4 Audience and purpose

Figure _unit3.4.1 Figure 10 Purposes of different texts

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Pictures of a newspaper, an advert, a birthday card and instructions. The words ‘inform’, ‘advise’, ‘persuade’, ‘entertain’ and ‘instruct’ are scattered next to the pictures.

Figure 10 Purposes of different texts

It is important to be able to recognise that people write things for different reasons. For example, someone writing for a newspaper might be trying to entertain or inform people and encourage them to buy that newspaper. Someone writing a do-it-yourself manual will want to write as clearly and simply as possible so that people can easily follow the instructions.

If you can recognise what a piece of writing is trying to say and why, you can make quick decisions on how you are going to approach it. If a do-it-yourself manual, for example, has too much writing and no pictures, it is not likely to be of much use, so you can decide quickly to look for a better version.