Descriptive Vs Narrative text

Descriptive Vs Narrative text

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1.      Descriptive text

Descriptive text is a text which says what a person or a thing is like. Its purpose is to describe and reveal a particular person, place, or thing.

The descriptive text uses sensory detail (sights, sounds, tactile sensations, tastes and smells) to describe a scene, person or feeling to a reader. As you describe, you create a three-dimensional picture so your reader can experience the item, place, person or emotion along with the reading. Descriptive essay topics include your favorite place, your bedroom, your best friend, the most unusual object you own, an art exhibit, the best or worst teacher you ever had, your ideal job or dream home.

  The Generic Structure of Descriptive Text

§  Identification; identifying the phenomenon to be described.

§  Description; describing the phenomenon in parts, qualities, or/and characteristics.

   The Language Feature of Descriptive Text

§  Using attributive and identifying process.

§  Using adjective and classifiers in nominal group.

§  Using simple present tense.

2.      Narrative

A narrative often reflects your personal experience, explaining what happened during some sort of experience. Stories are narrative, and narrative essays have a similar purpose of telling the events to a reader.

Narrative essay topics include recounting an experience where you learned something significant, your first day at school, your first job interview, a frightening encounter, an experience that changed your life and two differing versions of the same event.

The narration is not always a personal experience, though; a book report is narrative since it typically spells out the plot of the book or story.

LANGUAGE FEATURES OF NARRATIVE TEXT

·         Past tense (killed, drunk, etc).

·         Adverb of time ( one day, etc).

·         Time conjunction (when, then, etc).

3.      The similarities between descriptive and narrative text

Both narrative and descriptive essays should follow essay format with an introductory paragraph, body paragraphs, and a concluding paragraph. At the end of the introduction, place a thesis, a sentence that explains the overall purpose of your paper.

You should give a reason for your narration or description in that thesis, explaining why this event, person, place or thing is important enough for you to write about. The thesis might express that you are telling a story because you learned something significant or that you are describing a place that creates a sense of calm in your life. In both narration and description, include specific details in the body paragraphs to support the idea set forth in your thesis.

4.      The differences between descriptive and narrative text

Narration often employs first person point of view, using words like "I" and "me," while other modes including description do not. The biggest difference between the two is that a narrative essay includes action, but the descriptive essay does not.

The narration follows a logical order, typically chronological. In contrast, description typically contains no time elements, so organize descriptive essays by some other reasonable means, such as how you physically move around in a space or with a paragraph for each of the senses you use to describe.