Purpose

Writing at the college level and above can serve many purposes. Generally, the more a student writer can go beyond writing because she or he has an English assignment to do, the better the text will communicate.

Not Because a Classic

In a literary essay, it’s not enough to show that a story, poem, or play is a classic; they all are. That's why they are in the anthology. Choose a purpose that works more strongly from those below.

Not to Summarize for the Sake of Summarizing

Merely summarizing the selection and/or reporting what the critics say about it works at the knowledge level. It does not show thinking nor create writing that is truly informative.

Not to Show Biographical Influences

Neither does associating a writer's content with events in his or her biography as is done here. It is true that authors write what they know, but to focus only on the events in their lives keeps readers from learning all of the other valuable insights they may have to offer. Professional and academic purposes for writing rarely focus on the author's life.

To Show the Thinking in Informativeness

In my class, one major purpose behind all writing is to show that the student can think. If done robustly, the target reader may, if not change courses of action, at least respect the reasoning that goes into the writing. The reader does not have to change his/her mind for the essay to be successful; s/he merely has to see how the writer arrives at the conclusion and respect the reasoning. The thinking serves to create writing that provides the reader solid evidence for making a decision that is important, information that s/he would not have if s/he had not read the essay. The writer's well-developed reasoning can provide such an informative perspective.

A written text is said to be truly informative if it does at least one or more of these:

• reveals new information,
• gives a new perspective on a topic or information most people know
• provides entertainment value equal to, or exceeding, the worth of the time it takes to read it.
• goes beyond the predictable.

When a reader finishes reading something that is truly informative, she often feels refreshed or enlightened. The closer that the purpose for a literary essay shows thinking that is informative, the more likely it is to be analytical.

To Make Life Better for Somebody

When life is so important and so many impediments make it less satisfying for so many, it becomes imperative for everything, even writing, to acknowledge the role it plays in creating a high quality of life and fulfill it responsibly. That is writing's most important role.

Therefore, a purposeful essay reflects addresses a human need with each written text. Sometimes it is life-sustaining, as Jeff Kaufmann's explanation of how the film, The Shawshank Redemption helped him develop a vision for living successfully with ALS, Lou Gehrig's disease. It appeared in Newsweek, September 11, 1995, as a "My Turn" column.

Sometimes the purpose comes through in spite of, and perhaps because of the humor, as in Max Shulman's "Love Is a Fallacy." In that essay, Shulman's narrator sets out to make a beautiful dumb girl smart. The humor helps convey a lesson about love which most people find difficult to absorb. So choose a subject and audience that lead to an essay that makes life better for a segment of the planet's population. Both students and teachers are too busy, too many people are in need, and life is too important, to waste time, bytes, printer ink, and paper on saying nothing in 500 words merely to get a grade.

To construct text that informs and serves readers, writers use the methods of development as the building blocks. The paragraphs used to construct the such texts consist of narration, description, illustration, process, comparison, classification, cause/effect, and definition writing. The pattern-related purposes when writing is seen as a method of development then, are listed below. Remember, however, that regardless of the pattern used, the writing still needs to show thinking in an informative way that gives the reader the insight s/he needs to make a decision about the text.

Narration – Why do writers use narration?

• To entertain
• To report
• To instruct

Description – Why do writers use description?

• To please
• To inform
• To promote a dominant impression
• To support the other methods of development or reinforce the main point.

Illustration – Why do writers use exemplification? To

• Create interest
• Clarify ideas
• Convince

Process -- Why do writers use process analysis?
There are two types and each one has a different purpose:

• Directional process analysis -- to give instructions that a reader is expected to perform and that lead to the same result every time.
• Informational process analysis -- to explain a cycle that readers can understand, but are not expected to perform.

Comparison -- Why do writers use comparison?

• To show that things which appear similar are really different
• To show that things which appear different are really similar
• To evaluate
• To explain the unfamiliar in terms of the familiar

Classification -- Why do writers use classification?

Cause and Effect -- Why do writers use cause and effect? To

• Discover order in a reality that is apparent chaos
• Inform
• Speculate
• Change behavior.

Definition -- Why do writers use definition?

• To clarify the meaning of words or technical terms that may be unfamiliar to the reader
• To define terms that may be new and not in the dictionary yet (multiple advocacy, yuppie)
• To reflect changing standards or values
• To draw the line between relative or overlapping terms
• To explain the essential nature of a thing or idea; it answers the question, "What is the essence of ..." (good parenting, love, a healthy family).