Ms. Powell English

  The Purpose of Argument/Persuasion       Rhetoric: Argumentative Writing vs. Persuasive Writing_ Audio File W ho has never argued? We all do. I argue all the time and chances are, so do you. If you disagree with my statement here, that is grounds for an argument. An argument does not necessarily mean you are angry. All it means is that you have a point-of-view on an issue that is different from another person’s, and you are trying to give reasons as to why your point-of-view is more sensible. In other words, you are right and a person with an opposing view is wrong. While argumentative writing, like persuasive writing, aims to convince an audience of the superiority of a particular stance on an issue, they have subtle differences that make them suitable for different contexts. Similarities in Argument and Persuasion Let's first look at how they are similar. As previously noted, both forms of writing have a similar purpose - to convince or persuade ...

        Let us hope you never have to write an incident report about real events. Incident reports mean drama- something happened, someone needs to know and somehow, you are right in the middle. You are in the middle because you happened to have been there when the incident happened. Whether you were involved n the incident or not is mostly irrelevant. What matters is that you are an eyewitness to the incident and therefore, the perfect person to tell what happened.     The purpose of writing an incident report is to provide facts about a particular occurrence usually to someone in authority. So, maybe the principal needs to know what happened, or the dean of discipline, maybe its the police. Whomever it is that you are writing to, they weren't there when it happened, you were, and now you need to inform them so they can help fix the situation.  Drama comes from the Greek word, 'dran' which means 'action'. Now what is the action that you mus...

  The Purpose of Writing         All things in life have purpose- writing included. Even the scribblings of a child just learning to write have purpose- most often, their purpose is to imitate adults who create meaning through writing.         But what is purpose? The purpose of anything is its reason for being or existing. In writing, purpose refers to the writer's reason for putting pen to paper. Most writing, especially in the world of academia, falls into one of three categories: to  persuade , to  inform , or to   entertain .             The pie chart above represents the three main purposes for writing in academia.   Many teachers will tell students that writing is as easy as  PIE , an acronym which represents the purposes for writing as listed before. Let me advise you, before you write anything, be sur...