Find Author's Purpose
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What you will learn
- 1Identify whether an author's purpose is to persuade, inform, or entertain
- 2Use text features and language choices as clues to determine the author's purpose
- 3Explain how knowing the author's purpose helps you read more critically
Mini Lesson
Every author writes for a reason. That reason is called the author's purpose. The three main purposes are to persuade, to inform, and to entertain. Knowing the purpose helps you understand why the author made certain choices.
P.I.E. — The Three Purposes
- Persuade — the author wants to convince you to agree with an opinion or take an action.
- Inform — the author wants to teach you facts or explain how something works.
- Entertain — the author wants you to enjoy the text through a genre such as a story or poem, or through humor.
Clues to Find the Purpose
- Persuade: opinion words (should, must, best), call to action, one-sided arguments.
- Inform: facts, dates, diagrams, headings, a neutral tone, "how to" structure.
- Entertain: characters, plot, dialogue, humor, rhyme, descriptive language.
Words to know
Author
The person who writes a book or article
e.g. The author of this book is Roald Dahl.
Author's purpose
The reason an author wrote a piece — to inform, entertain, or persuade
e.g. The author's purpose was to entertain me with a funny story.
Inform
To teach the reader facts
e.g. A science article informs us about animals.
Entertain
To make the reader enjoy reading
e.g. A funny story entertains us.
Persuade
To try to change the reader's mind
e.g. An ad persuades us to buy something.
Genre
A kind or style of writing
e.g. Mystery is one genre of story.
A text can have more than one purpose — a nature magazine article can entertain AND inform. Ask: which purpose is the MAIN one?
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