The Difference between Report and Descriptive Texts

You might be familiar with report and descriptive texts from your previous studies. Do you know the difference between those texts? Let's check this outline.




REPORT is describing something in a GENERAL way

DESCRIPTIVE is describing something in a SPECIFIC way




Example:

REPORT = Cats as Carnivores
DESCRIPTIVE = A Cat in My Home







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 strength, 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, length, wheel style, etc.

Here are several points.

REPORT

· Report Text is classifying and describing general classes of phenomena.

· If the thing which is described in the text just the representative of the whole group of the thing mentioned, we can judge it as Report Text.

· The structure of Report Text is General Clasification followed by Description.

DESCRIPTIVE

· Description Text is describing a particular living, non-living or natural phenomenon.

· If the thing which is mentioned in the text is clear about its name, we can make it sure as Descriptive Text.

· The structure of Description Text is Identification followed by Description.

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.