1. Description Descriptive paragraphs convey how something looks, sounds, smells, tastes or feels. Transitional words and phrases clarify spatial relationships. Do you supply enough detail about what things look like, sound like, smell like, taste like, and feel like? Will your readers be able to visualize the person, object, or setting that your paragraph describes?

2. The Sequence of Organizing Details By importance, intensity chronological order; In the Climactic/Anti-climactic order In the spatial order Frames of Mind: A Rhetorical Reader 127

3. Suggestive Language in Description to stimulate thought; to clarify ideas Metaphor Compares two dissimilar things. Pattern: A is B My love is a red rose. Simile Comparison is indirect Pattern: A is like B My love is like a red red rose.

4. Talland House 130 A recurring theme in Virginia Woolf’s life

5. Showing vs. Telling http://writing.colostate.edu/comp/ rst/resource3.cfm Vague: She went home in a bad mood. [What kind of a bad mood? How did she act or look?] Specific: She stomped home, hands jammed in her pockets, angrily kicking rocks, dogs, small children, and anything else that crossed her path.

6. Showing vs. Telling http://writing.colostate.edu/comp/ rst/resource3.cfm Vague: My neighbor bought a really nice old desk. [Why nice? How old? What kind of desk?] Specific: My neighbor bought a solid oak, roll-top desk made in 1885 that contains a secret drawer triggered by a hidden spring.

7. Showing vs. Telling http://writing.colostate.edu/comp/ rst/resource3.cfm Vague: He was an attractive man. [Attractive in what ways - his appearance, personality, or both? Can you picture him from reading this sentence?] Specific: He had Paul Newman's eyes, Robert Redford's smile, Sylvester Stallone's body, and Bill Gates's money.

8. Jing n ǚ 靜女 (Mao 42) The Retiring Girl Showing vs. Telling/Sequence The good girl is beautiful, She waits for me at the corner of the wall. I love her but do not see her; I scratch my head and pace back and forth. The good girl is lovely; She gave me a vermilion pipe. The red pipe glistens brightly; I delight in the girl’s beauty. From the pasture she presented me a reed shoot; It is truly beautiful and unusual. It is not because you are beautiful [that I praise you], But because you are the gift of a beautiful girl.

9. Paul Newman is famous for his startlingly blue eyes. Paul Leonard Newman (January 26, 1925 – September 26, 2008) was an American actor, film director, entrepreneur, humanitarian, and auto racing enthusiast. He won numerous awards, including an Academy Award for best actor for his performance in the 1986 Martin Scorsese film The Color of Money.

10. Rober Redford at the 1988 Cannes Film Festival Charles Robert Redford, Jr. (born August 18, 1936), [2] better known as Robert Redford, is an American actor, film director, producer, businessman, model, environmentalist, philanthropist, and founder of the Sundance Film Festival. He has received two Oscars: one in 1981 for directing Ordinary People, and one for Lifetime Achievement in 2002. [2]

11. Sylvester Gardenzio Stallone (pronounced /st ə ˈ lo ʊ n/; born July 6, 1946), nicknamed Sly Stallone Stallone is known for his machismo and Hollywood action roles. Two of the notable characters he has portrayed include boxer Rocky Balboa and soldier John Rambo. The Rocky and Rambo franchises, along with several other films, helped his reputation as an actor and box office earnings.

12. Bill Gates William Henry "Bill" Gates III (born October 28, 1955) is an American business magnate, philanthropist, author and chairman of Microsoft, the software company he founded with Paul Allen.

13. Exercises on Description Rewrite the vague sentences below using your own specific details. (Choose one) My boyfriend/girlfriend acted like a jerk. She wears really strange outfits. The scenery in the mountains was beautiful. My roommate is very (in)considerate.

14. The Palmer Method 134

15. Ideal Description Evaluation Standard Description works best when it does not call undue attention to Itself. That is to say: naturalness in description

16. Description & Other Patterns Description most often sets something else in motion—an analytical act, a story, or an illustration. 132 in Frames of Mind Not quite ubiquitous as analysis Description allows us to see, makes us feel and experience, and puts us in close proximity to an object or experience that we cannot otherwise access and savor.