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Description

Writing That Creates Pictures in Words

Understand What Description Is

Description is writing that creates a clear and vivid impression of a person, place, or thing, often by appealing to the physical senses.

Four Basics of Good Description

It creates a main impression—an overall effect, feeling, or image—about the topic.
It uses specific examples to support the main impression.
It supports those examples with details that appeal to the five senses: sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch.
It brings a person, place, or physical object to life for the reader.

In the following student paragraph, the numbers and colors correspond to the Four Basics of Good Description.

Scars are stories written on a person’s skin and sometimes on his heart. 1 My scar is not very big or very visible. 2 It is only about three inches long and an inch wide. It is on my knee, so it is usually covered, unseen. 3 It puckers the skin around it, and the texture of the scar itself is smoother than my real skin. It is flesh-colored, almost like a raggedy bandage. The story on my skin is a small one. 1 The story on my heart, though, is much deeper. 2 It was night, very cold, 3 my breath pluming into the frigid air. I took deep breaths that smelled like winter, piercing through my nasal passages and into my lungs as I walked to my car. I saw a couple making out against the wall of a building I was nearing. 2 I smiled and thought about them making their own heat. 3 I thought I saw steam coming from them, but maybe I imagined that. As I got near, I heard a familiar giggle: my girlfriend’s. Then I saw her scarlet scarf, one I had given her, along with soft red leather gloves. I turned and ran, before they could see me. There was loud pounding in my ears, from the inside, sounding and feeling as if my brain had just become the loudest bass I had ever heard. My head throbbed, and slipping on some ice, I crashed to the ground, landing on my hands and knees, ripping my pants. I knew my knee was bleeding, even in the dark. I didn’t care: 4 That scar would heal. The other one would take a lot longer.

Being able to describe something or someone accurately and in detail is important in many situations.

COLLEGE	On a physical therapy test, you describe the symptoms you observed in a patient.
WORK	You write a memo to your boss describing how the office could be arranged for increased efficiency.
EVERYDAY LIFE	You describe something you lost to the lost-and-found clerk at a store.

In college assignments, the word describe may mean tell about or report. When an assignment asks you to actually describe a person, place, or thing, however, you will need to use the kinds of specific descriptive details discussed later in this chapter.