Descriptive writing focuses on answering the ‘what?’ ‘when’ and ‘who’ type questions. While you will rarely be asked to simply describe a topic/issue without also analysing it and discussing its significance, you will likely need to include some description as you, for example, record the results of an experiment, trace the development of an event, or examine the way a situation is presented in visual media.
For these purposes, structuring your writing
- chronologically (e.g., past to present/beginning to end to examine the growth of a political movement),
- spatially (e.g., top to bottom/inside to consider a scene in a film or a chemical change in a substance) or
- in order of importance (e.g., most to least/least to examine how key features of a situation contribute to its outcome)
will allow you to present your information in a logical order that helps readers understand the message you are trying to convey.
When the purpose of the assignment is to compare processes, theories, approaches, or objects, a typical organizational approach is to identify key components in the area of focus and consider how they relate to each other, either to evaluate their validity, discuss their significance, or find underlying patterns that may not be obvious at first glance. An excellent organizational strategy in this case is to introduce a series of relevant issues and to compare the position of the authors on each issue, one at a time.
Issue 1
— Author/Text A
— Author/Text B
Issue 2
— Author/Text A
— Author/Text B
A summary of the most important similarities and differences presented in these paragraphs, plus an analysis of their signficance would follow in the final portion of the essay.
An alternative organizational strategy is to first introduce the positions of one author (or text) on all of the relevant issues, before proceeding to introduce the positions of the second. When using this strategy, however, it can be more difficult to avoid repetition and keep the focus on comparing the ideas from the texts/authors.
Author/Text A
— Issue 1
— Issue 2
Author/Text B
— Issue 1
— Issue 2
Analytical writing tends to be incorporated into all academic assignments. It usually follows a brief description and answers the questions “why?” “how?” and “so what?”. It shows the thought processes you went through to make your claim(s), explains the connections between key aspects of your evidence, explains their significance, and explores their implications.
When the assignment itself focuses on analyzing an object, situation, or process, you may want to begin with a description of the topic/issue as a whole, followed by an examination of each of the important constituent parts, then a consideration of the important relationships among these parts and of how they relate to other ideas or issues.
Argumentative writing typically begins with a claim, usually in the form of a thesis/position statement. This claim should be truly debatable, and a good portion of the writing that follows should be organized around laying out the evidence that supports the claim.
Each section of the writing should clearly relate in some way to the primary claim; for example, some paragraphs will provide reasons why the evidence introduced actually supports the claim. However, it is equally important to consider counterclaims/counterarguments and to refute them effectively. The best arguments anticipate possible criticisms and provide rebuttals. The overall structure of an argument should focus on asking yourself what your readers need to know to be convinced that your claim is important, accurate, and can be defended against its critics.
