One of the keys to writing a descriptive essay is to create a picture in your readers’ minds by engaging all five senses: smell, sight, touch, taste, and sound. If you can do this, your essay is a success; if not, you have a lot of work to do. The first steps in writing a descriptive essay will lay the groundwork for the entire piece.
Step 1: Choose a topic
A descriptive essay will usually focus on a single event, person, location, or item. When you write your essay, it is your job to convey your idea about that topic through careful description and organization. You need to show your readers, not tell them, what you are trying to describe by painting a vivid picture in their minds.
Your essay needs to be structured in a way that helps your topic make sense. If you are describing an event, you will need to write your paragraphs in chronological order. If you are writing about a person or place, you need to organize the paragraphs so that you start in a general manner and then move into more specific details. Your introductory paragraph sets the tone for the rest of the essay, so it needs to set out all the main ideas that you are going to cover.
Step 2: Create a statement
The next step is to create a thesis statement. This is a single idea that will be prominent throughout your essay. It not only sets out the purpose of the essay but also guides the way information is conveyed. This statement should appear in your introductory paragraph and establish the framework for your topic.
Step 3: Get the senses right
Next, create five labeled columns on a sheet of paper, each one labeled with one of the five senses. This list will help you sort out your thoughts as you describe your topic. The taste, sight, touch, smell, and sound of your topic can be sketched out among the columns. List any sensations or feelings that you associate with the topic you are writing about. You need to provide full sensory details that help support the thesis. You can also use literary tools such as metaphors, similes, personification, and descriptive adjectives.
Once you have the columns laid out, you can start to fill them with details that help support your thesis. These should be the most interesting items that you have noted in your columns, and they will become the details that you flesh out in the body paragraphs of your essay. Each paragraph should focus on a separate topic, begin with a topic sentence, and relate to your introductory paragraph and thesis.
Step 4: Create an outline
The next step is to create an outline that lists the details to be discussed in each paragraph. Students in high school are generally asked to write a five-paragraph essay, while college students are usually given more freedom with the length of their pieces. The standard five-paragraph essay has a particular structure: an introductory paragraph that includes a thesis statement, followed by three body paragraphs that support that statement.
Step 5: Write the conclusion
Finally, the concluding paragraph summarizes the entirety of your essay. This conclusion also needs to reaffirm your thesis, if necessary. Your conclusion needs to be well written because it is the final thing your reader will read and will remain in their mind the longest after they have finished the rest of your essay.
Step 6: Review your essay
It is important to take a break from your writing once you have completed the work. By stepping away from the piece for a short time, you can clear your mind and take a short rest. You can then look at the essay with fresh eyes and view it much the same way a reader will when seeing it for the first time.
After you have taken a short break, a walk, or whatever helps you reset, read the entire essay again while thinking about your reader. Ask yourself: If you were the reader, would the essay make sense to you? Is it easy to read? Could anyone understand what the topic of the essay is? Do any of the paragraphs need to be rewritten because they are confusing or not descriptive enough?
Your choice of words and language needs to convey what you are trying to describe when you discuss a particular topic. The details that you provide should give your reader enough information to form a complete picture. Every detail in the essay should help the reader understand the meaning of the topic from the writer’s point of view.
Read your entire essay again, out loud this time. Sometimes reading something aloud can help you identify issues that need to be fixed. Read the essay to a friend or family member and ask for any feedback they might have. Have someone else read your essay, and then ask whether anything needs to be clarified or whether they received a clear picture from the details given in the essay.
Step 7: Finish it up
Finally, read your essay again very carefully and check for any obvious grammar, punctuation, or spelling errors. If you find any clichés, be sure to delete them; they certainly do not belong in your essay. If there are any parts that are not completely descriptive or do not make as much sense as you would like, rewrite them once again, and then repeat the proofreading and reading aloud process to ensure that the final product is exactly as expected. You can never be too thorough when it comes to reading the essay again and checking for any areas that need to be reworked.
