Purposes for Writing

Getting a good grade, making a million dollars, or contributing to society may be among your reasons or motives for writing. However, as a writer, you also have more specific purposes for writing to help you make key decisions about content, structure, or style. When your main purpose is to express your feelings, you may write a private entry in your journal. When your main purpose is to explain how your sales promotion increased the number of your company's customers, you may write a factual report to your boss. When your main purpose is to persuade others to see a movie you like, you may write a review for the local newspaper. In each case, the intended use or impact of what you write helps determine what you write and how you write it.

Writer-Based Purposes

Because writing is, or should be, for yourself first of all, everything you write involves at least some purpose that benefits you. Of course, expressing yourself is a fundamental purpose of all writing. Without the satisfaction of expressing your thoughts, feelings, reactions, knowledge, or questions, you might not make the effort to write in the first place. A closely related purpose is learning: Writing helps you discover what you think or feel, simply by using language to identify and compose your thoughts. Writing not only helps you form ideas, but actually promotes observing and remembering. If you write down what you observe about people, places, or things, you can actually "see" them more clearly. Similarly, if you write down facts, ideas, experiences, or reactions to your readings, you will remember them longer. Writing and rewriting facts, dates, definitions, impressions, or personal experiences will improve your powers of recall on important occasions such as examinations and job interviews.

Subject- and Audience-Based Purposes

Although some writing is intended only for yourself—such as entries in a diary, lists, class notes, reminders—much of your writing will be read by others, by those readers who constitute your "audience." You may write to inform others about a particular subject—to tell them about the key facts, data, feelings, people, places, or events. Or you may write to explain to your readers what something means, how it works, or why it happens. You may write to persuade others to believe or do something—to convince others to agree with your judgment about a book, record, or restaurant, or to persuade them to take a certain class, vote for a certain candidate, or buy some product you are advertising. You may write to explore ideas and "truths," to examine how your ideas have changed, to ask questions that have no easy answers, and then to share your thoughts and reflections with others. You may write to entertain —as a primary purpose in itself or as a purpose combined with informing, explaining, persuading, or exploring. Whatever your purposes may be, good writing both teaches and pleases. Your readers will learn more, remember more, or be more convinced when your writing contains humor, wit, or imaginative language.

Combinations of Purposes

In many cases, you write with more than one purpose in mind. Purposes may appear in combinations, connected in a sequence, or actually overlapping. Initially you may take notes about a subject to learn and remember, but later you may want to inform others about what you have discovered. Similarly, you may begin by writing to express your feelings about a movie that you loved or that upset you; later, you may wish to persuade others to see it—or not to see it. Purposes can also contain each other, like Chinese boxes, or overlap, blurring the distinctions. An explanation of how an automobile works will contain information about that vehicle. An attempt to persuade someone to buy an automobile may contain an explanation of how it handles and information about its body style or engine. Usually writing to persuade others will contain explanations and basic information, but the reverse is not necessarily true; you can write simply to give information, without trying to persuade anyone to do anything.

Subject, Purpose, and Thesis

The thesis, claim, or main idea in a piece of writing is related to your purpose. As a writer, you usually have a purpose in mind that serves as a guide while you gather information about your subject and think about your audience. As you collect and record information, impressions, and ideas, however, you gradually narrow your subject to a specific topic, and thus clarify your purpose. You bring your purpose into sharper and sharper focus—as if progressing on a target from the outer circles to the bull's-eye—until you have narrowed your purpose down to a central thesis. The thesis is the dominant idea, explanation, evaluation, or recommendation you want to impress upon your readers.

Audience Analysis

If you are writing to communicate to other readers, analyzing your probable audience will help you answer some basic questions:

¦ How much information or evidence is enough? What should I assume my audience already knows? What should I not tell them? What do they believe? Will they readily agree with me or will they be antagonistic?

¦ How should I organize my writing? How can I get my reader's attention? Can I just describe my subject and tell a story or should I analyze everything in a logical order? Should I put my best examples or arguments first or last?

¦ Should I write informally, with simple sentences and easy vocabulary, or should I write in a more elaborate or specialized style, with technical vocabulary?

Analyze your audience by considering the following questions. As you learn more about your audience, the possibilities for your own role as a writer will become clearer.

1. Audience profile. How narrow or broad is your audience? Is it a narrow and defined audience—a single person, such as your Aunt Mary, or a group with clear common interests, such as the zoning board in your city or the readers of Organic Gardening? Is it a broad and diverse audience: educated readers who wish to be informed on current events, American voters as a whole, or residents of your state? Do your readers have identifiable roles? Can you determine their age, sex, economic status, ethnic back­ground, or occupational category?

2. Audience-subject relationship. Consider what your readers know about your subject. If they know very little about it, you'll need to explain the basics; if they already know quite a bit, you can get right to more difficult or complex issues. Also estimate their probable attitude toward this subject. Are they likely to be sym­pathetic or hostile?

