Glossary
author purpose
The author purpose is the job a passage, or one line of it, is doing — informing, persuading, warning, recommending, explaining a process or comparing two framings — and it is named from the writing, never from the topic.
Author purpose is the job a passage, or one line of it, is doing. This topic's list of jobs has six names — informing, persuading, warning, recommending, explaining a process and comparing two framings — and each leaves a different mark on the page: a report gives figures or findings, an argument makes a claim and answers the other side, a warning names what happens if nothing changes, a request names the action asked for, a process is explained with the reason for its order, and two voices are set side by side. The method is to say what the sentence is doing before you look at the options — a purpose is a verb, never a topic. A common wrong answer names a real purpose for the passage that the line in question is not performing: a notice's line about the ten o'clock run is not there to persuade you of anything, however cheerful it reads. Where the purpose belongs to the whole passage rather than one line, the same test works: say the job in a verb, then find the option that matches it.
Taught in
Related terms
- tone — Tone is the writer's attitude toward the subject, carried by the words chosen — not by the subject itself, and not by how the passage makes you feel.
- point of view — Point of view is who is speaking in a passage and what that voice knows, assumes or wants — found in the pronouns and in what the passage chooses to report.
Source: The reading skills ATI names in its own Content Outline (R.2.1-R.2.4, under the Craft and structure sub-content area), plus the tone and passage-structure skills that sub-content area's published description names; each definition below is written for the Craft and Structure guide in this exam, in our own words, and explains the skill the way the guide teaches it. (ATI Content Outline read 2026-10-09; definitions written 2026-10-09)