Write a Description Essay

Write your own description essay on one of the following topics or on a topic of your own choice. Use DESCRIPTION AT A GLANCE as a basic organizer (“Organization in Description”), and follow the Writing Guide: Description checklist as you write and revise.

COLLEGE
  • Describe your favorite place on campus so that a reader understands why you like to be there.
  • Describe an event or a setting that you learned about in one of your courses.
WORK
  • Describe a product your company makes, or a service it provides.
  • Describe a specific area at work that you see every day but have not really noticed. Look at it with new eyes.
EVERYDAY LIFE
  • Describe a favorite food without naming it. Include how it looks, smells, tastes, and what it means to you.
  • Describe a place you have lived or visited.

WRITING GUIDE: DESCRIPTION

STEPS IN DESCRIPTION HOW TO DO THE STEPS
Focus.
  • Think about what you want to describe and who your readers are.
Explore your topic. See Chapter 2.
  • Make sure your topic can be described in a short essay.
  • Prewrite to generate sensory images and details.
Write a thesis statement. image See Chapter 3.
  • Decide your purpose for writing a description and what picture you want to create for your readers.
Support your thesis. See Chapter 3.
  • Add images and details that will bring what you are describing to life for your audience.
  • Use your senses to create the images.
Write a draft. See Chapter 4.
  • Arrange your main point and the images that help create it in a logical order.
  • Write topic sentences for the supporting images and details that show them.
Revise your draft. See Chapter 4.
  • Reread your essay, adding vivid details.
  • Add transitions to help show your reader your main impression of your topic.
  • Improve your introduction, thesis, and conclusion.
Edit your revised draft. See Chapters 16 through 18. Correct errors in grammar, spelling, word use, and punctuation.
Evaluate your writing.
  • Does it have the Four Basics of Good Description (see “Understand What Description Is”)?
  • Is this the best I can do?