Determine your Purpose for Writing
Implied in your thesis statement is your purpose, the answer you give the question, “What am I trying to accomplish in this composition?” Being clear about your purpose helps you choose the best supporting details and arrange them in the most effective order (see PARA3a). For example, it is clear in Tammi Lipski’s thesis statement that she wishes to describe a person, to re-create him and in particular his loneliness for her readers. Terry Mote’s purpose is to inform readers of the three basic rules of conducting a job search. Lisa Denis ends her paragraph with the thesis statement that it is time to stop using disposable diapers because they are harmful, especially to the environment, a statement she will try to prove in order to persuade her readers. At the editing stage, keeping your purpose in mind helps you use language with an awareness of the effect you want it to have on your readers.
Generally, nonfiction writing has one of three purposes: (1) to express the writer’s thoughts and feelings about a life experience, (2) to inform readers by explaining something about the world around them, or (3) to persuade readers to some belief or action.
Writing from Experience
In writing from experience, or writing expressively, you put your thoughts and feelings before all other concerns. When you express yourself about what it felt like to turn eighteen, describe the relationship you have with your father, narrate a camping experience you had with a friend, or share an insight you had about the career you want to pursue, you are writing from experience. The first purpose of expressive writing is, therefore, to clarify life’s experiences, and the second purpose is to communicate what you learn to someone else. That is not to say expressive writing is not immensely appealing to readers; the reflections of a thoughtful and sensitive writer illuminate the reader’s experiences and clarify his or her own feelings and ideas. Here, for example, are the reflections of a writer on her ambitious nature.
I’ve always liked ambitious people, and many of my closest friends have had grandiose dreams. I like such people, not because I am desperate to be buddies with a future secretary of state but because I find ambitious people entertaining, interesting to talk to, and fun to watch. And, of course, I like such people because I am ambitious myself, and I would rather not feel apologetic about it. - Perri Klass, “Ambition”
Writing to Inform
Informative writing focuses on the world outside the writer-the events, people, places, things, and ideas in the objective or real world. In informative writing you report, explain, analyze, define, classify, compare, describe a process, or get at causes and effects (see PARA 2b). Informative writing is the kind most often found in newspaper and magazine articles and nonfiction books. Informative writing encompasses everything from an article on the Hubble telescope, your chemistry textbook, and a news update on a railroad strike to a provincial government subcommittee report on housing, a travel guide, and a computer manual.
The following example of informative writing provides useful information about Canadian history:
No study of Canadian history is intelligible without some understanding of Canada’s geography. Indeed, geography has been (and still is) one of Canada’s chief problems and has, therefore, been a vital factor in determining its history. - J.A. Lower, Canada: An Outline in History
Writing to Persuade
In writing to persuade you attempt to influence your reader’s thinking and attitudes toward a subject or issue and sometimes move him or her to a particular course of action. Persuasive writing uses logical reasoning and authoritative evidence and testimony, and sometimes emotionally charged language and examples.
There was a time when I traveled everywhere by train. The overnight trip from Toronto to Halifax aboard The Ocean or The Scotian used to be a delight and an adventure that most people today will never experience. But the government has decided to drastically reduce rail service, and Canada will be poorer for it. - Roger Mann, The Reluctant Writer
Most of the writing that you do in college or university will be informative and some will be persuasive in character; occasionally you may be asked to write from experience. Often you will use some combination of these types of writing in a single composition. For example, as an environmental science student you may find yourself informing your readers about the dangers of clear-cut logging, expressing your own beliefs about its effect, telling of an experience you had with an environmental group that has dealt with logging companies, and attempting to persuade your readers that changes are needed.
