How to Structure a Descriptive Essay
A descriptive essay is an excellent opportunity to learn to express yourself in writing. Also, depending on what career you end up in, it might be a regular part of work for you. A descriptive essay offers a clear description of something, whether an event, person, feeling, even your entire life, as in memoirs. You can order a sample paper at NinjaEssays. You can also learn how to write on yourself.
Why do we write descriptive essays?
The point of a descriptive essay is to enable the reader to deeply understand a subject. We do this by including lots of details and literary devices to help draw a vivid picture in the reader’s mind.
But descriptive essays aren’t just for the reader; they are also of great benefit to the writer. Whether you’ve been given a topic to write or are writing about something personal, a descriptive essay can drastically improve your writing skills, helping you add a skill to your repertoire.
What is the structure of a descriptive essay?
While descriptive essays can be about different things, they all tend to have the same overall structure. Following this structure will help you write a descriptive essay about almost anything, covering most things in an easy but thorough manner.
Introduction
This is where you introduce the subject of the essay. You don’t have to go into vivid details about it, as you will do that later.
Thesis statement
In this section, you should write an outline of your description. Again, don’t go into too much detail. That will happen in the body.
Main body
In this section, you will get into the meat and potatoes of the descriptive essay. The average main body has three paragraphs, though you should feel free to include as many as necessary to draw your picture. For the standard three paragraph body, you can use the first paragraph to describe the subject, the second to describe the environment around the subject, and third to go into the emotive and sensual details of the subject, especially in terms of how it affects those who interact with it.
Conclusion
This is where you bring it all together. Summarize the main points of the essay and conclude by asking the reader what they think. Whatever you do, though, do not use the conclusion to introduce a new topic.
Steps to writing a descriptive essay
If you want to nail your descriptive essay, you will have to be organized. You will also have to add lots of sensory and figurative language, and, of course, details galore. The tips below should help you get there, step by step.
Choose a topic
The very best descriptive essays can be described in a single word: focused. They have a single main topic, and any deviations ultimately tie back to that topic. The whole piece feels unified as a result.
To ensure your descriptive essay is focused, you will have to settle on its purpose long before you write the first word. This is why thesis statements are so important. They’re not just part of the structure of a descriptive essay, but also help you to summarize your idea and keep yourself on track.
Gather information
A good descriptive essay should have plenty of details, including physical characteristics, names, dates, sensory information, and background information. All of these should come together to help you incept your main points into the reader’s mind. Take the opportunity to collect the details, and then categorize them, perhaps using cards or little notes. That way, you will have a good source of information to pull from while you work.
Write an outline
To help you organize your work, you should write an outline. Group the main points into paragraphs, each representing a sub-topic within the overall essay.
Write the introduction
As mentioned above, the introduction should have an overview of the topic. The best introduction should have a hook, such as a rhetorical question. This will make the reader want to know more.
Write the body
Each paragraph in the body should start with a sentence that tells the reader what to expect from the paragraph. Be sure to flesh out each paragraph with details as well, giving specific examples in lieu of general ones wherever possible.
Write the conclusion
The conclusion is the cap to the bottle that is your essay. Use it to repeat your main points, touching on key details. Whatever you do, don’t use it to introduce new ideas.
Conclusion
And with that your descriptive essay should be complete. Remember to go through it once you’re done and look for opportunities to add new details where possible, making them as vivid as possible. While this is a descriptive essay, it should read more like a story than a list, and great language and literary devices will make it live on in the reader’s mind for a long time after they’re done reading.