Define the
Purpose, Consider the Audience and Develop the ThesisDefine the Purpose
Think about the different kinds of writing that you
have experiences with every day. Consider the newspaper that’s
delivered to your door or that you read online. Its different parts
do different things—they have different purposes. Its news articles
and bulletin boards generally inform you about world, state, or local
events; its opinion columns and advertisements try to persuade you
either to a point of view or to buy something; its humor columns and
comics attempt to entertain you. Since writing can have so many purposes,
you have to decide exactly what you want your writing to do. What
you want your writing to do will be tempered by your audience, but,
for now, let’s consider purpose by itself.
Since you have a topic, you already know what you want to write about.
But, your writing also needs to do or to accomplish something.
Another way of thinking about purpose is to think about your topic
as a noun and your purpose as a verb. Let’s consider an example:
your topic is the rise in the sea level of Long Beach Island due to
the green house effect. This noun phrase reflects the topic for your
paper, but it doesn’t tell anything about what you want to
accomplish in your paper. So, to have a purpose, you have to answer the question, “what
do I want to accomplish in my research paper?”
If we return to our example, you’ll notice you need a verb
or verb phrase to accomplish something in your paper about the rise
in the sea level of Long Beach Island due to the green house effect.
More than one verb phrase is possible that would relate to this topic.
For example, you may want to
- Describe the affects of the rise in the sea level of Long Beach
Island on the Long Beach Island community
- Persuade readers to
prevent the rise in the sea level by raising the island.
You may have more than one purpose in your paper, but typically
you will be driven by a primary aim. For example, you may have to inform
readers of the dangers of the rise in sea level to persuade readers
to raise the island, but your main aim is still persuasive because
your ultimate goal is to persuade, informing your readers is just
one of the techniques you are using to attain your goal.
Now, let’s get back to the research paper you’re working
on. Before you begin to draft your research paper, you’ll want
to ask yourself the question that we asked above, the question of
purpose: What do I want to accomplish in my research paper?
It’s a simple, but tough, question.
Ann Raimes, in Keys
for Writers: A Brief Handbook, suggests several other questions
you can ask yourself to help you clarify your purpose. The first
three of
her questions relate well to college-level writing:
“1. Is your main purpose to explain an idea or provide information?
2. Is your main purpose to persuade readers to see things your way
or to move readers to action?
3. Is your main purpose to describe an experiment or a detailed process
or to report on laboratory results?” (7)
Raimes also indicates what the “answers” to each of the
questions means. If you answered number one with a ‘yes,’ then
your purpose most likely involves informative writing; if you answered
number two with a ‘yes,’ then your purpose most likely
involves persuasive writing; if you answered number three with a ‘yes,’ then
your purpose most likely involves scientific or technical writing.
Again, the question of purpose is a tough question. Before you begin
writing you will need to consider your primary purpose in the
context
of your audience.
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