Author’s Purpose

1. Author’s Purpose Wash Publishing Co. 2009

2. Author’s Purpose • Author’s purpose – the reason an author writes something. • The main reasons for writing are: • To inform by giving information. • To instruct by explaining how to do something. • To persuade or convince readers to do or believe something. • To entertain by presenting humor or other enjoyable material. Wash Publishing Co. 2009

3. Writing has Purpose! • What is the purpose for this paragraph? • Humans hunted mastodons and wooly mammoths to extinction. In Australia, scientists have dug up bone and eggshell fossils that indicate a massive die-off of large animals many years ago. This extinction occurred after humans arrived on that continent. People have been responsible for the disappearance. In North America, about 1,000 years after human appearance, about thirty species of large animals were gone.

4. Factual Writing Informs…. • The factual, scientific information tells us that the purpose is to inform the reader: • Humans may have hunted mastodons and wooly mammoths to extinction. In Australia, scientists have dug up bone and eggshell fossils that indicate a massive die-off of large animals many years ago. This extinction occurred after humans arrived on that continent. People may have been responsible for the animals' disappearance. In North America, about 1,000 years after human appearance, about thirty species of large animals were gone.

5. Writing has Purpose! • What is the purpose for this paragraph? • Human beings are used to living under laws and patterns that are dictated to us by society, but following those patterns does not make us good citizens. To be a good citizen first you have to be a good person. By that I mean that you have to be full of values, principles, ethics, etc. When joining all these aspects together you will find out that there is nothing else to be needed.

6. How-to texts instruct. • The author instructs good citizens. • Human beings are used to living under laws and patterns that are dictated to us by society, but following those patterns does not make us good citizens. To be a good citizen first you have to be a good person. You have to be full of values, principles, ethics, etc. When joining all these aspects together you will find out that there is nothing else needed.

7. Writing has Purpose! • What is the purpose for this paragraph? • I am sure that you know that smoking harms your body. Then why do you continue smoking? Maybe you do it because you haven’t really become conscious about all the effects that smoking has. There are a lot of reasons why you shouldn’t smoke. Some of them are that smoking affects your health, that you spend a lot of money on cigarettes, and that when you smoke you are not respecting people around you.

8. Writing can be Persuasive… • This text persuades you should not smoke! • I am sure that you know that smoking harms your body. Then why do you continue smoking? Maybe you do it because you haven’t really become conscious about all the effects that smoking has. There are a lot of reasons why you shouldn’t smoke. Some of them are that smoking affects your health, that you spend a lot of money on cigarettes, and that when you smoke you are not respecting people around you.

9. Writing has Purpose! • What is the reason for this writing? • Two guys were sitting in a restaurant and one said to the other, “I’ve got to go, I’ve got to catch a plane. The other guy replied, “You can’t catch a plane, your arms aren’t long enough!” Wash Publishing Co. 2009

10. Writing can Entertain… • It is a joke to entertain the reader. Two guys were sitting in a restaurant and one said to the other, “I’ve got to go, I’ve got to catch a plane. The other guy replied, “You can’t catch a plane, your arms aren’t long enough!” Wash Publishing Co. 2009

11. Review… Authors purposes are to inform, instruct, persuade, and entertain. Wash Publishing Co. 2009