Description
Focuses on a dominant impression: What a person, place, or thing is like
Uses sensory detail to support the thesis or topic sentence.
Appeals to the senses: sight, sound, taste, touch, smell
Place
What do you see, hear, smell, taste, feel?
Where do you begin?
Are you stationary? What attracts your attention first? Where does your attention go from there?
Are you moving about? What do different vantage points reveal? Are you combining the two?
Person
What do you see, hear, smell, taste, feel?
What catches your attention first? What is most memorable?
Consider actions, dialogue, stories that illustrate what the person is like.
Thing
What do you see, hear, smell, taste, feel?
What catches your attention first? What is most memorable?
Consider the value or importance of the object.
See Johnson-Sheehan and Paine's discussion of sensory detail and use of similes, metaphors, and onomatopoeia, pages 426-427.