What is the difference between writing descriptively and analytically

For a professional, the ability to write is of the utmost importance. The way you express yourself in writing is crucial as it can say a lot about who you are and what you are trying to say. There are different kinds of writing that are done depending on the nature and purpose for which the process is taking place.

The style and approach of writing can be adopted once the eventual purpose of the composition is determined. Two of the oft used styles are descriptive and analytical. Sometimes these can be confused as being similar or even the same but that is pretty far from reality. Descriptive writing deals with detailed descriptions of people, places, objects or events. The idea is to describe what is apparent to a keen observer and project an image so that the reader can literally see what it being described.

Analytical writing meanwhile looks to analyse the person, place, object or an event and looks to draw some meaningful opinion that can be useful for future. There are six different types of conflict you can use to propel your story: character. Begin typing your search term above and press enter to search.

Press ESC to cancel. Skip to content Home Philosophy What is the difference between descriptive and analytical writing? Ben Davis May 3, What is the difference between descriptive and analytical writing? How do you become an analytical writer?

This page describes both sorts of writing so that you can see the difference and gives examples of how to make your writing less descriptive and more critical.

This is an essential element of academic writing but it is used to set the background and to provide evidence rather than to develop argument. When writing descriptively you are informing your reader of things that they need to know to understand and follow your argument but you are not transforming that information in any way.

This is usually writing about things you have read, done often as part of reflective writing or observed. When writing critically, you are developing a reasoned argument and participating in academic debate. Essentially you are persuading your reader of your position on the topic at hand. This is about taking the information you have described and using it in some way. This could be writing things like:. The University of Leeds gives some good examples of descriptive vs critical writing on their website: Critical writing.

The table below gives more examples of the difference between descriptive and critical writing. To summarise, when you are writing critically you are persuading the reader of your position on something whereas when you are writing descriptively you are just informing them of something you have read, observed or done.

We take you through the process of deciding on, and demonstrating your position in your writing on the next page: Deciding your position. Critical writing: Descriptive vs critical.