Can You Capture Your Readers’ Hearts With Your Descriptive Essay?
There are basically four types of essays namely descriptive, narrative, expository and persuasive. As the name suggests, a descriptive essay is that which describes a person, place thing, thoughts and so on. Unlike a narrative essay, an essay that is of the descriptive genre gives the reader a vivid picture of the thing that is described.

There are a lot of ways to achieve efficiency while writing an essay that is of the descriptive genre. Some of the basic points to be observed while any essay are outlined here.

 The writing should be simple and easy to understand.
 Repetition of words and concepts must be avoided.
 There must not be a statistic or facts overload, or else, it’ll turn out to be very boring.
 There must be a flow in writing.
 There must be a link between paragraphs.
 The topic of the essay should be good enough to capture the attention of the readers.

The same rules apply to descriptive essay. But, before settling down to write a descriptive passage, the following aspects must be remembered.

 One should take steps to identify the target audience of the essay. The pattern of description varies with children, men, women and the elderly. The passage should be in such a way as to satisfy its target audience.
 The writer should have a clear picture of what he is describing. He should plan what should and should not be included in the essay.
 The essay should be in such a way that the readers’ attention must be riveted to the article. They should not be easily distracted.
 The writer should remember to include words that will focus the description on the senses namely sight, sound, smell, touch and taste.
 When all the senses are involved while reading, the reader can actually feel what you are describing.
 Only necessary details should be provided.
 One should understand the difference between ‘showing’ and ‘telling’ before describing something. The words used must be able to ‘show’ what you are talking about rather than ‘tell’ it. For example consider the following sentences.
• I got scared while watching the horror movie.
• As I was watching the horror movie, the hair on the back of my neck stood on end and my heart beat so fast that I was afraid it would burst out of my chest.

Both the sentences convey the same meaning. The difference is that, while the first sentence ‘tells’ the readers that you were scared, the second sentence ‘shows’ it. The purpose of ‘showing’ the readers what you are describing is to make them feel it so as to help them understand better, whatever you are trying to convey. Hence, the writer has to understand this difference before writing.

Thus, these are the basic essay writing tips that one should keep in mind before writing a descriptive essay. However, the style varies with each writer as one is not the same as the other!

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