description and discussion in academic writing
To help students distinguish between description (descriptive writing) and discussion (discursive or analytical writing).
aims:
To help students recognise good and poor description.
To help students discuss.
Some students describe but do not discuss.
Some students discuss, but do not make it clear what they are discussing.
why this is
helpful for
students:
To gain the highest grades in written work, students will usually have to combine description and discussion.
This simple template provides a method by which students can generate discussion by asking three questions (why?, so what?, what if?).
The template also identifies the three major elements of academic writing:
1: information (description)
2. Analysis (discussion)
3. Evidence (referencing description or supporting discussion)
note:
When you write, you can either describe something or discuss something.
When you describe you outline, tell, state, report etc.
When you discuss, you analyse, evaluate, appraise, explain, compare, criticise etc.
It is not important to try to define what all these different words mean; they instruct you to either describe or discuss.
The only important distinction you need to know is between description and discussion.
© 2016 Peter Lia Learning Support Tutor
[email protected]
DESCRIBE (show, outline etc.)
1
and
Descriptive writing can include:
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INFORMATION (facts, data, statistics etc.)
ACCEPTED (COMMON) KNOWLEDGE
DESCRIBED OBSERVATIONS
A DESCRIBED PROCESS OR METHOD
QUOTES
Poor description is:
 General (vague, inaccurate)
 Irrelevant
DISCUSS (analyse, evaluate, consider, appraise, critically analyse etc.)
2
The best way to generate discussion is by asking questions about your facts (i.e. what you have described).
The three most useful questions to ask are:
This asks about the aim or purpose of something.
e.g. Why are there six parts to Gibbs Reflective Cycle?
WHY?
It also asks about the origin or cause of something.
e.g. Why did the government pass the Equality Act in 2010?
SO
WHAT?
Good description is:
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Precise (accurate)
Relevant to your task
(e.g. your essay question)
Questions asked to generate description:
where, when, how, who and what?
it may be necessary to
reference your description
This asks about the consequences, outcomes or implications of something.
e.g. What does the six part Gibbs Reflective Cycle help us to understand?
e.g. What did the passing of the Equality act lead to?
Consequences can be practical or theoretical, negative or positive.
This question encourages you to make comparisons (for example, with different practice in
another country) by considering alternatives and/or absence.
WHAT
IF?
It considers alternatives (comparing things, ideas, methods etc.)
e.g. What if Gibbs Reflective Cycle followed Kolb’s and only had 4 stages?
It also prompts you to consider what might happen if something were absent.
e.g. What if the Equality Act had not been passed in 2010?
Asking these three questions of the information that you have described will generate analytical answers; you
are looking for answers that are relevant to your task (e.g. addressing an essay question).
Supporting your discussion:
Your written discussion represents your
own thoughts or views on something.
However, these ideas are unlikely to be
completely original.
So, if required, you should try to support
your discussion with evidence..................
3
3
........evidence for your discussion can come from:
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research – the findings of relevant studies
practice – for example from policy documents
theory – ideas from relevant literature (often in the form of quotes from a reliable source)
case studies
events (e.g. historical events or current news stories)
statistics
Examples of poor description and good description
Task: Describe this bottle of water
Poor description (vague and inaccurate):
The bottle is made of plastic. It is approximately 10 inches tall and it contains over half a pint.
The neck is narrower than the body. The neck fits tightly into the tap. The tap itself is blue.
(This description does not meet a good standard academic writing, is too general and gives no accurate detail.)
Good description (precise):
The bottle is made of polyethylene Terephthalate (PET). It is 23cm in height and can contain 500ml of liquid
when full. The circular neck has a circumference of 2.5cm compared to 5.5cm for the body. The neck of the
bottle consists of 3 separate screw threads 1.5 mm apart which interlock with threads in the tap.
The tap is pigment blue – a colour achieved by mixing cyan and magenta.
(This description gives accurate detail; it is specific not general.)
Example of discussion (analysis, evaluation etc.)
Task: Discuss this bottle of water
Start with one aspect of the bottle (e.g. the design of its neck) and ask the three questions: why? so what? what if? to generate discussion:
The neck of the bottle consists of 3 separate screw threads 1.5 mm apart which interlock with threads in the tap. This allows the bottle cap to be removed with
little force simply by twisting the cap and holding the bottle. Previous bottle top designs consisted of teeth which were pressed firmly onto a flange in the bottle.
These tops required a bottle opener. The use of the plastic threaded cap design makes the bottle easy to open and, because it requires very little force, it can be
opened by children and those who may have arthritic difficulties. This design feature therefore contributes to the promotion of bottled water as a portable and
easily accessible source of nutrition.