BC MANUAL |
| Bridgewater
College Online Writing Manual |
Assessing Your Writing
Purpose
What is your purpose in writing? An understanding of purpose will help you shape your text as you write it.
Think about ways in which the following purposes will shape the texts they govern.
- Is your purpose to report information, as in a news article or a classroom "report"?
- Is your purpose to persuade your audience to adopt a point of view or course of action? Many college
writing assignments require you to adopt a stance toward your topic and present convincing evidence for
accepting your point of view. Editorials, columns, and letters to the editor of the campus newspaper share
this purpose.
- Is your purpose to demonstrate your understanding of material covered in a class or textbook, as you do
when writing answers on essay tests?
- Is your purpose to bring fresh and original insight to a topic, as you do when writing a literary essay?
- Is your purpose--or part of your purpose--to show your familiarity with the existing information or research
on a topic, as a "review of literature" does?
- Is your purpose to "sell yourself" as you do in a letter of application to an academic institution or a company
where you hope to land a job?
- Is your purpose to reflect on your experience and examine its meaning for you personally?
Your purpose in writing influences your decisions about genre, format,
and organization.
Updated by A. L. Trupe Sept. 2006