Title: Understanding Author's Purposes for Writing
Course: Reading Summer School

Anyone who writes is an author to some extent. Thinking about why a person might write a certain type of text, gives clues to the purpose. For instance, why would a person write a diary or journal? Generally, diaries or journal are written to record events or to accurately remember an event. This is called personal writing.

A second type of writing is social writing. Social writing includes writing letters, thank-you notes, and encouraging cards. When you text a friend, you are writing for social reasons.

A third type of writing is business writing. This writing conveys information, gives directions, or explains processes or policies. These are generally written using the time-order, or chronological, text structure and requires that the reader follow the sequential order of the steps in a process to understand the writing.

In elementary school, you learned that there were generally three purposes for writing, to persuade, inform and entertain. These three purposes are the most basic reasons, but there are many other reasons for writing. Many of these reasons can be categorized as either persuasive, informative, or entertaining texts. Here are other purposes, their definitions, and titles that exemplify these purposes:

Purpose | Explanation | Example
To inform | presents facts and details | "How Fish Survive in Water"
To entertain | amuses or provides enjoyment | "Jokes for Fun and Enjoyment"
To persuade | to get the reader to do something or think a certain way | "The Value of Understanding History"
To explain why | provides reasons for something | "How Depression Begin"
To instruct | teach concepts or facts | "How to Solve a Quadratic Equation"
To create suspense | creates a feeling of uncertainty | "Mysterious Sightings"
To motivate | To inspire or push someone to accomplish a goal | "You can Achieve Success"
To cause doubt | create healthy skepticism | "Can Government Bail-outs Save Us?"
To introduce a character | describing what a character is like | "Looking Closer at Hamlet"
To create a mood | provide atmosphere or specific emotion | "Gloom in the House of Gables"
To share an adventure | tells an exciting story | "Down the Rapids"
To share a personal experience | tells about an event in a person's life | "Meeting the President"
To describe feelings | communicate emotions | "Fearing the C word - Cancer"