Learn How to Write a Descriptive Essay For Free

For any student, the skill of essay writing is one of the factors that contribute to one’s success. Writing an excellent descriptive essay plays a vital role in enhancing your performance, be it in an assignment, project, college application, or a personal hobby. However, if you wonder how to write a descriptive essay, you have landed on the right page. 

Here we will explain everything about descriptive essays writing along with descriptive essay examples and descriptive essay topics. Before we look into the writing part and understand how to write descriptive essays, let us start with the most basic and pivotal question: What is a descriptive essay?

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What is a Descriptive Essay?

A descriptive essay is an essay that provides descriptive information about the topic. The author, while writing a descriptive essay, should use descriptive language to provide a clear picture and enough details with respect to the topic. However, let’s go by the definition. A descriptive essay is a type of structural composition of words that describes a particular subject, such as any kind of event, object, person, emotion, place, etc.

Some define a descriptive essay as writing that gives a vivid picture and concise description of everything. In other words, descriptive essays can be called a genre of custom essay writing, where the writer is commonly assigned to describe the topic and provide more details to the reader to create an image in the reader’s mind.

As discussed, a descriptive essay can be about any kind of topic. You may write a descriptive essay about a place, a descriptive essay about a person, or whatever subject you like.

What is Descriptive Writing?

Descriptive writing is a skill that every individual must entail. It aims to attract the reader’s attention with respect to all five human senses. In simple and right words, writing a descriptive essay primarily means writing in such a manner that the reader’s mind is involved in your person writing with all their senses. A good descriptive essay is one that is capable of making the reader feel exactly what the words are trying to convey.

For example, if you wish to write a descriptive essay about your experience at a carnival ride, a reader should be able to experience it the same way you did.

So in the most basic terms, if you want to know how to write a descriptive essay, just dive deep into the topic, add sensory details and focus on how to convey something with words that can create the exact image in the reader’s mind.

However, do not confuse descriptive essays with simple description writing because both the terms may sound alike, but there is a huge difference. A description is a mere straightforward explanation, which could be just in three paragraphs, three sentences, or a specific word count. On the other hand, descriptive essay writing goals follow a particular descriptive essay format and descriptive essay outline.

What is the Purpose of Creating a Descriptive Essay?

So far, we have learned the meaning of a descriptive essay and how it differs from a description. But why is descriptive writing one of the vital literary tools? What purpose does it serve? Click here to know What is an Explanatory Essay?

As discussed in the previous section, a descriptive essay aims to appeal to a reader’s senses. While writing a descriptive essay, a writer needs to make sure that the paper has been written in a way that the reader not only comprehends it but can create a vivid image in their mind. This is the primary purpose of a descriptive essay.

An excellent descriptive five-paragraph essay is the one that successfully stimulates the reader’s all five senses, i.e., touch, smell, taste, sight, and hearing. Keep in mind that all the paragraphs of your essay should be in chronological order. Also, try to use constructive criticism to connect loose ends while writing your descriptive essays. 

If a reader can imagine or create a brain image of the scene or words being described in the essay, it will help them better understand the topic. As a descriptive essay gives concrete and vivid sensory details to the reader, they get a more solid and robust idea and a better understanding of a particular topic being described.

Once the reader has created a mental image in their head, the topic and the words stay in their cognition for longer than they would have been with mere words. As you must already know, it is easier to remember and recall whenever a picture or image is associated with any content, story, or theory. This is how a descriptive essay should work too. 

Want to know What is a Short Essay Example, click here

How is Descriptive Essays Writing Beneficial for the Writers?

Descriptive writing is highly beneficial for the writers too. Let’s say you wrote a narrative descriptive essay for your assignment, and when your teacher read it, they were able to see through the images of your experience written on the piece of paper. No doubt they will remember your work, and you will also outshine other essays. It will earn you a good grade on the assignment.

Besides, we have stated multiple times that descriptive writing is a necessary skill that every individual must learn. It is not only limited to middle school students, but descriptive essay writing skills also come in handy at all ages and at all times.

Learning how to write a descriptive essay also helps you at the college level. If you want to write research papers, thesis, or short stories, or anything of that sort, the skills of descriptive essay writing come as a big help.

What is a Good Descriptive Essay Example?

An excellent descriptive essay is the one that attracts a reader’s senses, and they can comprehend with the help of a mental image. However, an explanatory article can turn out to be a good one only if the topic of the essay is interesting enough.

If you think you can just pick any topic and go ahead with writing a descriptive essay about it, then you are mistaken. Surely you can cover most of the issues and have multiple descriptive essay ideas; you still need to choose the best topic accordingly. Selection of a good topic to write a descriptive essay is the first and foremost step and the most important one.

Even though you have a plethora of main ideas, at the end of the day, if you fail to explain the topic adequately, the reader will not be able to comprehend it, which would be an ultimate fail for you. It is highly likely for the reader to misunderstand the content and go away with a completely wrong idea than what your essay aims to imply.

It might sound like it is a complicated process, but don’t you worry, as we are here to make it easy for you. Here are some examples of descriptive essays to get a better and clear understanding of what kind of topic or new ideas you should choose to write a good descriptive essay.

While defining descriptive writing, we understood that a descriptive essay could be written on any topic, particular place, person, emotion, experience, or something else. We’ll discuss the examples of all the specific categories one by one.

