purpose

In composition, a person's reason for writing, such as to inform, entertain, explain, or persuade.

See also:

• Argument
• Audience
• Development
• Description
• Exposition
• Modes of Discourse
• Persuasion

Examples and Observations:

• "Writers often confuse their business purpose (or the problem to be solved) with their writing purpose. The business purpose is the issue they are addressing; the writing purpose is why they are writing the document. If they focus only on the business purpose, they easily fall into the trap of telling the story of what happened. Readers usually want to know what you learned, not what you did."
  (Lee Clark Johns, The Writing Coach. Thomson, 2004)



• "As a writer, you must decide what your writing purpose is and match your point of view to that purpose. Do you want to sound more authoritative or more personal? Do you want to inform or entertain? Do you want to remain distant or get close to your reader? Do you want to sound more formal or informal? Answering these questions will determine your point of view and give you greater control over a writing situation."
  (Joy Wingersky et al., Writing Paragraphs and Essays, 6th ed. Wadsworth, 2009)



• "The purposes for writing analytical essays vary, but primarily these essays give readers a chance to see the results of rigorous analytical work that you have done as part of the drafting. That work usually depends on the critical reading, questioning, and interpretation of a text of some kind. The process of that reading, questioning, and interpreting is less evident in the analytical essay than in the exploratory essay, but the process is reflected indirectly by the way you establish relationships between the text you have read and what you have to say about that text, between your evidence and your claim."
  (Robert DiYanni and Pat C. Hoy II, The Scribner Handbook for Writers, 3rd ed. Allyn and Bacon, 2005)



• "In recent writing instruction, purpose for writing has become a central focus. Many classrooms now include, for example, unevaluated writing journals in which students can freely explore topics of personal interest to them and from which they may select entries to develop into full essays (Blanton, 1987; Spack & Sadow, 1983). Writing on topics selected in this manner goes a long way toward ensuring the kind of internal motivation for writing which presumably results in the commitment to task which, in turn, is thought to help writing and language improve. But the immediate purpose for writing about a particular subject is neither language nor even writing improvement. It is, rather, a more natural purpose, i.e., communication with a reader about something of personal significance to the writer."
  (Ilona Leki, "Reciprocal Themes in ESL Reading and Writing." Landmark Essays on ESL Writing, ed. by Tony Silva and Paul Kei Matsuda. Lawrence Erlbaum, 2001)