The Purpose of Writing

The Purpose Of Writing

      Indrawati (2006:6) states that the purpose of writing is to give some information to other people by writing it down. In writing, it can be seen as having six general types of purpose, each type of purpose focusing on one of the parts of the communication model, namely:

1. Writer: expressive purpose, one may write simply to express one’s feelings, attitudes, ideas, and so on. This type of writing does not take the reader into consideration; instead, it focuses on the writer’s feelings, experience, and needs. Expressive writing may take the form of poetry, journals, letters, and especially, free writing. Often, a person will do expressive writing and then be disappointed when readers do not respond to it.
2. Reader: cognitive purposes. Cognitive writing seeks to affect the reader. Persuasive writing is cognitive; so is writing intended to entertain the reader. Writing intended to arouse the reader’s feelings is cognitive. Cognitive writing may take obout any form, as long as its intention to persuade the reader of affect the reader emotionally. 
3. Context: informative purposes. Informative writing refers to something external to the writing itself, with the purpose of informing the reader. For instance, this page is infomative, as are the other components of this Map. In our times, informative writing is usually prose, although in earlier periods poetry was used for informative purposes. 
4. Message: poetic purposes. Poetic (or literary or stylistic) purposes focus on the message itself in its language, on the way the elements of language are used, on structur and pattern both on the level of phrase and of the overall composition. Poetic writing can be in prose as well as in verse. Fiction has poetic purposes. Anytime one writes with an emphasis on the language is used. One has a poetic purposes. 
5. Contact: aphetic purposes. Aphetic language (and nonverbal communication) establishes and maintains contact between speakers or between writer and reader. In speaking, for instance, we may greet someonebys saying. “Howya doin?” or ”Hozit goin?” Theses questions are not requests for information. They are intended to establish and maintain friendly contact. Aphetic purposes are not significant in most writing. The use of greetings and closings in letters is one example of aphetic purpose in writing.
6. Code: Meta linguistic purposes. Comments on a piece of writing are Meta linguistic. If a student attaches a note to an essay to explain why the essay is late, the note is Meta linguistic in relation to the essay. An author’s preface to a book is another example of Meta linguistic purpose in writing.From the statements above it can be concluded that there are six general purpose of writing, such a writer, reader, contex, message, contact and code. It means that there are six purpose always apears in writing