In the beginning of the semester, I understood that purpose is what the author wants the audience to believe, know, or do by reading the text. The three main purposes I’ve previously learned are to persuade, to inform, and to entertain. However, as the semester progressed I thought more critically about how to effectively achieve my purpose through my writing. For instance, establishing credibility and citing your sources, as well as including a reference page, is a great way to further your purpose because your audience is more likely to trust the information being given. It will be evident that the author has “done their homework”, a term we’ve used several times throughout this course to imply that sufficient research has been done to support the text.

Figure 1 shows a section from my Technical Description reflection, “Technical Description of the Playstation Dualshock 4 Controller” where I clearly define my purpose, which was to educate my audience. Figure 2 shows the extensive amount of sources and research I used in order to make sure the information was factual and credible. This helped me accomplish my purpose even more because the audience was assured that my review on the Dualshock 4 Controller was insightful and knowledgable.