WRITING A DESCRIPTIVE TEXT

WRITING A DESCRIPTIVE TEXT

WHAT IS A DESCRIPTIVE TEXT?

• A descriptive text usually focuses on describing a single location, object, event, person, or place.

  
  

• It seeks to engage all five of the reader’s senses to evoke the sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and feel of the text’s subject.

Elements of descriptive writing

• 1) Sensory Details

• 2) Figurative Language

• 3) A Dominant Impression

• 4) Precise Language

• 5) Careful Organization

1. SENSORY DETAILS

Good descriptive writing includes many vivid sensory details that paint a picture and appeals to all of the reader's senses of sight, hearing, touch, smell, and taste when appropriate. Descriptive writing may also paint a pictures of the feelings the person, place or thing invokes the writer.

2) FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE

Good descriptive writing often makes use of figurative language to help paint the picture in the reader's mind. There are many ways to use figurative language, and it is a talent that should be practiced until perfected.

-A simile uses like or as to compare two unlike things. Example: Her smile was like sunshine.

-A metaphor compares two unlike things without using like or as: Example: Her smile was a light that lit up the room.

-Personification suggests comparison between a nonliving thing and a person by giving the nonliving thing human traits.

Multiple Choice

The element of sensory details makes the reader feel as if he/she was living the real moment or was visiting the place described.

• True

• False

Multiple Choice

When using personification, we give qualities to nonliving objects.

• True

• False

3) A DOMINANT IMPRESSION

When you plan a descriptive essay, your focus on selecting details that help your readers see what you see, feel what you feel, and experience what you experience. Your goal is to create a single dominant impression, a central theme or idea to which all the details relate-for example, the liveliness of a street scene or the quiet of a summer night. This dominant impression unifies the description and gives readers an overall sense of what the person, place, object, or scene looks like (and perhaps what it sounds, smells, tastes, or feels like).

Multiple Select

The element "Dominant Impression" refers to:

• Examples of the main idea.

• A central theme or idea

• Your conclusion of the topic.

4) PRECISE LANGUAGE 

Good descriptive writing uses precise language. Using specific words and phrases will help the reader “see” what you are describing. If a word or phrase is specific, it is exact and precise. The opposite of specific language is language that is vague, general, or fuzzy.

5) CAREFUL ORGANIZATION

• Good descriptive writing is organized. Some ways to organize descriptive writing include: of chronological (time), spatial (location), and order importance.

Spatial order

• Uses location: top to bottom; front to back; left to right (Best for describing a place)

Order of Importance

• Puts the most important details at the beginning or at the end (best for describing objects and people)

Chronological order

• Arranges details in time order (best for describing events)

Multiple Choice

A synonym of precise language is general language.

• True

• False

Structure of Descriptive Text

• Introduction

• Characteristics (body)

• Conclusion

Introduction

-Capture your reader's attention and identify your subject (funny story, a question, a fact)

-Provide background information (explain the context)

-State your thesis (dominant impression)

Characteristics (Body)

• Use a variety of details (sensory, facts, figurative language.

• Include thoughts and feelings.

• Arrange details into a logical order. Use also spatial order, chronological order and order of importance of information.

Conclusion

• Reemphasize the dominant impression (Remind the reader why the subject you are describing is important)

• Summarize the material you have discussed.

Multiple Choice

In the Introduction you state your dominant impression.

• True

• False

Multiple Choice

You DON'T include one of these in the characteristics or body.

• details

• thoughts

• background information

Multiple Choice

A summary can be done in the conclusion.

• True

• False

Language Feature of Descriptive Text

• – Specific participant : has a certain object, is not common and is unique (only one). for example: Bandengan beach, my house, Borobudur temple, uncle Jim

• – The use of the adjective (an adjective) to clarify the noun, for example: a beautiful beach, a handsome man, the famous place in jepara, etc.

• – The use of simple present tense: The sentence pattern used is simple present because it tells the fact of the object described.

• – Action verb: verbs that show an activity (for example, run, sleep, walk, cut etc….

Multiple Choice

The most common tense used in descriptive texts is:

• Simple Past tense

• Simple Present Tense

• Present Perfect Tense

Multiple Choice

This is one of the most important language features to use in Descriptive texts:

• Adjectives

• common objects

• Simple past tense