Descriptive Essay About a Place

As the name suggests, a descriptive essay about a place requires you to give a more detail description of a place. It could be a historical monument, a place that you visited, or it could simply be your favorite vacation spot. While you write a descriptive essay about a place, support it with your own experience or maybe your wish to visit that place. For example-

• My Favorite Place
• Miami Beach
• Visit the Dentist’s Office
• Aesthetic beauty of my Village
• My favorite city in my hometown
• My favorite room in the house
• Where I spent my childhood
• My perfect vacation spot
• I wish I had this house
• My perfect house
• The place describing the nature
• My dream house
• My favorite classroom
• I prefer learning in this cafe
• My favorite restaurant to eat at
• I dreamed about Miami
• My favorite shop
• I walk my dog in this park

Descriptive Essay About a Person 

When we think about describing, the first thing or topic that crosses our minds is usually about a person. People like to describe their family members, friends, and their relationship with them as it is personal and an easy topic to write about. For Example-

• My mother: the best cook in the world
• Here comes the librarian
• The teacher I look up to
• My favorite singer
• The best dancer
• Physical characteristics of an athlete
• My Best friend
• The celebrity is like to meet
• How I want my Partner to be!
• How I keep my pet rock alive
• The mysterious woman

Descriptive Essay about an Experience

• The Perfect Wedding
• My first day at school
• Detailed description of my first day at college
• When I shifted to my hostel
• The time I went on a vacation
• My experience with COVID-19
• Descriptive Essay About an Event
• When I went to Ed Sheeran’s Concert
• Celebration of Holi in India
• My visit to a Carnival
• How I organized a Halloween Party
• My 20th Birthday
• A Night Out with Friends
• Olympics 2020
• My book reports
• Commonwealth Games 2021
• A Science Fair
• My College Farewell
• A wedding in my family
• Annual Sports Day

How to Write a Good Descriptive Essay?

After getting all the essential information, we have finally reached the most important topic, i.e., How to write a good descriptive essay. 

1. Choose the Correct Topic

The primary and the most crucial step is choosing just the right topic. It is always suggested to write one with a personal experience as the writer can convey the content better. Also, do not forget to include a good thesis statement, as it will summarize your main idea of writing the entire essay.

2. Create an Outline

Before actually start writing, create an outline for your descriptive essay that will describe all headings and subheadings you will be cover. Other than that, a descriptive essay’s outline and format are just like any other essay. It starts with an Introduction, then follows the body paragraphs, and ends with a concluding paragraph. In the next step, we will learn how to start a descriptive essay?

3. Introduction

Like any other article, descriptive writing begins with an introduction. But how to write a descriptive essay introduction. The first paragraph of a descriptive essay introduces the reader to the topics. Its motive is to set the mood and format for the entire writing. An excellent descriptive essay has a strong opening, which conveys to the reader what the paper is about, allowing them to assume what to expect from the article.

The introductory paragraph familiarizes the reader with the main topic in the concise and precise way possible. Having said that, it is vital to put just the right amount of information in your essay. Don’t leave a reader hanging, neither give away the whole idea. The introductory paragraph should contain just enough content for the reader to get an idea of the topic.

A pro tip- in the introductory part, try to give a hook or add a rhetorical question to involve the reader and make them think about the topic. Make sure your reader stays and continues reading by providing a bold statement.

Therefore, before beginning with the writing, always create a clear, descriptive essay outline, and follow it throughout your report.

To learn how to write the research paper introduction, click here.

4. Body Paragraphs

Body paragraphs cover the most portion in a descriptive essay. To have the right knowledge about ‘how to write a descriptive essay’, you need to learn how to form the body paragraphs, as this is where your description goes. While writing the body, make sure you begin the section with a topic sentence that tells them what the paragraph will convey.

Unlike introductory paragraphs, you can be as specific as possible in the body paragraphs. This is the part where you need to do the magic with your words and describe your topic in such a way that a reader begins to imagine the entire imaginary story, which keeps running throughout your essay. Also, try to include at least three body paragraphs in your essay.

You can also put up questions for the reader to tap into their personal experiences. It will not only make them feel involved but will also be able to relate to your experience.

However, if there is not enough information to include, avoid dragging or stretching the topic.

5. Conclusion

Make sure you have elaborated on every essential and relatable point in your essay because now it’s time to close it up. But how to conclude a descriptive essay?

The conclusion basically means giving a summarized and overall description of the topic of your descriptive essay. It is essential to provide a solid conclusion to a solid descriptive essay. Otherwise, the writing feels incomplete. Other than that, the reader might not be satisfied with the ending and think that the essay left them hanging. If your article began with an excellent introduction and created a beautiful imaginary story in their mind, then a lousy conclusion can spoil the whole mood of the reader.

Many writers appear to make the mistake of not considering the conclusion essential and do not put mind to it. But that is one of the reasons why your article could be deemed of poor quality. Make sure you don’t end the essay with a clumsy conclusion, which will, needless to say, ruin the whole impression.

Keep your conclusion brief, precise, and up to a point. Mention your findings (if any), but do not make the mistake of adding a new topic or add further information to the conclusion. It will only confuse the reader or make them think that they missed the main point. However, if you yourself feel the need to add new bullet points, you can always go back in your descriptive essay and add another body paragraph.

6. Brighten Up the Language

Before considering your essay as complete, address the main idea and recall some of the essential points of sensory details that you discussed in your essay.

Before submitting your work, always check your essay format and read your essay twice. Make sure that the figurative language you have used in your descriptive essay is comprehendible. If not, then think from the reader’s perspective and use appropriate language accordingly.

To Conclude

In this blog post, we have discussed in detail how to write descriptive essays and have also discussed different types of descriptive essays examples. We hope this page will help you to learn how to write a descriptive essay examples efficiently, and you will not need to look around anymore!