3. Audience-writer relationship. What is your relationship with the readers? Do you know each other personally? Do you have anything in common? Will your audience be likely to trust what you say or will they be skeptical about your judgments? Are you the expert on this particular subject and the reader a novice? Or are you a novice and your reader the expert? (If you're a novice writing to an expert, absolute honesty and careful reliance on evidence will help win you a hearing.)

4. Writer's role. To communicate effectively with your audience, you should also consider your own role or perspective. Of the many roles that you could play (friend, big sister or brother, student of psychology, music fan, employee of a fast-food restaurant, and so on), choose one that will be effective for your purpose and audience. If, for example, you are writing to sixth-graders about nutrition, you could choose the perspective of a concerned older brother or sister, but your writing might be more effective if you assume the role of a person who has worked in fast-food restaurants for three years and knows what goes into hamburgers, French fries, and milkshakes.

Writers may write to a real audience, or they may create an audience. Sometimes the relationship between writer and reader is real (sister writing to brother), and so the writer starts with a known audience and writes accordingly. Sometimes, however, writers begin writing and gradually discover or create an audience in the process of writing. Knowing the audience guides the writing, but the writing may create an audience as well.

The Writing Situation

Taken together, the writer's purpose or aim, the subject, and the probable audience (whether yourself or others) define the writing situation. Sometimes an instructor or employer assigns you a specific writing situation. At other times, you construct a situation yourself from scratch.

The components of the writing situation—subject, purpose, the­sis, and audience—are so interrelated that a change in one may affect the other three. As you write, therefore, you do not always follow a step-by-step order. You may begin, for example, with a specific audience on which you wish to make an impression; as you analyze the audience, you decide what subject and purpose would be most appropriate. You may start with an interesting subject but no clear sense of purpose or audience. Or you may be asked to write for a certain audience, and the needs and expectations of that audience may lead you to discover or modify your purpose or subject.

Subject, purpose, thesis, and audience are all modified, reconsidered and revised as you write.

The following examples illustrate how subject, purpose, and audience combine to define a writing situation.

In response to a request by an editor of a college recruiting pamphlet, student decides to write an essay explaining the advantages of the social and academic life at his university. According to the editor, the account needs to be realistic, but it should also promote the university. I shouldn't be too academic and stuffy, since the college catalogue itself contains all the basic information, but it should give high school seniors a flavor of college life. The student decides to write a narrative accounts of his most interesting experiences during his first week at college.

A student majoring in journalism reads about correspondents', account; of restrictions during the Persian Gulf conflict. The military limited reporters to carefully controlled "pools," and during the ground offensive, television journalists' tapes were mysteriously delayed or lost until after the ground war was over. Following a class debate on the public's right to know versus the military's need to maintain secrecy in times of war, the student investigates specific incidents to see if the military exercised unnecessary or excessive censorship. The student researches these incidents and reports her findings in a letter to her congressional representative, asking for a further investigation of certain cases of alleged censorship.

Processes for Writing

Processes for writing vary from one writer to the next and from one writing situation to the next, but most writers can identify four basic stages, or dimensions, of their writing process: collecting, shaping, drafting, and revising. The writing situation may precede these stages—particularly if you are assigned a subject, purpose, audience, and form. Usually, however, you continue to narrow your subject, clarify your purpose, meet the needs of your audience, and modify your form as you go through the stages of your writing process.

Collecting

Writers gather and record facts, impressions, opinions, and ideas that are relevant to their subject, purpose, and audience. Mark Twain, author of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, once observed that if you attempt to carry a cat around the block by its tail, you'll gain a whole lot of information about cats that you'll never forget. You may collect such firsthand information, or you may rely on the data, experience, or expertise of others. Collecting involves observing, remembering, imagining, thinking, reading, listening, writing, investigating, talking, taking notes, and experimenting. Collecting also involves thinking about the relationships among the collected bits of information.

Shaping

Writers focus and organize the facts, examples, and ideas that they have collected into the recorded, linear form that is written language. When a hurricane hits the Gulf Coast , residents of Texas , Louisiana , Mississippi , Alabama , and Florida are likely to collect an enormous amount of data in just a few hours. Rain, floods, tree limbs snapping in the wind, unboarded windows shattering, sirens blaring—all of these events occur nearly simultaneously. If you try to write about such devastation, you need to narrow your focus (you can't describe everything that happened) and organize the information (you can't describe all of your experiences at the same time).

A chronological order is just one of the shapes a writer may choose to develop and organize experience. Such shaping strategies also help writers collect additional information and ideas. Reconstructing a chronological order, for example, may suggest for you some additional details—perhaps a wet, miserable-looking dog running through the heavy downpour—that you might not otherwise have remembered.

