Important

Elements in
Writing
Elements in Critical Analysis

Author Audience Purpose Technique

Author
1. Who is he/she?
◦ professional/educational background?
◦ personal involvement with the issue at hand?
◦ expertise in the topic he/she is discussing?

This information can give the reader more insight into the credibility of the author. Can we rely on what
he/she says? Can he/she possibly be biased? Is the author an authority in such a topic? Does his/her area of
expertise and experience lend to this authority?
 Audience
Keeping the audience in mind while writing can help writers make good decisions about what material
to include, in what order to organize your ideas, and how best to support your argument.
Imagine you're writing a letter to your father to tell him about your classes. What details and stories might
you include? What might you leave out? Now imagine that you're writing on the same topic but your
audience is your best friend. Unless you have an extremely cool father to whom you're very close, it's likely
that your two letters would look quite different in terms of content, structure, and even tone.

When you write an essay with only your instructor in mind, you might not say as much as you should or
say it as clearly as you should, because you assume that the person grading it knows more than you do and
will fill in the gaps.

The clearer your points are, the more likely you are to have a strong essay. (Define communism?)
Use the  Who is the audience? Age? Ethnicity? Religious beliefs?
following  What does the audience need? What do they want? What
questions to do they know?
help you  What is most important to them?
identify the  What about their educational background?
audience and  How might the author organize their essay in a way that
what can be will be best for their audience?
done to address  What do authors want their audiences to think, learn, or
its wants and assume about them? What impression do they want their
writing or research to convey?
needs.
Purpose
The writer’s overall purpose determines the techniques he or she uses.
Manipulative : propaganda or advertising
more straightforward: informative writing

Skilled writers design each aspect of what they are writing to achieve
their purpose.

Being aware of the writer's purpose helps evaluate how well the writer has
achieved the purpose
the active reader reads what the writer is doing
 1. Entertainment
To amuse and to delight
To arouse emotions and sympathies
To appeal to fantasy and imagination
A Catalogue of
the Purposes of 2. Instigation of Public Thought and Action

Writing To raise questions

To criticize the actions of others; to reprimand
To weaken the support of opponents
To persuade to act, vote, donate, etc.
To inform of issues of concern
 3. The Support of a Community of Common Beliefs
To state one's beliefs; to take a stand
To repeat the accepted beliefs of a group; to encourage and reinforce
these beliefs
To persuade others of the correctness of certain views; to gain approval
To recruit active support
More
purposes 4. The Conduct of Business and Government
To publicize laws, regulations, guidelines
To report information needed for making new decisions, laws, policies
To request funds or propose an activity to be funded
to report on accomplishments and failures; to evaluate activities
To sell, advertise
 5. Transmission of Knowledge to a Wider Audience
To satisfy curiosity
To provide practical information for everyday use
To provide an introduction to an area of knowledge
To instruct rigorously, passing on the most recent knowledge, skill, or
technique

More
Purposes 6. Scholarly Inquiry
To present new findings, recent information, the results of experiments
To present new interpretations, speculations, thoughts
To gather together all that is currently known on a subject to see how it fits
together and to reach some conclusions
To show the relationship of two areas of study and to show the light one
sheds on the other
To determine the truth of a matter and to prove that truth to other researchers
 Clues to the Author's Purpose

Overt Statements:
 Beginnings or endings: “vote for Paulsen”
 Titles: The Case for National Health Insurance , How to Be a Big Winner on the Stock Market

Knowledge About Publication:

 An article in a professional journal like Journal of the History of Ideas: to present new information or research and
to evaluate current knowledge with a scholarly intent

 An article in a general-circulation magazine like Psychology Today :to present existing knowledge in a way
understandable and useful to the nonspecialist.

 An article in a magazine issued by a corporation such as Ford World would tend to convey a favorable impression
of the organization's interests

 The date and place of publication also may be a clue to understanding the purposes: A book about Vietnam
published in the United States in 1967 will probably be either highly critical or strongly supportive of American
participation in the Vietnam War.
Clues to the Author's Purpose (Cont.)

Knowledge About the Author

an author known primarily as an advocate of a cause is likely to support that cause
in his/her writings

Analysis of the Text

 What the writer includes is the best guide to what that writer is trying to do
 many personal anecdotes might suggest that the writer is seeking your emotional
response
 statistics suggests that the writer's major interest is in providing documentation and
proof of a thesis
The Writer's Technique
Because the writer's purpose is realized through
the specifics of words in combination, the
writer's technique is present in every
sentence and in every word-as well as in the
larger groupings of paragraphs.
 Check List of Techniques
Relationship Between the Writer and the Reader Overall Structure
• Does the writer • How does one paragraph, one chapter, or one
ask or expect the reader to do anything. part lead to the next?
address the reader as an expert speaking to
other experts, or as an expert speaking to the • Does the text progress by:
general reader.  chronological narration
engage the reader through humor, drama, or  grouping related topics
unusual examples through the steps of a logical argument
 comparison? association? repetition?
• Is the writer hesitant or assertive? accumulation of detail? By analysis? by the
• How much knowledge does the writer assume breaking down of the subject into parts?
the reader has?
 Content Choices Choice of Evidence
• What parts of the subject are discussed • What types of information are used to
by the author in great detail? What support main statements:
parts are summarized?  statistics
• What statements does the writer  anecdotes
assume as given (and therefore does  quotations
not back up with extensive support)?  original observations, scientific
• What relevant topics are ignored? theories
• What topics could have been discussed  legal or philosophical principles
but were not?  definitions
 appeals to emotion, appeals to the
imagination, appeals to common sense
 References

• How extensively does the writer rely on other sources?

• What methods are used to refer to other works: reference by title only, paraphrase, summary, or direct
quotation?

• How complete is the documentation? the bibliography?

• What kinds of material does the writer cite: contemporary newspaper accounts, private diaries,
government documents, specialized scholarly studies, theoretical works, best-selling nonfiction books,
statistical reports, literary works?

• What purpose does the reference serve in the writing: does the reference provide specific evidence?
quote directly a person being discussed? provide an assertion by an authority? present an example for
analysis? explain a point? supply the background of a new idea? distinguish between conflicting ideas?
place current work in the context of previous work? present an idea to be argued against?
 Sentence Structure Word Choice

• Are the sentences short or long? simple

or complex? • Are the words short or long? common or
unusual? general or technical?
• Are the sentences declarative statements? emotionally charged or scientifically
Do they set up a complex condition (if . .. objective?
then ...)?

• Do the sentences have qualifiers (even

though . ..)?

• Do the sentences describe actions,

physical qualities? Do they relate actual
events to abstract ideas? Do they discuss
only abstractions?
Evaluating the Effectiveness of
Technique
You will be able to determine whether that technique is appropriate
for the writer's purpose, whether stated or implied.
• You will begin to notice how the successfully comic writer makes you laugh by piling
up absurd details.

• You will notice how carefully the scholarly historian has gathered together evidence,
has weighed alternatives, and has progressed to a well-argued conclusion.

• You will notice how the thought-provoking philosopher uses a precise vocabulary in an
attempt to minimize confusion about abstract meaning.
Evaluating the Effectiveness of
Technique
Writers may fail in their purposes in an infinity of ways
• A book that claims to present new findings may, on closer inspection, rely
heavily on previously discovered evidence put together in a familiar pattern.

• The comic writer may not pace jokes correctly or may be too predictable.

• A detective story may unfold so tediously that no one would want to spend
leisure hours reading it.

• An author's evidence might prove only part of the thesis.