英语作文之Description

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1文档来源为:从网络收集整理.word版本可编辑.欢迎下载支持. C h a p t e r 11 Description

The writer of description creates a word-picture of persons, places, objects, and emotions, using a careful selection of details to

make an impression on the reader. If you have already written expository or argumentative essays in your composition course,

you almost certainly have written some descriptive prose. Nearly every essay, after all, calls for some kind of description; for

example, in the student comparison/contrast essay (pages 233–236), the writer describes two kinds of stores; in the professional

process essay (pages 215–219), the writer describes the embalming procedure in great detail. To help you write better

description in your other essays, however, you may want to practice writing descriptive paragraphs or a short descriptive essay.

HOW TO WRITE EFFECTIVE DESCRIPTION

When descriptive prose is called for in your writing, consider these four basic suggestions:

Recognize your purpose. Description is not free-floating; it appears in your writing for a particular reason—to help you

inform, clarify, persuade, or create a mood. In some essays you will want your description as objective— without personal

impressions—as you can make it; for example, you might describe a scientific experiment or a business transaction in straight

factual detail. Other times, however, you will want to convey a particular attitude toward your subject; this approach to

description is called subjective or impressionistic. Note the differences between the following two descriptions of a tall, thin boy:

the objective writer sticks to the facts by saying, “The eighteen-year-old boy was 6′1″ and weighed 125 pounds,” whereas the

subjective writer gives an impressionistic description: “The young boy was as tall and scrawny as a birch tree in winter.” Before

you begin describing anything, you must first decide your purpose and then whether it calls for objective or subjective

reporting.

Describe clearly, using specific details. To make any description clear to your reader, you must include a sufficient

number of details that are specific rather than fuzzy or vague. If, for example, your family dog had become lost, you wouldn’t

call the animal shelter and ask if they’d seen a “big brown dog with a short tail”—aturally, you’d mention every distinguishing

detail about your pet you could think of: size, color, breed, cut of ears, and special markings. Similarly, if your car was stolen,

you’d give the police as clear and as complete a description of your vehicle as possible. Look at the following paragraph. Does

it fully tell what a vaulting horse is?

A vaulting horse is a thing usually found in gyms that has four legs and a beam and is used by gymnasts making

jumps.

If you didn’t already know what a vaulting horse was, you might have trouble picking it out in a gymnasium crowded with

equipment. A description with additional details would help you locate it:

A vaulting horse is a piece of equipment used by gymnasts during competition to help propel them into the air when

they perform any of a variety of leaps known as vaults. The gymnasts usually approach the vaulting horse from a running start

and then place their hands on the horse for support or for a push off as they perform their vaults. The horse itself resembles a

carpenter’s sawhorse, but the main beam is made of padded leather rather than wood. The rectangular beam is approximately 5

feet, 3 inches long and 131⁄2 inches wide. Supported by four legs usually made of steel, the padded leather beam is

approximately 4 feet, 1⁄2 inch above the floor in men’s competitions and 3 feet, 7 inches in women’s competitions. The padded

leather beam has two white lines marking off three sections on top: the croup, the saddle, and the neck. The two end

sections—he croup and the neck—re each 151⁄2 inches long. Gymnasts place their hands on the neck or croup, depending on

the type of vault they are attempting.

Moreover, the reader cannot imagine your subject clearly if your description is couched in vague generalities. The

following sentence, for example, presents only a hazy picture:

Larry is a sloppy dresser.

Revised, the picture is now sharply in focus:

Larry wears dirty, baggy pants, shirts too small to stay tucked in, socks that fail to match his pants or each other, and a

stained coat the Salvation Army rejected as a donation.

Specific details can turn cloudy prose into crisp, clear images that can be reproduced in the mind like photographs.

Select only appropriate details. In any description the choice of details depends largely on the writer’s purpose and