Purpose of Writing

Purpose is the goal or aim of a piece of writing: to express oneself, to provide information, to persuade, or to create a literary work. There are four purposes writers use for writing. When someone communicates ideas in writing, they usually do so to express themselves, inform their reader, to persuade a reader or to create a literary work. In college, we mostly rely on two purposes for composition style writing, and those are to inform or to persuade the audience.

Here are some questions students should consider when deciding on writing purpose:

• Are you trying to sound more personal or authoritative?

• Are you wanting to entertain or inform?

• Are you relating to your audience or keeping the audience distant?

• Do you want to sound formal or informal?

There are many purposes to writing. The most popular are to inform, to entertain, to explain, or to persuade. However, there are many more including to express feelings, explore an idea, evaluate, mediate, problem solve, or argue for or against an idea.

TO INFORM

The purpose for writing to inform is to share facts and other information. Informational texts such as reports make statements that are supported by facts and truthful evidence.

TO EXPLAIN

The purpose for writing to explain is to tell what, how, and why about a topic. An example is to explain in writing how to do or make something.

TO NARRATE

The purpose of writing to narrate is to tell a story. The story can be made up or truthful. Most forms of narrative writing have a beginning, middle, and end. Examples are fictional stories and personal narratives.

TO PERSUADE

Writing that has a purpose to persuade states an opinion or goal and supports it with reasons and supporting details in order to get the audience to agree, take action, or both. At Grade 6, the emphasis shifts to argument

In short, focusing on writing purpose will give people a rhetorical sense to their writing. This will also help people to be aware of the audience for which they are writing.

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