often ask you to focus on your own experience. After all, finding a topic shouldn’t be hard as the aim is simply describing something.
Decriptive essay topic examples
- Describe a country you want to live in.
- Describe a memory you can’t forget.
These are personal topic examples, but you may be assigned to something outside your own experience. Then, you’ll surely make use of your imagination. You need to paint the scenario with your words.
Imaginative descriptive essay topics
- Describe what it might be like to live on a remote island.
- Describe the feelings of a nurse in a full capacity hospital during the Covid outbreak.
Conceptual descriptive essay topics
- Describe the feeling of loneliness in your own words.
- Describe the feeling of failure.
Can't find a topic?
If you're not feeling creative, simply read our blog post on essay topic ideas.Approaches to descriptive essays
Descriptive essays are usually seen under two main approaches; these are personal and formal descriptive essays. Let’s see their differences and example topics.
Personal descriptive essay
In this type, what matters is your responses and feelings to create empathy among readers. Your essay structure may become random and disorganized as long as you convey your emotions to readers.
The focus is to fully communicate with your feelings and create a piece of personal feelings and emotions. Your reader needs to picture your situation.
Example topics
You can choose to reflect on your first relationship. Describing the impact of your favorite book on your character is also a good idea.Formal descriptive essay
This one is similar to an argumentative essay. By following an organized and clear essay structure, you aim to describe a set of crucial points about your topic.
Instead of describing your personal approach, follow a more general and broader perspective.
However, although it is a formal paper, don’t overuse formal language and bore your reader. You can still smarten your paper up with elaborative words and phrases, verb tenses, or a nice title.
Example topics
Describe the current political structure of Europe. You can also talk about historical events or the impacts of climate change on the global economy.Descriptive essay best practices
We’ve listed down several best practices along with a few writing tips. Follow these steps and write yourself a properly structured and intriguing descriptive essay.
Use figurative expressions
Metaphors and other linguistic twists are among the elements of figurative language. You better focus on figurative language to make your essay unique and creative.
Let’s see an example where the first is a literal description of a school and the second is a figurative one.
Your reader will not likely remember the first mainstream sentence in the example below. Think of more creative ways to explain your setting, as in the second sentence.
- There are many students in the schoolyard.
- The future of such a small county tends to wander around the green and vast playgrounds of the schoolyard.
Here, I have used figurative language to describe the “students” as “the future of such a small county”. This sentence is more memorable as your reader doesn’t expect such a figurative and creative approach to describing a schoolyard.
Make use of the senses
Example
I felt the bitter cold of snow on my face and smelled the refreshing air.Metaphorical example
To success is tasting the dessert of year-long hard work and the feeling you just don’t want to breathe out.Descriptive essay writing tips
- The key is to intrigue the readers. Your readers should find themselves in your shoes. Triggering their sense of empathy is good idea.
- You’re more free in terms of syntax and structure when compared to other types of academic essays. So, make use of this advantage.
- Give sensory details, use strong words, and use figurative language to paint a memorable picture for your readers.
- You need to choose effective and suitable phrases, transition sentences, adverbs, and especially adjectives.
- Rather than using a mainstream expression like “as good as” or “hot as fire”, focus on reflecting and describing more with stronger words.
- When proofreading your essay, try changing some cliche adjectives with stronger ones. You may use sources like Thesaurus to help you find better adjectives and synonyms.
With the help of this quick guide including the best practices of writing a descriptive essay, you’re good to go!
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