Author’s Purpose

Notes on Page 5

Author’s Purpose

Authors always write for a REASON.

The thing they hope to accomplish with their writing is called author’s purpose.

Types of Purposes

A few of the most common purposes areTo informTo persuadeTo entertain

How They Achieve Their PurposeMost of the pieces you will be

asked to write an author’s purpose essay about will include some form of persuasion – RHETORICAL APPEALS.

When you read a rhetorical appeal and analyze it, you are doing a RHETORICAL ANALYSIS! You are analyzing WHAT the author’s purpose is

and HOW the author uses language to make his appeal .

Practice!!

The following slides will each include an example of a rhetorical appeal.

DetermineWhat the purpose isHOW the author tries to accomplish it

1. “Women comprise more than half the word’s population, 70% of the world’s poor, and two-thirds of those who are not taught to read and write. We are the primary caretakers for most of the world’s children and elderly. Yet much of the work we do is not valued -- not by economists, not by historians, not by popular culture, not by government leaders.”

Hilary Clinton

2. “Anabolic steroids cause many different types of problems. Less serious side effects include acne, oily hair, purple or red spots on the body, swelling of the legs and feet, and persistent bad breath.”

Kid’s Health Website

3. “You should take care of your ears because the cochlea, in your inner ear, can be easily damaged by loud noises. It contains microscopic “hair cells” that die when they are exposed to loud music. The dying of hair cells will sound like a ringing in your ears and cannot be reversed.”

Mrs. Smith

4. As people sleep, their brains pass through five stages of sleep — 1, 2, 3, 4, and REM (rapid eye movement) sleep. Together, these stages make up a sleep cycle. One complete sleep cycle lasts about 90 to 100 minutes. So a person experiences about four or five sleep cycles during an average night's sleep. Although it can happen during lighter stages of sleep, sleepwalking often occurs during the deeper sleep of stages 3 and 4. During these stages, it’s more difficult to wake someone up, and when awakened, a person may feel groggy and disoriented for a few minutes.

Kid’s Health Website

5. “I know a lot of you have challenges in your lives right now that can make it hard to focus on your schoolwork. I get it. I know what that's like. My father left my family when I was two years old, and I was raised by a single mother who struggled at times to pay the bills and wasn't always able to give us things the other kids had. There were times when I missed having a father in my life. There were times when I was lonely and felt like I didn't fit in.”

President Obama’s Back to School Speech

6. I should be allowed to attend the party at Jimmy’s house. You know that I am always responsible. I get good grades, and I am never in trouble at school. I even cleaned my room yesterday.

A fictional child to his parent

7. “You make your own future. That's what young people like you are doing every day, all across America. I'm thinking about Andoni Schultz, from Los Altos, California, who's fought brain cancer since he was three. He's endured all sorts of treatments and surgeries, one of which affected his memory, so it took him much longer - hundreds of extra hours - to do his schoolwork. But he never fell behind, and he's headed to college this fall.”

President Obama’s Back to School speech