Drafting

At some point, writers actually write down a rough version of what will evolve into the finished piece of writing. Drafting processes vary widely from one writer to the next. Some writers prefer to reread their collecting and shaping notes, find a starting point, and launch them­selves-figuring out what they want to say as they write it. Other writers start with a plan—a mental strategy, a short list, or an out­line—of how they wish to proceed. Whatever approach you use in your draft, write down as much as possible, so you can see whether the information is clear, whether your overall shape expresses and clarifies your purpose, and whether the content and organization meet the needs and expectations of the audience.

Revising

When writers revise a rough draft, they literally "resee" their subject—and then modify the draft to fit the new vision. Revision is more than just tinkering with a word here and there; revision leads to larger changes—new examples or details, a different organization, or a new perspective. You accomplish these changes by adding, deleting, substituting, or reordering words, sentences, and paragraphs. Although revision begins the moment you get your first idea, most revisions are based on the reactions or anticipated reactions of the audience to your draft. You often play the role of audience yourself by putting the draft aside and rereading it later when you have some distance from your writing. Wherever you feel readers might not get your point, you revise to make it clearer. You may also get feedback from readers in a class workshop, suggesting that you collect more or different information, alter the shape of your draft to improve the flow of ideas, or clarify your terminology. As a result of your rereading and your readers' suggestions, you may change your thesis or write for an entirely different audience. Revising also includes editing to improve word choice, grammar, usage, or punctuation and proofreading for typos and other surface errors.

The Whole Process

In practice, a writer's process rarely follows the simple, consecutive order that these stages or dimensions suggest. The writing process is actually recursive: It begins at one point, goes on to another, comes back to the first, jumps to the third, and so forth. A stage may last hours or only a second or two. While writing a letter to a friend, you may collect, shape, revise, and edit in one quick draft, while a research paper may require repeated shaping over a two-week period. As writers draft, they may correct a few mistakes or typos, but they may not proofread until many days later. In the middle of reorganizing an essay, writers often reread their draft, go back and ask more questions, and collect more data. Even while editing, writers may throw out several paragraphs, collect some additional information, and draft a new section.

In addition to the recursive nature of the writing process, keep in mind that writing often occurs during every stage, not just during drafting and revising. During collecting, you will be recording information and jotting down ideas. During shaping, you will be writing out trial versions that you may use later when you draft or revise. Throughout the writing process, you use your writing to modify your subject, purpose, audience, and form.

The most important point to keep in mind is that the writing process is unique to each writer and to each writing situation. What works for one writer may be absolutely wrong for you. Some writers compose nearly everything in their heads. Others write only after discussing the subject with friends or drawing diagrams and pictures. During the writing process, you need to experiment with several collecting, shaping, and drafting strategies to see what works best for you and for that particular piece of writing. As long as your process works, however, it's legitimate—no matter how many times you back­track and repeat stages. When you are struggling with a piece of writing, remember that numerous revisions are a normal part of the writing process—even for most professionals.

Circling back over what you have already written—to sharpen your thesis, improve the organization, tighten up a paragraph, or add specific details to your examples—is likely to be the most time-consuming, yet worthwhile, part of your writing process. Most professional writers testify to the necessity and value of writing numerous drafts. When you are reworking a piece of writing, scrawling revisions over what you had hoped would be your finished product, remember, as Nobel laureate Isaac Bashevis Singer once pointed out, "the wastepaper basket is the writer's best friend."

Writing with a Computer

This is the computer age, and most writers, once they get over the initial shock of learning word-processing programs, welcome the new technology. Computers and word processors assist in the writing process by eliminating the time-consuming task of typing out a new draft each time you want to produce a clean, professional-looking copy. In addition, computers can help you collect, discover, or remember ideas and then help you shape, draft, revise, and edit a piece of writing. At your command, a word-processing program will add, move, or delete a letter, word, sentence, or whole para­graph. In its fluidity, the word processor is remarkably adaptive to the way our minds go about the process of writing-collecting and adding it to a paragraph here, taking out a wrong word there, trying out a new sentence and deleting it if it doesn't flow, experimenting with phrasing and language, or chucking something into a "wastebasket" file (for retrieval, in case you change your mind tomorrow).

Some computer programs do more than simply respond to your commands: They interact with you by asking questions and making suggestions. As writing teachers and computer programmers anticipate problems you may have with writing on a computer, they add instructional elements to word processors. These computer-assisted instruction (CAI) programs provide specialized assistance with particular problems that writers regularly face at each stage of the writing process. At this time, no single CAI program has all of the features diagrammed in the following figure, but all of these features are available in different systems. Some of the most interesting programs prompt you with questions or advice; give you a model, form, or "template" to work from; and react to what you have already written with further questions—or with an elaborate analysis of your writing style and your possible errors in usage, grammar, or punctuation. The old "garbage in, garbage out" adage about computers has a new twist with these CAI programs. You may begin by putting garbage in, but the machine can help you process and transform the garbage into something palatable—perhaps even something delicious.