Commonsense Composition

1.1. Descriptive Essays http://www.ck12.org

about, you have a reason for the choice you have made. It is your job as the writer to show the reader your point.
Why have you chosen this person instead of another? What makes them interesting? You must draw your readers
into your essays just as every other author draws their readers into their work, even if your only audience is your
teacher. Remember, teachers do not like reading pointless essays any more than you do!

Thus, whenever writing a descriptive essay about a person, you must ask yourself: Why did I choose this person?
What makes this person special? Is it a memory? Which of this person’s characteristics has inspired me to write
about him or her? In answering these questions, you not only find the reason or purpose for writing your essay, but
you also inadvertently discover how to format your essay as well. Generally, essays can be formatted in a number of
different ways. The formatting of an essay rests almost entirely on what you are trying to do or to say within your
paper. For instance, let us consider the answer to some of the questions provided above.

Imagine that you have decided to write your descriptive essay about your aunt because you spent your summers with
her when you were younger. Let’s say that during one of your visits to her house, she taught you how to swim in the
lake behind her house, and this is one of the fondest memories from your childhood. In this case, your descriptive
essay would be a chronological account of this experience. You would organize your essay around the experience
by having an introduction and conclusion that indicate the topic and purpose of your essay while detailing the event
in the body of the essay. For instance, in a descriptive essay about your aunt, the introduction and conclusion would
indicated that this memory was the highlight of your childhood while the body paragraphs would describe the event
in chronological order. Since this is a descriptive essay about a person and not an event, you must be sure to center
your discussion of the event on the person involved, the person who made the event special.

However, you could also write a descriptive essay about your aunt that details some of your favorite characteristics
about her. Perhaps you want your essay to describe a few reasons why your aunt is your favorite relative. In this
essay, you would focus on the several characteristics that show why your aunt is so special. To do so, you may
choose to explain briefly an event that supports one characteristic. For instance, if you want show that your aunt is
spontaneous and that this is one of your favorite things about her, you may choose to describe a day when she woke
you up early to take you on an unplanned, spur-of-the-moment trip to the beach. Through describing this event in
one of your body paragraphs, you help support your claim that your aunt is spontaneous.

TABLE1.2: Consider the chart below and how each essay would be organized.

Organization Type Characteristics Event

Criteria

a. Spontaneous

b. Fun Loving

c. Easy Going

The summer your aunt taught you to

swim is one of your fondest child-

hood memories.

Explanation You would organize your paper

around the main reasons why your

aunt is your favorite relative with

each of these characteristics serving

as a body paragraph.

You would organize your paper

around this event and how it has

made your aunt more important to

you.

Review Questions