Purpose
Why Does Purpose Matter?
Before starting any writing project, you need to know why you are writing, or the purpose of your writing. You will see that purpose, audience, context, and design are inextricably connected as part of the rhetorical situation (see Section E in this chapter). A presentation, report, application, or other document may be designed to inform, demonstrate, persuade, motivate, or even entertain. Purposes may also be combined, depending on the topic and aims of the document. For example, your primary purpose may be to persuade, but the audience after lunch may want to be entertained, and your ability to adapt can make use of a little entertainment that leads to persuasion.
The purpose of your document is central to its formation. Much as you would with an effective thesis statement in an essay, you should be able to state your main purpose in one sentence.
Purpose also connects heavily to genre and form. This connection exists because all textual forms privilege some rhetorical choices over others, and genres reflect audience expectations. For example, imagine that the company’s management wants to email their employees about changes in their hiring practices. Emails are traditionally a professional form of communication, so the speaker’s purpose is likely going to be informing their audience of the changes. This purpose will also be reflected in the use of formal language, shorter paragraphs, and short, informative subject lines.
Consider an example.
Sara is the manager at a company with 50 employees. The boss tasks her with explaining insurance changes to company employees during a mandatory meeting. Thinking through what Sara might say to the employees, she would need to clearly describe the purpose, or reason for the meeting followed by clear examples of how the changes might affect employees. This purpose would be best met by including formal writing grammar and clear bulleted lists that contain the highlights of the changes.
By contrast, if Sara is tasked with announcing company changes to the public on a social media platform, their purpose is likely going to be to motivate or entertain, since that form of communication is much more casual, and there is far more competition for their audience’s attention. This purpose might be reflected in the use of exclamation points or all caps, the use of emojis or hashtags, or the inclusion of memes or gifs—none of which are common in professional emails.
Writing For Purpose
Although this chapter discusses the nuances of purpose as singular, purpose might also have multiple purposes. Purpose as a concept doesn’t only mean that there is one purpose for each document; in fact, there are many purposes in many documents.
Investigating the purpose or purposes of an audience can seem overwhelming, but the following strategies are meant to help you examine if your purpose is effective.
The best way to identify how to best approach your purpose is to consider the following what the audience should:
- Know
- Think
- Decide
- Do
- Be able to do
Purpose helps begin the writing process by narrowing the scope of your project based on the project’s goal or desired outcome. Your documents can:
- Explain
- Evaluate
- Inform
- Entertain
- Persuade
- Describe
- Express
- Narrate
- Argue
Documents can do almost anything, and, as the rhetor, or person creating the writing, it’s your job to make sure you know what the document should do and communicate to the audience what your document is doing.
An understanding of the document’s purpose is necessary to accomplish your goal. To answer the purpose question your strategy requires that you consider the result of your project, and then make the purpose of your project clear throughout the document, while avoiding mistakes that obscure the document’s intent. You’ll notice that, to make decisions about the purpose of a document, you must understand the audience for whom you’re writing (see Section B), and, in order to make decisions about how you will achieve the document’s purpose, you have to consider the document design that will facilitate accomplishment of the purpose.
Why Does Purpose Matter?
An easy way to consider the result of a document is to ask a series of questions that may include the following:
- Why does the audience want the document?
- How will they use it?
- What do you want the document to achieve?
- What action(s) do you want your reader/user to do?
- Will they respond right away immediately, or file it, publish it, distribute it electronically?
Make Sure Your Purpose is Clear
In working to a project’s purpose, your primary job is to make sure that your readers/users know what the purpose is. You should state your purpose clearly in the document and, in most cases, you should state your purpose as early in the document as possible. You also need to make sure the document stays focused on the purpose throughout the text. Straying from that purpose compromises the capacity of the document to achieve the purpose.
For example:
- In an email: Be specific in your subject and stay focused on that subject in your message.
- In a report: State the problem in the introduction and make sure all subsequent information relates clearly to the stated problem.
- In a description: Immediately identify the “thing” you’re describing and describe only that “thing” throughout the document.
Avoid Common Mistakes
Below are some common purpose-related errors to avoid:
- Burying your purpose: Don’t make it difficult for your audience to figure out what a document is trying to do.
- Confusing your result: You will not achieve your purpose if you set out to do one thing and end up doing another.
- Failing to consider the result: If you start out unclear on what you are doing, then you will not have a clear result for your audience.
- Overlooking the idea of multiple purposes: Projects may be used any number of ways by your audience(s). Make sure that you have considered the multiple purposes your document may serve.
- Confusing use of language: Your language should be clear, effective, and appropriate, as determined by purpose and audience.
- Neglecting to convey vital information: Always include all information necessary for your audience to understand and/or act on the problem or issue you address.
- Underestimating, overestimating, or obscuring vital information: You must give vital information the appropriate meaning and weight. Your purpose will not be achieved if you fail to make clear the relative value and/or import of information.
- Conveying the wrong information: If you introduce errors, you guarantee your document will not achieve its purpose.
Purpose and Audience Are Connected
Now that you have read this section, think about how purpose should inform every document created. Thinking through some of the suggestions in this chapter can help determine the most important purposes of documents. The next section connects the concept of purpose to audience.
