DETAIL
DETAIL
• Includes facts, observations, and
incidents used to develop a
subject and impart voice
• Creates precise mental pictures
• Brings life and color to the
description
DETAIL CONTINUED
• Influences the readers’ views of
the topic, setting, the narrator,
and the author
• The more specific the detail, the
greater focus on the object
described
DETAIL CONTINUED
• Detail makes an abstraction
concrete
–For example, when Orwell
describes an elephant attack,
the attack comes alive through
the elephant’s specific violent
actions
DETAIL CONTINUED
• By directing readers’ attention
to particulars, detail connects
abstraction to their lives:
–To specifics they can
imagine
–Have participated in
–Or understand vicariously
DETAIL CONTINUED
• Prepares readers to join the action
• Detail can also state by
understatement, by a lack of detail
• Absence of specific details can
change the meaning
• Good writers choose detail with
care