For one of our first class assignments we had to find an article that displayed great descriptive writing traits. I believe this article demonstrates the three traits, Vivid, Emotive, and Tangible, in a very clear sense.

The article, called A Moonscape Carved by Nature and Man highlights the region of Cappadocia, which is located in Turkey. The second paragraph of the article was one of the first things that stood out to me, stating:

Spread across the middle of Turkey like a lunar landscape, Cappadocia is home to a bizarre field of anthill-like cones, rock-hewn churches and underground cities where Christians once hid to avoid persecution. It is a spectacular sight and one that has captivated travelers for centuries.

Lunar landscape.. anthill-like cones, rock-hewn churches..these descriptive words brought out the characteristic Tangible to me. I read the word lunar and instantly thought of a landscape that would resemble something almost space-like. Dotted with rocks, crater-like pockets, and small bumps rising up off of the landscape. The other words just gave me, as the reader, a sense of what I would see if I stepped into this place.

One of the next things that caught my attention was,

You need at least three days to wander through the dusty, ancient villages scattered across Cappadocia and to survey the fantastic panorama of towering stalagmites that stretches across 50 square miles of sun-baked hills and valleys.

A dusty, ancient, sun-baked area. An area that would be quite warm, and possibly a bit uncomfortable, but yet, still a good example in my opinion of Tangible. Tangible was the only characteristic that had really jumped out at me until I read this:

As early as the third century, those chimneys became a hiding place for early Christians who fled persecution from the Romans, and then later from raiding Muslims. They dug deep into the rock, carving out underground cities that went eight stories below ground, as well as thousands of cave chapels and monastery cells.

This came to me as being Emotive. It made the chimneys and underground cities seem a very desolate, dreary place. A place where the inhabitants were not a very happy group, seeing as they were fleeing from persecution.

Although in my opinion there wasn’t anything that REALLY jumped out as being vivid, I think this article was a decent sample of descriptive writing. There was enough in it to interest me, and get me to read it, and even want to learn more about it.