The Differences between Report and Descriptive Text

Some text types are quite difficult to differ. Such report and descriptive text have the similarity in the social function and generic structure. However if they are analyzed carefully, the slight difference between the two text types will reveal.

The purpose of the two texts are to give the live-description of the object/participant. Both the report and descriptive text try to show rather than tell the reader about the factual condition of the object. Readers by themselves will catch the impressive point of the object through that showing writing style.

What make different, between report and descriptive text, is the scope of the written object. If we talk about, eg: bicycle, it belongs to report text. It will talk about bicycle in general; its parts, physical strengh, function for certain people or other general characters of bike. In the other hand, descriptive text will convey more focus, for example "my bicycle" with its specific characters; colour, lengh, wheel style, etc.

In short, report text describes the way of certain things and frequently refer to phenomenon of nature, animal and scientific object. Mostly, report is written after getting careful observation. This scientific and technical sense make clearer difference from descriptive text. The way of descriptive text in showing thing is based on the objective fact of the thing. It describe the specific thing simply as the thing is.

Posted by ; Chiisai Inori (Heni Paramita)

Source ; http://www.englishdirection.com/2008/06/differences-between-report-and.html