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The Purpose of Descriptive Text

Descriptive text describes people, places, moods, or situations using vivid language that appeals to the senses. It uses details like concrete nouns, imagery, and similes. When writing descriptively, writers should carefully observe their subject, select important details, organize the description, choose a point of view, use vivid language, and describe appearance, actions, feelings, and attitudes of people. The purpose of descriptive text is to create a clear picture or impression for readers and can be used to help readers see, explain, persuade, recreate experiences, or demonstrate something.

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Agustin Petra Elsya Rery
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705 views2 pages

The Purpose of Descriptive Text

Descriptive text describes people, places, moods, or situations using vivid language that appeals to the senses. It uses details like concrete nouns, imagery, and similes. When writing descriptively, writers should carefully observe their subject, select important details, organize the description, choose a point of view, use vivid language, and describe appearance, actions, feelings, and attitudes of people. The purpose of descriptive text is to create a clear picture or impression for readers and can be used to help readers see, explain, persuade, recreate experiences, or demonstrate something.

Uploaded by

Agustin Petra Elsya Rery
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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B.

Descriptive Text
1. The Definition of Descriptive Text
Descriptive text is a text which describes person, place, mood, situation, and etc. in words.
Similar to Diane A. Wilbur (1966) said that descriptive writing is to create a clear picture or
impression of person, place or object.22 Fred D. White (1986) also said that descriptive text is
drawing in words.23
Descriptive text is also a text which describes something that appeal directly to the sense like
John E. Warriner (1982) said that descriptive paragraph is giving a picture in words that appeal
directly to the sense (sight, sound, smell, touch, taste). He said a descriptive paragraph is
normally full of vivid verbs and precise adjectives. It depends on details, not action, to hold the
readers interest.24
Meanwhile, According to Barnet and Stubbs‟s (1983), “Description represents in words our
sensory impressions caught in a moment of time. In much descriptive writing visual imagery
dominates.”25
From the opinion about descriptive above, so the writer concludes that the descriptive text is a
text which is describes person, place, mood, situation, and etc., it also describes an object that
appeal to the sense. Besides that, descriptive text has several elements like Lila Fink, Phyllis
Levy, Charlotte Miller, and Gwen Brewer (1983) said that there are some elements of
description. They are:
a. Concrete details. A concrete detail is a specific description that supports, reflects, or
expands a writer‟s attitude or purpose. Example: The modern math student, using a calculator
instead of a slide rule, makes speedy and accurate calculations.

b. Images. An image is a concrete, literal (real, actual) description of person, physical object,
or sensory experience that can be known through one of the five senses (sight, sound, taste,
touch, and smell). Example:

Lightning crackled and sizzled across the darkened sky. (Sound and sight). The orange calico
kitten‟s bristled tongue scratched its way across my cheek. (sight and touch; concrete details)
c. Similes. A simile is a comparison, using like or as, between two objects. The comparison is
between two things essentially different yet similar in one aspect. Example:

Anger heated up in me like water about to boil.


The lecturer was as exciting and informative as stale beer.

2. Guides in Writing Descriptive Text


There are several things which should be known before writing descriptive text. They are:

a. Communicative purpose:
Descriptive is a type of written text, which has the specific function to give description about
an object (human or non human).
b. Rhetorical structure:

As explained before, the rhetorical structure of descriptive text is identification and


description. Identification is a statement of topic or subject which wants to be described.
Description is the details of identification or the object.
c. Grammatical patterns:

The declarative sentence usually is used in the descriptive text. The use of conjunction is also
needed to make coherent devices. The present tense is used dominantly because in the
descriptive text includes facts, general accepted-facts, or reality. 27 After knowing about the
explanation above, when a writer wants to write descriptive text, he or she also should know
the guides of writing descriptive text. There are some guides to write a descriptive text.
According to John J. De Boer (1982), there are six guides for writing description.
a. Observe carefully and record your sense impressions.

b. Select significant details that convey a dominant impression of the subject.

c. Organize your description according to a unifying principle; for example, the order of space
for descriptions of places.

d. Choose either stationary or a moving vantage point from which to describe a scene.

e. Use concrete, vivid language. Use figure of speech and connotative language.

f. In characterizing people:
Give details of appearance and of actions. Use a person‟s own words where they serve to
reveal character.
Describe feelings and attitudes.28
The Purpose of Descriptive Text
Based on the definition of descriptive above the purpose of description is to present the reader
with a picture of person, subject or setting. Similar to Diane A. Wilbur (1966) said that the
goal of descriptive writing is to create a clear picture or impression of person, place or
object.29 Meanwhile, Fred D. White (1986) said that there are several aims of descriptive text:
a. To see means to help the reader to see the objects, persons, and sensations you present, as
you might guess, description is important for all rhetorical aims, not just for expressiveness.

b. To explain means to explain the reader about a subject. For example: a science writer will
describe the shape of an airplane wing to help explain to readers how mechanized flight is
possible.

c. To persuade means the writer describes something to make readers interested. For example:
an attorney might describe the damage done to a bedroom window to help prove forced entry
and thereby persuade the jury that accused committed burglary.

d. To re-create means make a reader making something. For example: the description allows
the reader to re-create the experience – particularly the sensory pleasures of that experience –
in their own minds, thereby enhancing their delight in the subject at hand.

e. To demonstrate means the writer wants to demonstrate something to a reader. When a writer
describes the thawing of Walden Pond after a long, cold winter is to demonstrate the animated
quality of nature and how its processes are more complex and beautiful than non observers can
realize.30

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