Purpose
Think about TAP when looking at a non-fiction text:
- Text type
- Audience
- Purpose
A text can have many purposes. Some examples are to:
- entertain – to make the reader enjoy reading
- persuade – to change a reader’s opinion
- advise – to help people decide what to do
- analyse – to break down something to help people to understand it better
- argue – to make the case for something
- describe – to give details about a person, place, event or thing
- explain – to make clear why or how something works
- inform – to tell a reader about something
- instruct – to tell a reader how to do something
Some types of non-fiction text are linked to specific purposes. For example, advertising is intended to persuade you to buy something.
To work out what the purpose of the text is, it’s useful to think about what the writer’s attitude was at the time of writing. Looking at any contextThe factors surrounding a text that help us to understand it; the background events that help to explain something. information – like where it’s from – will also help.
Question
What purpose do each of the following texts have?
- a news article
- a self-help book
- a letter asking for a charity donation
- an autobiography
- a book review
- a news article: to inform but also to persuade, if the article is showing a particular opinion towards a topic, eg animal testing
- a self-help book: to advise
- a letter asking for a charity donation: to persuade
- an autobiography: to entertain and to inform
- a book review: to analyse, inform, and advise
The purpose of a text will also affect what the content is, how it’s structured, what techniques are used, and what words are used. But purpose is not the only thing that affects this; the particular target audience is also important.