DESCRIPTION ESSAY

What if you were asked to describe how something looks - a place, a thing, or a person? How should you arrange your ideas and sentences in the paragraph? Obviously, time order would not be logical. When you are describing the way something looks " its physical appearance" a place, not time, is important. Therefore, you should arrange your sentences and details according to where the objects being described are located. This type of organization is called spatial organization. In a descriptive paragraph, you must make very clear the location of the objects being described.

Description of a place

In describing a room, what should you describe first? The walls? The floor? Unlike a chronologically developed paragraph, there is no set pattern for arranging sentences in a descriptive paragraph. It is not necessary to begin with one area and then proceed to another one. Nevertheless, the sentences should not be randomly arranged. The description must be organized so that the reader can vividly imagine the scene being described. Imagine that you are describing a scene for an artist to paint. Would you have the artist paint the ceiling white and the bed blue and then go back and put posters on the walls before painting the walls? Of course not! Those directions might irritate the artist. The same applies to describing for the reader, for you are the describer with words, and your reader is the painter who mentally recreates what you are describing in the paragraph.

The arrangement of details in a descriptive paragraph depends on the subject. The selection and the description of details depend on the describer's purpose. Suppose that your cousin wrote and asked you to describe your room. Remember that your cousin is very interested in what you think about your life in United States . You might write your description like this:

"My dormitory room is on the second floor of Bienville Hall. It is a small rectangular room with a white ceiling and green walls. As you enter the room straight ahead you will see two large windows with gold curtains. My bed, which is covered with a red and gold bedspread, is under the windows. On your left against the wall, there is a large bookcase filled with books. Close to the door a desk and chair sit next to the bookcase, with a small woven wastepaper basket underneath the desk. There are several posters on this wall. The one that is over the bookcase shows an interesting scene from our country. The one that is over the desk is of my favorite singer: To your right built into the wall opposite the bookcase and desk, is a closet with sliding doors. Behind you on your right and somewhat behind the door is a dresser with a mirror over it."

Examine the description Is the location of the objects in the room clear? Are the details arranged logically? The to both of these questions is yet. The objects are clearly arranged, and the description is easy to follow. The paragraph is both unified and coherent. But is the controlling idea about the room clear? What impression is conveyed by the room? Would your cousin know if you liked the room or not? Probably not. To make the paragraph more interesting, you can add a controlling idea that states an attitude or impression about the place being described. After all, your cousin does want to know you feel about your room.

The details in a descriptive paragraph should be not only logically arranged but be vivid as well. As a painter who uses words, you want to give the reader as precise a picture as possible; otherwise, the reader will have only a vague sense of what you are describing. To make the details more vivid, you need to modify them. Always strive to make details specific. Vague descriptions do not allow the reader to really see the object. Specific details make your writing clearer and more interesting.