stimulate the reader’s imagination to form sensory responses from all five senses.
b. Purpose of Descriptive Writing
Simon stated that description can serve several purposes as
follow:
1 it can ilustrate the basis on which you are making inferences, that
will allow readers to imagine the physical object involved in the writer experience.
2 it can provide visual images to make the essay lively and concrete
3 it can reflect criteria for comparing two subjects.
30
Fink stated in her book that the purpose of description is to present the reader with a picture of a person, subject, or setting.
31
Table 2.2 Purposes for Descriptive:
32
30
Linda Simon, A Guide and Source Book for Writing Across The Curriculum, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998, pp. 21-23.
31
Lila Fink, et al., A Text for Writing and Reading, Boston: Little, Brown Company, 1983, p. 3.
32
Barbara Fine Clouse, The Student Writer, New York: McGraw-Hill Companies, 2000, p. 143
Purpose Description
To entertain An amusing description of a teenager’s
bedroom To express feeling
A description of your favorite outdoor retreat so your reader understand why
you enjoy it so much. To relate experience
A description of your childhood home to convey a sense of the poverty you
grew up in. To inform for a reader unfamiliar with
the subject A description of a newborn calf for a
reader who has never seen one.
D. Paragraph
1. Definition of Paragraph
In written form, English is divided into paragraph to distinguish one main idea. According to Brown “A paragraph is a group of sentences that
work together as a team to discuss a single main idea.
33
Cowad said paragraph is composed of a sentence or a chunk of sentences which the writer has
grouped together for some definite reason.
34
In addition Oshima and Houge said paragraph is a group of related statement that a writer develops about a
subject. Each paragraph is separate unit marked by indenting the first word from the left-hand margin, or by living extra space above and below the
paragraph. The definition above can be cloncluded that a paragraph is a basic unit
of organization in writing in which a group of related sentences develop one main idea. And it can be seen as a group of sentences that work together as
team work.
2. Types of Paragraph
a. Description
A description iswriting about the way persons, animal, or things appear.
35
In description, the writer takes a scene or an object captures it in language. That is, he or she organizes the details of the object or scene
33
Ann Cole Brown, et. Al., Grammar and Composition, Boston: Houghton Miffin Company, 1984, p.276
34
Elizabet Cowan, Writing, Glenview: Scott, Foreman and Company, 1983, p.119
To inform
to create
a fresh
appreciation for the familiar A description of an apple to help the
reader rediscover the joys of this simple fluit.
To persuade to convince the reader that some music videos degrade
women A description of a degrading music
video.
they wish to describe in the way that will most effectively convey the sensual image.
36
Therefore, the important thing in descriptive writing is to combine three essential elements such as mood, dominant impression, and
logical development in writing. Language features of descriptive writing are; it focuses on specific participants as I, you, animals, place, or people;
it uses atributive and identifying processes, and it uses the simple present tense. Moreover, there are two schematic structures of description such as
identification and description. This structural form is the guidance for the writer to write the description paragraphs.
Descriptions usually include the following grammatical features:
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a verb in the present tense
b adjectives to describe the features of the subject
c topic sentences to begin paragraph and organize the various aspects
of the description. d
proper nouns e.g. Hana, my dog. e
action verbs e.g. dance , go Here is the model of the descriptive paragraph:
My apartment is a very small but comfortable. It has living room, a kitchen, a bedroom, and a bathroo. At the enterance, two doors lead
into the bathromm and the bedroom. The bedroom is on the far left, and the bathroom is next to it.Directly in front of the entrance is the
kitchen. Between the bedroom and the kitchen is a large storage closet. On the right side of the enterance is the living room. The living room
is a quite large, for it also serves as a dining room. In the back wall of living room, a door leads to a narrow balcony. In nice weather, you can
sit outside and enjoy the view. In summary, my apartment is a comfortable place to live.
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b. Narration
According to Oshima and Houge, Narration is story writing. When you write a narrative paragraph, you write about events in the
36
Robert Scholes and Nancy R. Comley, The Practice of Writing 2nd edition, New York: St. Martin’s Press, p. 11
37
Anderson, Mark and Kathy, Anderson. Text Type in English, Melbourne: Macmillan Education Australia Ltd, 1998.
38
Alice Oshima and Ann Hogue, Introduction to Academic Writing, New York: Addison- Wesley Publishing Company, Inc., 1988, p. 47
