WRITING STYLES

As I was unable to attend the last campus session in which writing styles and the next tasks were discussed I have done some of my own research on the varyting styles and formats for writing. It has also been helpful for me to read from other peoples' blogs, so thank you guys!

Here is some of the information I found:

DESCRIPTIVE WRITING:
Descriptive writing vividly portrays a person, place, or thing in such a way that the reader can visualize the topic and enter into the writer’s experience.

The general characteristics of descriptive writing include:
elaborate use of sensory language
rich, vivid, and lively detail
figurative language such as simile, hyperbole, metaphor, symbolism and personification
showing, rather than telling through the use of active verbs and precise modifiers.

ANALYTICAL WRITING:
Analytical writing is a way to get technical information across, so that your readers immediately find out what's important and why -- without getting bogged down in a swamp of details and technical jargon. Analytical writing is simple, direct, concise, and to-the-point. It leaves out gobbledygook and avoids the stilted, impersonal style that clutters journal pages and clogs the machinery of government, corporations, and academia.

REFLECTIVE WRITING:
Introduction - reflection and reflective writing
Reflection lies somewhere around the notion of learning and thinking. We reflect in order to learn something, or we learn as a result of reflecting.
Reflective writing is the expression on paper/screen of some of the mental processes of reflection. Other forms of expressing reflection are in speech, in film, in graphic portrayal, music etc. The expression of reflection is not, however, a direct mirror of what happens in the head. It is a representation of that process within the chosen medium and reflection represented in writing, for example, will be different to that encompassed in a drawing. In other words, in making a representation of reflection, we shape and model the content of our reflection according to many influences. Factors that could shape your reflection into reflective writing might include:
the reason why you are writing reflectively (personal reasons – e.g. in a diary or for academic purposes etc)
whether others are going to see what you have written and who they are (e.g. no-one else; a tutor who will mark it; a tutor who will not mark it, friends etc.);
your emotional state at the time of writing, and emotional reaction to what you are writing (e.g. - a disturbing event that you do not want to think about or something you did well and want to enjoy in the rethinking process);
related to the above, how safe you feel about the material and anyone seeing it;
what you know about reflective writing and how able you are to engage in it.